Consider first that the white rapper IS NOTHING NEW. I know recent history tells us that EMINEM is by far the most POPULAR white rapper ever, but he had a few predecessors. To act like Search from 3rd Bass, Vanilla Ice, House of Pain and more never existed is a slap in the face of hip hop, period. But there was always the tag in front of the name, we called them WHITE RAPPERS. Well, see that is because there were not that many, and that is where things are RAPIDLY changing.
I go to a lot of music conferences, open mics, and I run an Internet radio broadcast of course. I also use the social network a lot and it seems like I’m on every email promo list for every label, PR, Promoter and artist in the world. The point is I am very aware of WHO is making hip hop, and every quarter I see more and more white artist popping up and being promoted. Will there ever be as many white rappers as black, who knows maybe there already is but we just don’t know it. But there is a BIG rise in the number of them being signed to “major” labels and being highlighted in advertisements nationwide.
Of course there is something the white rapper must indeed know and contend with: you are going to be held to a standard that black rappers, especially in the south, don’t have to deal with. You see the blessings of the great white hope that is Slim Shady has bestowed upon you came with a side effect. He set a ridiculously high bar for you guys. Yes, there have always been wack ass black rappers, and today the numbers are staggering. They have always been on the scene we have accepted their role as a necessary evil in hip hop. But see, the mainstream really doesn’t want to accept a white rapper at first glance because of his skin, BUT A WACK WHITE RAPPER? That’s a huge DOUBLE NEGATIVE.
So here we are, in a day and age where the president isn’t white, but the top grossing hip hop artist for quite a few years is, how do we make sense of it all? Cash Money seemed poised to cash in on the fray by signing a white rapper, CASKEY. Although, where the hell is that project? (Its CASH MONEY..good luck) Wait, should I still even be using the term “white rapper” at this point? Are we ready to just call these guys rappers without the white in front? Stop the shenanigans, we are nowhere NEAR that point yet. This is still America (aka AMERIKKKA at times). But the Cash Money white rapper blatantly uses the “N-Word” in one of his flows, when he asks us if we can call him cracka, then why can’t he say nigga (check “WORDS” by CASKEY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBfWapATFjk ). Well, we shall see how that plays out with the masses.
I have no problem with white rappers at all, as long as they are real to themselves. See, being a white rapper, there is a high chance you will be tagged as “WIGGER” instead of an MC that just happens to be white. It’s not fair but it’s reality, and that is what I tend to deal in. When you consider one of the nicest, if not THE nicest MC of the last decade was white, you can never say they CAN’T take over. It has already been done by one of them and he locked it down for a long stretch.
Bottom line the white rappers are gaining ground in marketability, profit margins, fan base, and numbers. When you think about the fact that most of the people that were buying hip hop albums back in the days when people still BOUGHT hip hop albums were WHITE, none of this should be a shock. I mean seriously, how long would they ride around listening to a beat they love, full of words they can get jumped on for saying out loud? How long could the number one monetary supportive race of a genre block out it’s own race from taking over that genre? You had to be a fool not to see it coming.
-BLIZM (Program Director at K-100 Radio)
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