Modern popular rap and hip hop is absolutely awful. There's no innovation or attempts to push the genre making it to the mainstream.

I blame it on the fact that most people could be qualified as musically retarded. They don't want to hear creative beats, or uniquely arranged samples, or socially biting critique in the lyrics. They want to hear the same THUMP... THUMP THUMP, with a steel drum playing four notes, and a guy yelling "SUPAMAN THAT HO" in a barely intelligible voice for five minutes.

It's sad, but it's this way with most things in pop culture. I read a good article on anti-intellectualism in the US that really explains this pretty well. People are just stupid.