If you tried to have a serious discussion about the state of the entertainment industry this time last year, you wouldn’t have been taken very seriously. Why? Well, less than four months after the tragic September 11th attacks, hit singles and platinum records just didn’t seem that important anymore. Now, with the year 2003 right around the corner, it seems as if everyone’s eyes are glued once more to the never-ending soap opera that is the entertainment world.

So how will 2002 be remembered in the history books? That’s a tricky question. If anything, it will go down as the year that hip-hop and R&B further entrenched themselves in the American mainstream. Despite the record industry’s overall sales slump following 9-11, Midwesterners Eminem and Nelly were still able to dominate the charts by going six times platinum and four times platinum respectively over the course of the summer. Those are higher sales than any other artist this year, regardless of genre.

However, with that success comes a need for the pillars of the urban entertainment world to be much more wary about how the music and the culture is presented. As with any art form, a sudden swing towards mainstream credibility can often result in the music losing its vitality by losing touch with the streets, and all efforts must be made to make sure a balance between widespread success and grassroots appeal is maintained. Right now, the rest of the country thinks hip-hop is K-Mart’s new clothing line “Ched-da,” so there is some serious work to be done.

2002 was also the year of “beef.” For some reason, MCs everywhere decided it was pivotal to their success to take one of their counterparts to war. Just look: Dr. Dre and Timbaland vs. Jermaine Dupri, Jay-Z vs. Nas, 50 Cent vs. Ja Rule, and just recently, Foxy Brown vs. Eve. The squabbles make for good entertainment, as long as they remain entertainment and nothing more. After all, hip-hop’s most famous beef ended in the deaths of two of our best MCs. Furthermore, the murder of Jam Master Jay highlights a chronic problem with the celebration of violence in the music, and hopefully 2003 will bring some change to this.

Things in the R&B world have been a bit strange. More than ever, the lives of our favorite (or not so favorite) singers seem to occupy our interest more than their actual work. Take for example Whitney Houston’s recent tell-it-all interview on ABC, or Mariah Carey’s very public and painful breakdown. Even take a look at J-Lo’s recent career trajectory; more people seem concerned with the details of her engagement to Ben Affleck than the actual quality of her new album.

Maybe the lack of interest in the R&B world has to do with the lack of any one icon to carry the music forward. 2002 went without any breakout R&B star (as with Alicia Keys the previous year) whether male or female, and many of the groups which were responsible for the music’s biggest successes split up either temporarily or permanently. The three members of Destiny’s Child each embarked on solo projects this year, with none of them matching their previous successes. TLC also released an album, but its presence withered in the shadow of the tragic death of Left-Eye who died in a car crash earlier this year. What the future holds in store for R&B remains to be seen.

In the past 12 months, we’ve also seen the ascendancy of dancehall music in the mainstream once again. Bounty Killer’s and Lady Saw’s collaborations with No Doubt, Sean Paul’s “Gimme The Light” and Wayne Wonder’s “No Letting Go” all saw major success this year, leaving many to wonder if this could be dancehall’s shot at becoming a part of American pop culture. That will only be determined by the sales of future dancehall albums, leaving us with an interesting development to watch for 2003.

With 2002 behind us, we now have another four seasons of hit songs, fashion trends, and celebrity romances ahead of us. As it continues to increase in popularity, the world of urban entertainment will become that much more fascinating to the mainstream media, but you can’t always expect them to get it right. After all, they’re just learning. As always, if you really want to know what’s going on in the culture in 2003, you’ll find it in the pages of NOW.