A couple of nights ago hip hop superstars T.I., 50 Cent, Jay Z, Puffy, and Kanye West all appeared on stage together even though there have been rumors of "beef between some of them. While this theoretically was a historic moment, all it did was highlight that this has been the worst summer in hip hop history. For people in my age bracket and younger, hip hop has always been the defining music of the summer and some of the men on that stage have been owned past summers. Unfortunately, Kanye is the only one who is likely release a decent album this year. T.I.s album was rushed and was not as good as lazy year's King. Puffy, Jay Z, and even 50 are more concerned with other business ventures then music. (I know 50 is releasing an album soon, but nearly every track I heard off it sounds lazy) What we are left with is a bunch of similar sounding southern anthems (with the exception of the classic UGK/Outkast International Players Anthem) that nearly all suck. In addition, nearly all talented up and coming N.Y. rappers are in label limbo hell like Papoose and Saigon and may never see their debut albums released and if they do it will probably be A&Red into shittyness as Papoose first crappy single with Snoop was. The problem is that the only sector of the music industry that is showing growth in revenue is ring tone sales and thus labels only green light albums that have songs that could work as ringtones. Furthermore, people like Puffy and Jay Z are too rich and too old (they are both damn near 40) to really go all out and find, support with $$$, and promote the next rapper. Thus, having all those guys on stage together was nice and all, but it is not going to help hip hop.