In late 90s early 2000s hip hop was still regarded are something new and a bit controversial. I think, sort of, like mumble rap this days. Of course hip hop started in 20th century but it's biggest influence we was on the beginning of 21st century.

I can’t find a non Wikipedia reference, but it did say that hip hop was the best selling genre by 1999.

Just for reference, these are the top 100 songs of 2000. The year before the iPod was introduced.

None of the hip hop songs that were popular were groundbreaking - mostly just bubble gum rap. I doubt very seriously that Apple would have been willing to put any socially conscious rap on iPods.

I think it was fairly well established at this point (Jay Z, Outkast...). My somewhat snarky point though was that the iPod was obviously a very forward thinking and revolutionary device that was the direct predecessor the iPhone. Jobs had great vision and could practically "see the future" of consumer electronics, yet this music collection is like the most generic suburban backyard bbq playlist for middle age people. If Jobs had the same insight into music as he had into tech, we'd see way more hip hop, electronic. Hell, even yacht rock has comeback in a way that The Dave Matthews Band or Faith Hill never will.

This is to be expected of course, I just think it's humorous.

>If Jobs had the same insight into music as he had into tech, we'd see way more hip hop, electronic.

You can be on the cutting edge of music without liking hip hop or electronic music. The problems wasn't the genres he picked, but the incredibly generic band choices within those genres.

I do like hip hop (and electronic is slowly growing on me), but that doesn't mean that everyone that doesn't is out of touch. There's interesting music coming out of nearly every genre in 2019. That's the way it always is.

Totally. The choices were bland within the genres they represented. Still, as a music player with, at the time, incredible storage it seems like having a bunch of genres represented would have showcased the iPod's capabilities better.

I can’t think of any good hip hop that came out before 2001 that wouldn’t have been too controversial for the sensibilities of corporate America.

That's true. I remember that there was a shitstorm of controversy over Kriss Kross' Jump when it first came out. Not saying its good, just an example of something incredibly mild that was almost too much for America's sensibilities at the time.

> In late 90s early 2000s hip hop was still regarded are something new and a bit controversial.

Not really, hip hop / rap was fairly mainstream by the late 1980s / early 1990s.

Yeah in my group age almost everybody was listening to hip hop, but we wasn't the people that could afford new and shiny iPod