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Bling bling is a part of hip hop culture. It is a fad and as fads go will probably go away eventually. My opinion is that it will last about a decade and something else will take its place. Let me explain why.

Rap music, a very important "element of hip hop" started in the seventies. You may have heard of Rapper's Delight? Became really big in the eighties with artists such as KRS1, LLCoolJ and Run DMC. Then very recently it hit a milestone when a hip hop artist was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame.

But what does that have to the longevity of "bling bling?" Rap is affected by trends just like any other form of music. For instance, rock went through it's hair band stage of the eighties and grunge in the nineties. Rap does the same thing. In the eighties it was all about "my rhyme" and "my lyrics." How "My rap is better than yours" and "don't bite my style." Also, it was popular to show off your conspicuously labeled clothing such as "my Addidas" and gold chains.

In the 90's we became in "gangstah rap." The common themes then were: guns, drugs, violence and prostitution. NWA was popular and so was Ice Cube and Ice T's "Cop Killer."

Then came the turn of the century and rap turned to excess and bling and Maybacks. Similar to the eighties rap, but now that rap is more mainstream, rap artists can afford diamond encrusted teeth and $500,000 pinky rings. They can "rock" that Burberry jacket and Christian LaCroix bag (Lil' Kim).

But the common element to all of this is that each trend lasted about a decade. Will the rap scene turn to minimalism by the year 2010? I don't know, I doubt it, but I'm sure that if we give it a chance, "bling" will go by the way of "fresh hi top sneakers with fat laces!

Learn more about this author, Brittany Butts.
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