Rakim has attributed the lack of balance and possible death on Hip-Hop to his hometown of New York. Rakim made the proclamation about New York in an interview with Jenny Boom Boom of Hot 93.7 in Connecticut.

"There is a certain realm of Hip-Hop [that is missing] and you might have to blame that on New York", Rakim said. "New York is responsible for bringing that raw, that real gritty Hip-Hop, because we originated it."

I mean, when you're churning out 'artists' like Ron Browz, then yes, you definitely have a problem.

He said there was hope, if the region got back to the staple sound that hit its zenith in the 80's and 90's.

"New York and the East Coast, we gotta represent and do our part. And it's OK for everybody else to do what they do. Then it will be a balance and everybody'll be happy."

See, this is what people aren't realizing. Every region has it's own sound and flavor and the reason for that is as Rakim says, BALANCE. Unfortunately, there are artists from all regions making music that's just remarkably mediocre, and THAT is what is killing hip-hop right now.

Nevertheless, the pioneering rap artist remained optimistic about the future for the genre.

"I'm feeling good [and] optimistic and I'm hoping people understand that power that Hip-Hop got. I hope everybody understands the time we in right now, and I hope everybody wanna make some good music and keep Hip-Hop alive."

Rakim was hard pressed to pinpoint a savior to return rap to the Golden Era, but he said that it could happen through a unified movement.

How about YOU Ra? What about that Seventh Seal album we were promised? Gah…

Marvel's run at having films based on its characters open at #1 at the domestic box office was broken in a big way this weekend, when Punisher: War Zone, the third attempt to start a Punisher film franchise opened at #8 with only $4 million. The film opened on just over 2,500 screens, and brought in $1,595 per screen as opposed to $5,451 brought in per screen by Four Christmases which remained in the #1 slot for its second week. Beating War Zone - two animated films, two action films (one from Lionsgate, which also released War Zone), Twilight and Australia.

Punisher: War Zone barely beat another debut this weekend, Cadillac Records, which opened at #9 with $3.5 million. In comparison, 2004's The Punisher opened at #2 on its debut weekend (April 16-18th), and saw a domestic opening of $13 million. War Zone cost a reported $35 million to make.

The weak opening of War Zone will certainly cause some Chicken Littling about films based on comic book superheroes among industry pundits, though it can be pointed out that the weekend after Thanksgiving is traditionally a soft box office weekend, the movie had no bankable stars, and War Zone suffered from nearly unanimous poor reviews from critics, scoring only a 17% (4/10) on Rotten Tomatoes.com which averaged 65 reviews.

Atlantic, a unit of Warner Music Group, says it has reached a milestone that no other major record label has hit: more than half of its music sales in the United States are now from digital products, like downloads on iTunes and ring tones for cellphones.

"We're like a college basketball team on an 18-2 run," said Craig Kallman, Atlantic's chairman and chief executive.

At the Warner Music Group, Atlantic's parent company, digital represented 27 percent of its American recorded-music revenue during the fourth quarter. (Warner does not break out financial data for its labels, but Atlantic said that digital sales accounted for about 51 percent of its revenue.)

With the milestone comes a sobering reality already familiar to newspapers and television producers. While digital delivery is becoming a bigger slice of the pie, the overall pie is shrinking fast. Analysts at Forrester Research estimate that music sales in the United States will decline to $9.2 billion in 2013, from $10.1 billion this year. That compares with $14.6 billion in 1999, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

As a result, the hope that digital revenue will eventually compensate for declining sales of CDs - and usher in overall growth - have largely been dashed.

"It's not at all clear that digital economics can make up for the drop in physical," said John Rose, a former executive at EMI, the British music company, who is now a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group.

Instead, the music industry is now hoping to find growth from a variety of other revenue streams it has not always had access to, like concert ticket sales and merchandise from artist tours. "The real question," Mr. Rose said, "is how does the record industry change its rights structure so it captures a fairer percent of the value it creates in funding, marketing and managing the launch of artists?"