(This is the first of a series of posts I will be writing this week about the state of hip hop and how we can improve it)
I think most know by now that Rick Ross got exposed for being a rapper. He was a correctional officer in the mid 90′s. He wasn’t tallying up the favors Manuel Noriega owed him and he wasn’t chatting with Pablo Escobar. Hip hop fans seemed to have been taken aback when they learned of his prior job and decided that the Rick Ross persona was a fabrication. An actor. An overweight man with a big beard who came to life with stories of moving packages of white. Sounds kinda like Chris Cringle, no? I mean Mr. Roberts did claim that he “whips it real hard”.
Moving away from Rick Ross, what do fans expect? I’m surprised that the ego’s of rappers combined with their caricature personalities don’t cause their heads to grow to Barry Bonds proportions. Maybe that’s why they drive drop tops, just in case they need extra head room some day.
You can’t put all the blame on the MC’s though. Like the successful genre’s of music that came before it, hip hop became an art trapped in a business. I know why the caged rapper sings…it’s so he can sell some records. Hip hop used to be referred to as the CNN of the hood. Nowadays I’d say it can be referred to as the CNN of Liberty City. I would hate to live in the alternate reality these rappers create. The body counts on mixtapes alone would make the Vietnam War blush. That is, if the Vietnam War was a person with cheeks…that could, er, blush.
Although I don’t agree with all the fictitious accounts of life found in the music, it is popular and encouraged by the fans who support it. In the words of Russell Crowe “are you not entertained, is this not why you are here?”. If you aren’t and it isn’t then why do you support it?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
i don’t think that blues musicians had conferences with the devil either.
the problem, in my opinion, is that rappers and labels are giving their audience (white suburban kids) what they’ve bought before: rambo in blackface. sadly, the number of kids who purchase a majority of the albums aren’t hip-hop kids. they haven’t done the knowledge, they’re unaware of what came before. all they know is it sounds good in their (mom’s) car.
the explosion of popularity of hip hop meant two things. one, it’s a valid art form that’s here to stay, and two, there’s a shitload of money to be made. when britney spears dropped, a&rs shit all over themselves getting teenaged pop blonds on the radio. pac is the greatest selling hip hop artist ever… and 90% of rappers have done their best impression. unfortunately, they aren’t blessed with the introspection or poetic talent that made pac so important. instead, they’re the sequel: bigger and better action sequences, with a loose relation to what made the first installment popular.
hip-hop got too popular, the financial stakes too high. labels aren’t going to pull a “new coke” until the current recipe stops selling.