Quite recently, rap dominated album sales charts. Now, the music that has been a driving creative and commercial force in American culture is struggling to get its swagger back.In the United States just a few years ago, hip hop music was huge. Sales even hit a record high of over 1.8 billion USD at one point in 2000. In terms of record sales, that was when Hip Hop R&B had overtaken all other genres of music. One has to rewind a little and understand how Hip Hop all started out to find out why Hip Hop music sales are slumping currently.Before Hip Hop got accepted into the mainstream, many Hip Hop artists pretty much stayed underground to practice their art form. That hip hop would become such a big thing was not on anyone’s mind. The starting point of Hip Hop was in the streets. People who were disadvanta guitar straps ged, or were ostracized by the community started the movement. Ways of expressing themselves and their plight was what they were looking for. And they were able to express themselves.Unlike other type of music, the Hip Hop community was far reaching in content and profanity in the lyrics. The market finds it refreshing to hear such profanity in the records. From the angry rebellious rap, to the happy party time songs, Hip Hop music took off like a bullet with as much variety in tone as there were people.Hip-hop decline can be traced to a range of factors, including marketing strategies that have de-emphasized album sales in favor of selling less-lucrative single songs and short versions of those singles as ring tones for cell phones.The success of the Hip Hop industry, unfortunately, has hit a turning point.