okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well …

Hip-hop, fashion and crime

Maybe violence and misogyny are topics that tend to dominate Hip-hop lyrics. However, this is not news; it has been that way since the beginning, ever since the 80’s, with groups like N.W.A., and Ice-T. Rap music, of course, will never go away; all of the negative attention seems to draw even more listeners to the genre.

The article goes on to talk about product placement in hip-hop lyrics, specifically Prada, who went from a novelty to a major label in the 90’s, with the help of rappers, Naomi Campbell & Nicole Kidman, among others. However, you have to follow the logic here, if rappers were so influential in Prada’s rise from obscurity, did all of the Hollywood actors mentioned in the article take their cues from hip-hop, or is it the other way around.

Rappers will mention different fashion labels because rappers talk about everyday things. Rap often focuses on the negative realities of living in the ghetto, but the upside to selling drugs is being able to buy designer clothing and other luxury items. “The upside to selling drugs”, should I even have said that. Bottom line, rap music often celebrates doing anything and everything to acquire money, drugs, prostitution, and theft, whatever. Listeners cannot get enough of it.

Then they go on to insinuate that Eminem is a gangster rapper.

“A lot of people think that . . . what I say on records

or what I talk about on a record, that I actually do in real life

or that I believe in it

Or if I say that, I wanna kill somebody, that . . .

I’m actually gonna do it

or that I believe in it

Well, shit . . if you believe that

then I’ll kill you.”

Eminem

This is the first I have actually heard someone describe Eminem in that way. Eminem colorfully and artistically plays with the hypocrisy and shortcomings of American culture, particularly in the case of interpersonal relationships, as his relationships appear to be open to discussion in his songs. Eminem makes fun of celebrities, though so did Weird Al Yankovich, in the way he covered their songs. It is not that Eminem has not talked about violence, but there is a difference between the violence that Em refers to, and the violence that is associated with the drug culture.

There are plenty of references to violence and sexual depravity in American culture, that have nothing to do with rap music or the hip-hop culture. No one is for sure even why Tupac and Biggie were killed to begin with, although writers continue to draw correlations between their lyrics and what happened to them. There are plenty of reasons not to like hip-hop, it is aggressive, it is confrontational, it can be rather ignorant at times and it is always unapologetic. The aforementioned have a way of going against the nature of people. Not that rock and other forms of music are not any of those things at times, although it certainly is more obvious, in hip-hop.

No one who does not have wealth, wants to hear about it incessantly and have it shoved in their face. At the same time, if you are not in the drug culture, it may be fun to hear about it without having to deal with the realization of what that must really be like. Rap music continues to be a vehicle through which we can vicariously live out some of those dreams, the same way that fashion used to be a way to romanticize about being someone that you’re not, and that someone does not have to worry about paying the bills and getting by. While inextricably linked, no amount of punditry will ever separate the two. Whether or not that is a good thing, is up to each individual to decide.