There are some musical tragedies that stay with us forever.

1959: A plane crash kills Buddy… There are some musical tragedies that stay with us forever.

1959: A plane crash kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, taking from the world pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll.

1980: John Lennon is shot in the back by Mark David Chapman, a crazy fan, outside his apartment in New York City.

2007: Poison singer Bret Michaels fails to find a lasting love on his televised, heartfelt VH1 quest, “Rock of Love.” A country weeps tears of heartbreak. Guitar-shaped tears.

But any event that has cursed popular music pales in comparison to the disaster with which the world has now faced.

To understand the breadth of this calamity, we must start all the way back at the beginning – that being yesterday at around 5 p.m. Snoop Dogg, being a truly benevolent brother, organized a charity event called Mingle For Mary Jane, in which popular rappers met with ticket-holding fans to sign autographs and schmooze, all to raise money for those unjustly locked up for pot possession.

“You know, S-N-Double-O-P is just trying to stand up fo’ his gang-bangas and baby mamas and his fellow celebritizzles who be under fire fo’ getting blazed,” he said eloquently just before the event began. These would be the last words Snoop Dogg would ever say on record.

Both to connect with the obviously grill-wearing public and to form a sense of rapper unity in the face of grave injustice, Snoop had asked that all artists in attendance come wearing their best grills.

At around 5:23 p.m., just as the event was getting under way, the main generator in the Best Western just outside of Compton, Calif., exploded, sending a surge of electricity through the entire building, immediately electrocuting anyone touching metal.

In those few seconds, rap music as we know it was silenced forever.

Sitting on metal folding chairs, the artists formerly known as rappers were harmed more than anyone else.

The grills (or grillz, excuse me), those beautiful, diamond-encrusted, retainer-like works of sheer brilliance representing all that is pure and holy in hip-hop, were instantaneously fused together inside the money-making mouths of these money-making men, disallowing them to ever again open their mouths to spit flow like fire.

An entire generation of artists has been silenced. The world weeps tears of crunk juice.

No longer shall the Ying Yang Twins so kindly ask the females in the club to “Shake it like a salt shaker, love. And, if you would, barkeep, a whiskey sour. Two cherries, please. I love to pop them in my mouth.”

No longer shall Lil Jon shout his battle cry of the common man, “Yeah!” Nor will he continue his instructional work-out video series, with exercise calls like, “Bend over to the front, touch your toes, back dat ass up and down and get low (get low)!”

No longer shall Hurricane Chris holler at the beautiful women he so respects while grinding up in the club. “A Bay Bay,” echoes in our minds.

The poetics and cultural criticisms of lyrical geniuses like Young Jeezy, Yung Joc, Young Buck, Trick Daddy, Paul Wall, Flo Rida, T.I., Rick Ross, Chingy, MIMS, the entirety of Dem Franchize Boyz and, yes, even Snoop Dogg himself, must now remain in our memories and on our iPods.

Without these, our beloved grill-sporting poet laureates, we might be forced to listen to those know-nothing, single-track-minded, all-status and no-substance rappers, like Common, The Roots, Jay-Z, Kanye West or, god forbid, Lupe Fiasco. No longer will we hear rhymes about political strife, social issues or urban culture.

Looks like from now on, we’ll be stuck with boring rhymes about selling cocaine, Apple Bottom Jeans and 400-inch rims.

Dental surgeon to the stars Lil Doc was quoted as saying, “Not even with the most advanced technology could I get the grills out of these mouths. They’re melted shut. Forever. By the way, my album drops on the 14th. “

So goodbye, enlightened hip-hop, may angels sing thee to thy rest.

And on the lighter side of things, at least we’ve still got Nickelback.