I was wondering what were the actual characteristics of rap in the 2000's, as oppposed to past decades.  In the 90's, it was all about gritty and gangster rapping, with old-school rap leftovers in the early 90's.  In the 00's, rap was more upbeat, and the lyric contents was about money and having it all.  Do you guys think rap pretty much changed when the internet became big?  A lot of Soiuja Boys sucess is due to the internet.

Rap pretty much went to crap by the end of the 2000's, especially with the ringtone rap era. It went from Nelly, Ja Rule, 50 Cent, and Jay-Z to Soulja Boy and Flo-Rida. Rap was pretty good from 2000 to 2004/mid-2005. In late 2005 was when it started to go downhill with D4L and similar artists. Rap did start to make a recovery in 2009, especially with Jay-Z's album. Other than a lot of 2009 rap albums I was listening to were Camron's Crime Pays, Method Man and Redman's Blackout 2, Warren G's G-Files, and Snoop Dogg's Malice in Wonderland.

Ntrure of Rap in the 00's:

00-02: left over 90's rap: the Puffy Daddy/DMX type of rap with Loon, and Ja Rule.

2003-mid 05: bling-bling era with 50 Cent, and Nelly, the arrival of "crunk" with "Lil Jon". However still some good old traditional rap music with artists like "The Game", Jadakiss, and Kanye West.

late 2005-mid 2008-ringtone rap like DL4, Soulja Boy, Mims, Dem Franchis Boyz, and Flo Rida. Ringtone Rap did take a break after the first quarter of 2006 only to re-appear in late Febuary-early March of 2007.

I don't like none of the rap that came out in the 2000s.  I listen to 80s and 90s rap only.

Rap in the 00's is pretty repetitive, if you ask me. But the popularity of it was ridiculous in 2007/2008. It seems to have lost popularity since then.

You may be onto something about the internet/rap thing.

I was really into rap when I was younger. But when I was a sophomore in high school I started to lose more interest in the rap scene and became into the dance/trance/rave scene. This was also the time windows 95 was released and we started using the internet more often in school and at home.

I had a mixed relationship with hip-hop throughout the '00s, liked some of it at times, really despised it at other times. Overall rap wasn't very good in the '00s, especially in the 2nd half.

Here is what I see, I didn't really listen to much rap when I was younger but here it what I speculate.

early 2000s (lets say 2000-early 2003) - pretty '90s based rap but not as gangsta based and has more R&B elements, pop elements like Ja Rule, Common, DMX, Eminem, etc.  A lot of wigger junk too and nu-metal.
mid 2003-mid 2005 (the bling era, the crunk era, the "fake thug" era, the commercialized, but there was still early 2000s elements about 2004 like Lil Flip and Kanye West.
mid 2005-early 2008 (the teenage targeted "ringtone rap" era..Soulja Boy, MIMS, Crime Mob, Down, UNK, Huey)...might have Ludacris and some old skool about 2006 or so and Kanye and Busta Rhymnes,
mid 2008-now (more emo influenced rap, back to dirty south, R&B and hip-hop soul influenced, Christian rap, novelty junk, and wannabe old school...dying out)