Making tiny stop-motion puppets does not pay the bills as of yet. To supplement this, I work as a glroified assistant to the vice-president of the largest Urban publication in the world. And this publication has been having summits/conferences for many years with huge turnouts of a whose of whose of the urban music industry. They recently had one this past weekend and I was there.

When not doing general chores for the magazine staff, I was going from panel to panel to learn a thing or two about the industry.
I walked into the final minutes of a panel titled 'Hip-Hop executive panel' and found the place in an uproar. It felt like a mix between an english parliament session and a scene from You Got Served right before they start dancing at each other.

The crowd seemed to be arguing with the panelists, who had made the assertion that many classics had been produced in 2008. By arguing, I mean the crowd was drowning them out until they couldn't make a point. The point to be made by a producer in the crowd was that Soulja Boy, who I was pretty unfamiliar with, was not in any way a classic.
A panelist said, that he firmly believed that when people hear his music in ten years, they will look back and have fond memories.
The producer and his entourage in the crowd said, "NOOO WAAY! NO WAAAAY!!"

Both valid points.
But I personally think that the people who look back with fondness at the music that has been made for the last 8 years under the hip-hop banner are going to be exactly like the 80's rock fans who can't let go of the big hair look.

The 80's gave the rock genre Glam Rock, Hair Metal, the beginnings of Goth, Raw Punk Rock, Crotch Rock, and some Bowie. There are good songs from the 80's. But once put in the light of the 60's and 70's and then the progress the genre made in the 90's; the 80's were an abysmal lost generation.

Between auto-tuners and recycled beats and samples, there isn't much beyond eccentricity that they have going for them.