Another thing that killed Hip Hop: Where are the backup dancers??

Listen, I'm as macho as the next guy, I'm into my sports the same way a heroin addict is into his spoons, I love fast cars, faster women who lack the ability to say the word "no" and don't have a gag reflex to speak of, and nothing soothes this savage beast like beating some asshole bloody, preferably in a public place where people can witness me snatch his chain and go through his pockets on some High School Bully shit. Granted, even in my limited wisdom I know that these things don't exactly make you a man though, taking care of your family, manning up to your responsibilities, and immediately wiping your ejaculate on your lovers new curtains makes you a man.(OK, maybe not that last part..) Even though my father instilled in me at an early age that crying was, and I'm quoting him here, was for "women, pussies, and queers", I don't think shedding a tear every now and then makes you less of a man at all. Let me say this before I go on, if you are a man who cries at weddings, when your team gets beat in the Superbowl, or when the weather changes, I will openly suggest that you tuck your penis until you have enough money for that sex change operation. That being said I cried like a baby as I left the hospital where I had just witnessed the life leaving my fathers body, in my car navigating hazardous weather conditions, leaky tear ducts, and rapping along word for word to A Tribe Called Quest's "Scenario". When my friend "Buddy" died I wept as well, not at a normal time like when I found out or at the funeral for Christs sake, but as I was in a check-out line buying food emotion overcame me and I starting balling in the fucking express line of all places.(Nothing like having strangers console you by saying "I'm sorry for your loss and all, but you gotta hurry the fuck up!!!) I can't forget the time I went to a porn convention a few years back and had a chance to get biblical with one of my porn actresses, an endeavor that stressed me out so much that I couldn't achieve an erection, which left me weeping with a beautiful black porn star holding me in her arms like a new born baby.(You know a chick knows she's hot when she inquisitively asks you, "Maybe you're gay??")

I went into all that and relate it to Hip Hop because I get the sneaking suspicion that modern day rappers see having back-up dancers as being "soft". Somewhere along the line, I can't pinpoint the exact date for you, but the modern day wordsmith couldn't see a happy marriage between their tales of violence, drug dealing, and misogyny mixed with a couple of dancers performing the most acrbatic of moves in the background. But if you look at the hardest rappers of years past like EPMD, they had dancers, one of our craftiest of wordsmiths Big Daddy Kane, had dancers(Scoob and Scrap), Kool Moe Dee, Gangstarr had dancers in their "Manifest" video, all of the acts that I just named are harder than any current group that you can name. Latifah had the "Safari Sisters", De La Soul had dancers in their early videos, Digital Underground(Tupac anyone?), the list is as long as Ciara's and Sade's forhead combined. Matter of fact, to get technical on your ass, Public Enemy's "S1W's" were basically dancers, performing their black panther drills while Chuck and Flav assaulted the audience with classic material. Not for nothing, but I think that the disappearance of dancers accompanying prominent Hip Hop acts is one of the things that caused Hip Hop's death. Not only is Hip Hop wack and too serious nowadays, but the modern day rapper doesn't seem comfortable in his/her own skin. Let me tell you, nothing makes you seem more comfortable in your own skin like having two dancers behind you doing chorerographed steps as you belt out lyrics.