The Grammy's are a joke. You can essentially count on one hand the times they have issued an award to an act that actually deserved it for their musical output in that particular year, rather than their celebrity or the plain blissful ignorance of the voters.
You do realize hip-hop music in the early days was a protest against the music industry and their idea or what is and isn't music. Listen to some public enemy, rakim & eric b, or boogie down productions, the sound scapes they rapped over was in essence anti-music to their narratives of disenfranchised youth in america. If you want to complain that hip-hop is less 'musical' than some other genre's of music, I can't really argue with that. It is. Though most of the time it doesnt try to be, and others there are indeed exceptions to that idea. But there are certain historical reasons as to why that is the case. Hip-hop came into being as the american government begun to slash funds for inner city (see. black) schools, and the first thing to be taken out of the syllabus was music. At the same time there was a growing rate of unemployment, poverty and crime in these same areas. So when kids wanted to express themselves musically, they couldn't rely on musical theory, instruments and daddys money that their suburban counterparts did, they relied on the same do-it-your-self work ethic that is associated with the punk scene.
I'd also like to point out, "anyone could get into the charts as long as they could open their mouth and drop a beat", and because if that were the case I'm sure at least 10 people from this msg board would have a hit single by now. There is actually a lot of skill that goes into rapping, but if you've grown up thinking what Anthony Kiedis does is remotely close to good then I'd be hard pressed explaining it to you. At the same time though, I can't and won't try to defend the majority of modern day top 40 pop rappers. But I don't blame them, they, like so called 'punk' bands like sum 41, good charlotte etc. are only giving the market what they want, i.e. dangerously non-threatening music for posers.
The real problem is you are judging a whole genre based on observations of the most shallow chart orientated hip-hop acts in the industry. The only solace is, Im sure somewhere on the other side of the spectrum there is a kid somewhere watching video hits thinking rock music is the-worst-thing-since-forever, because all they've seen and herd is nickleback, system of the down, wolfmother, hinder, green day, the darkness and washed up supergroups like u2, metallica and red hot chili peppers.
I actually think most hip-hop acts suck live. But some are pretty amazing, and you'd probably be well aware of it if you've ever seen The Roots, J5, Atmosphere, De La Soul, Blackalicious, Mos Def etc live. But I think you sort of miss the point about rappers having lots of other acts sharing the stage; hip-hop was birthed in massive street parties where basically anyone from the neighbourhood who made music got a chance to perform to the crowd. It's more of a cultural thing than trying to cover up the fact they aren't very good live.
