Dois ponto Um

When I first heard Kanye West's song "Stronger" I thought the overall sound of it was a straight rip off of older Daft Punk. Which in my opinion is not a bad thing, maybe not too original, maybe a little too over produced, but not a bad thing. Yes, I do like the song...

Then I heard Timbalands' "The Way you are". I also like this one. Although I think the song leans more towards european dance pop than what I would normally associate as the current m.o. of hip-hop. (Soulja Boy, T.I., Chris Brown, 50 Cent)

Given that these two are hip-hops biggest acts (that aren't 1 hit wonders) at the moment I wonder if they are going to push hip-hop in a new direction. Are we going to see the lines between hip-hop and dance/euro pop slowly blur?

This is something I find fascinating and will probably keep an eye out to see if indeed this does become a trend among US hip-hop acts. Or if it will limit itself to the acts produced by Kanye and Timbaland. I guess what I'm really curious to see is if either of these two will take things even further and start to compete with european DJs in the realm of trance. I know that's a huge stretch, but these two have shown that they have talent for creating electronic music, now it's just a matter of if they are interested and gutsy enough to truly indulge in that world and risk of alienating their current audience.