Can someone explain this to me?

Why is it that nearly every hip hop/R & B song has to "feature" somebody else along with the main artist?  I heard someone else on the radio the other day asking the same question, and it really struck me, too.   Ok, for example, let's look at the hip hop charts on iTunes. 

1. Empire State Of Mind - Jay Z (featuring Alicia Keys)

2. Run This Town - Jay-Z (featuring Rhianna and Kanye West)

3. Hotel Room Service - Pitbull

4. Face Drop - Sean Kingston

5. Be On You - Flo Rida (featuring Ne-Yo)

6. I Know You Want Me - Pitbull

7. Young Forever - Jay-Z (featuring Mr. Hudson)

8. I'm Goin In - Drake (featuring Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy)

9. Successful - Drake (featuring Lil Wayne)

10.  Best I Ever Had - Drake

So that's six of the top 10 that have the "featuring..." tag.  And when I scroll down the rest of the top 100, I count another thirty-five in addition.  This equals forty-one songs in the top 100 where the main artist is sharing the billing with someone else.   That's nearly half.

Now, being a new dad and all, the concept of sharing is kind of a positive thing and maybe that's the lesson all these folks are trying to put across to the young kids out there. 

Yeah, somehow I doubt that.  Honestly, I'm not going to try to spin this into a "Well, back in my day, so-and-so didn't need anyone else on their records, they all stood up tall and proud on their own", blah blippity blah.  All I'm saying is, I just. Don't. Get it.    You know, I'm hardly an expert on hip hop music.  I certainly spend very little time listening to it by my own choice.  I do stay aware of what's out there, though, just because I've always been fascinating by the state of pop music at all times.  I will stop and listen to something on the radio if/when I hear enough about it elsewhere to grab my curiosity.  And I just find myself looking at hip hop as having gone from being the genre that was predicted back in the 1990's to surpass rock n' roll (or be the next evolution of rock, whichever), to now being repetitive, lazy, and in some cases absolutely bizarre (see Kanye West) for no apparent reason other than to claim it's in the name of "high art".  Most of all, I just don't see how hip hop can move forward and be respected if it always has to rely on the same gimmicks.  Specifically the need to pack every single with as many name artists as possible.  Not only does it make it look like each artist needs someone else's coat tails to ride on, but it doesn't allow for anyone to stand out on their own.  I'm sorry, but Jay-Z only stands out because he's married to Beyonce.  Not saying the guy isn't talented, not saying he doesn't deserve his success, but the mainstream audience didn't give a damn about this guy until he started dating the lead singer from Destiny's Child.  Or he started to hang out with Gwenyth Palrow and Chris Martin (the guy from Coldplay, for those unaware).  Yes, now he's a successsful businessman, but you gotta have money to make money, and Jay-Z made his money because of the image he made for himself by hanging out with who he hangs out with.  He didn't make it by doing his own music, and that alone. 

There's no doubt that in the music business (and the entertainment industry, in general) it's more often about who you know than what you do.  However, in the long run, the only way to stand out, to elevate yourself and the music you make, is to stand on your own in the public eye.  These hip hop artists today are never going to be remembered one hundred years from now by the mainstream for the songs they did on their own.  To go back to Jay-Z (poor bastard, I keep singling him out), he's only going to remembered for marrying Beyonce Knowles and for that one song he did with Linkin Park.  It's no different than what people like Paris Hilton and other media whores do.  They're not standing out for being creative.  They just stand out for who they stand next to.