The movement’s decline in prominence was largely brought about by of the artists themselves. Terms like “neo soul’ and “alternative Hip Hop” are always created by record labels and music journalists like myself; we categorize art in order to make it easier to be discussed, marketed and critiqued. No true artist likes being labeled and constrained in this way. From the very beginning, every single artist I’ve mentioned in this article hated the terms “neo soul” and “alternative hip hop.” And as soon as they’d found the success they so deserved, they immediately got to work challenging those labels, their audiences, and the very boundaries of Hip Hop music.

Between 2002 and 2004, each one of these artists took turns committing pop suicide, releasing fascinatingly uncompromising follow-ups albums, to varying degrees of success (Except for D’Angelo, who simply disappeared altogether). Badu’s Worldwide Underground features a couple 7-9 minute, groove-oriented soul epics that thrilled die-hards only. Mos Def’s The New Danger and Common’s Electric Circus are sprawling, genre-bending mindfucks, while The Roots’ Phrenology is arguably the most musically-progressive Hip Hop album ever made. These albums sharply divided critics and scared off fair-weather fans. But the most powerfully bizarre of these albums is Lauryn Hills’ Unplugged 2.0. Recorded live as part of MTV’s then-recently rebooted Unplugged series, Unplugged 2.0 is the sound of an artist in emotional free fall. Hill had clearly had enough of the pressures of fame. Her voice, blown out from rehearsals the night before, sounds strained and ravaged. The lyrical content is cryptic and impenetrably dense; with nearly half of the compositions clocking in at over 6 1/2 minutes long. She cries, rambles and botches guitar parts throughout the recording. She is still undoubtedly brilliant throughout, but in a decidedly inaccessible way. Unplugged 2.0 is a captivating, if fatiguing, experience. And it is anything but fun.

All of this came at a time when Hip Hop was officially taking the plunge into bland, Top 40 territory. It can be argued that these defiantly artsy albums allowed artists like Erykah Badu and Mos Def to maintain their integrity. But it certainly wasn’t enough to maintain sales at record stores, or the interest of record labels. The result was quite literally the slow death of Hip Hop’s ability to remain socially and politically aware while still commanding the attention of a large, mainstream audience.

With every passing year, mainstream Hip Hop grows less and less balanced thematically, with the window for commercial success in Hip Hop smaller than it has ever been. Very few mainstream artists deviate from lyrical themes that are materialistic, misogynistic, nihilistic, and/or self-aggrandizing. And when artists do attempt to make conscious, transgressive statements, they are punished. Nas was viciously attacked in the media for titling his most recent album Nigger, forcing the veteran emcee to change its name to Untitled. Erykah Badu caught hell (and a case) for her now-infamous music video for “Window Seat.” And Lupe Fiasco’s latest release, Lasers, was mercilessly delayed by his label before finally seeing the light of day last week.

The issue is not there being a need for some kind of moral imperative in Black expression. That is truly the opposite of what anyone should want. The issue here is balance. Where is the balance?

Because as far as I can tell, corporate interests have completely stripped contemporary black music of a conscious, sociopolitical perspective at a time when our community could certainly use one.

In other words, Hip Hop is on life support right now. It’s losing its heart. It’s losing it’s soul.

And it has most certainly lost its conscience.