BTW, this thread got me thinking, two things in fact:
1) There is a curious rend of young artists going back to and recreating hip hop style of the old, and what those styles are is very telling about what was of value and what was not back in the days, even if it's not mainstream now and will never be. G-Funk, boom bap rap, the New Orleans and Memphis sounds, there are people going back to those things. And not to others that were also fashionable at one point in time or another.
2) There was the discussion about Dre's new album, and I posted this:
http://siccness.net/vb/f58/dr-dre-t...eleased-%93detox%94-386104-4.html#post6413960
Which can be extended here - in the south there are now second generation artists carrying on the tradition (CMR, 36), while you don't really see that in other places.