|
I myself, am a fan of hip hop, and an artist to boot, so I have some pretty strong feelings about the subject that you have addressed. Just to keep it short, I would break the blame down into 3 sections...
Audience-- 13 to 26yrs of age is the main demographic. Rebelious, easily influenced, and often ignorant to the realities of life itself. These people want sex, drugs, violence, money, and materialistic shit. They have spent their entire lives sheltered from these things and once they get some freedom, they want to experience it in any way possible, and hip hop music is an avenue to provide that experience for youths and young adults. You would be surprised the number of people in that age range that don't listen to the songs that they like attentively, and by that I mean that they love Kendrick Lamar's "Swimming Pools", but have no idea that it is really more of an anti-alcohol song because they are too busy taking shots while the hook plays. These people need to hear curse word riddled bars sprinkled with N-Words or the music loses its appeal and authenticity to them. Non-Black listeners tend to view the songs as scores to small scenes in their lives, while the younger black listeners treat the songs as an audio version of the Bible, hence it becomes their way of life. And that is the 1st ingredient of this recipe to destruction. And for anyone thinking this...If you don't speak French would you listen to french rappers all the time, even though if you put in the effort to learn you could figure out what they were saying??? Well that is why these kids don't listen to Lupe, Talib, Pharoahe etc... Meek Mill or Wiz Khalifa is more on their level.
Question: What does the 27-45 yrs age group listen to???
Artist-- Like I said, I am an artist, so with this I am speaking from my own experiences. The middle ground artist have the best quality of music, but the toughest road to success because the majority of consumers push us to take one of two paths. You either make a really shiny pop hit, or you come with a really gritty grimey street banger. Anything else gets a lukewarm reception because like I said, the majority of listeners want one of two things. So why do we buckle under the pressure and pick something other than being true to what we really want to do.... because music is sooo disposable nowdays. Nobody buys albums, they by singles and specific tracks, so that fact increases the pressure to make a sure fire hit, and you end up with a saturation of lollipop bullshit or ignorant ass ni2Gershit. And it all starts to sound the same because everyone is emulating whats hot in the particular path that they chose, and hell sometimes they blur the two paths to the point of you not knowing whether the track is pop or street (ie. YMCMB). It is genius on one hand, but on the other it is the DEATH of ORIGINALITY. And of course, adding to the cluster fvck, are the countless number of no talent producers and artist who are in it strictly for a little fame and a quick buck that get lucky with that enormous "1 Hit Wonder" and write a success story that others aspire to duplicate. (The Laffy Taffy guys, Chief Kief, and now the dude who inspired this post)
Thought: Nas and Jay are both dope beyond argument, but Jay is by far the more successful of the two. No doubt, true story. But, what if, Esco and Hov switched FLOWS???? And when I say flows, I don't mean lyrics, I'm talking about DELIVERY styles.... Music is a very psychological animal.
CEO's-- You don't become a label head by being dumb. They know damn good and well every bit of what I just said is truth. If you had the knowledge that the average person is too blind to see right in front of their face, wouldn't you use it to your advantage??? You'd be a fool not to in this cutthroat world of business known as the music industry. Not only do these people hold all of the cards that they are about to deal, but they also stacked the deck before you even got to the table. That's real talk!!! Bottom line, if they help you in any way whatsoever, they are going to get at the least 65% of what you earned. It's not about black, white, red, brown, or yellow...its about GREEN. They know pennies have babies and make dollars, so they take every red cent they can get. And they know that if they throw what they consider to be crumbs your way, they can get a nice slice of your pie, and its been like that since music started getting pressed and sold. From publishing, to the pyramid scheme record label imprints, and now the 360 deals. When one avenue of cash flow dries up, they just open a new lane. They want the most people to consume their product, as possible. That's all there really is to the plan. So they take the knowledge that they have and use it to make that happen, and I would say that they are the least at fault in this cluster fvck called entertainment. Are they greedy, yes, but do they have it out for any certain color or creed, NO. Now there are people above these Ceo's of record labels and media outlets that have a more sinister agenda but that's a different post my friends. Open your eyes y'all, movies, music, and news run the world from an influential standpoint. So if someone had a devious plot and could line the pockets of a record company, a film production company, TV media outlet, or magazine publication to juuusssttt give the people a little more of THIS, wouldn't they be able to carry out their plan in an inconspicuous manner all the while leaving a trail of scapegoats in the path???!!!??? Wake-Up!!!
Don't fall for the Okey-Doke and let them slant your vision that they are picking on a select few because then the conspiracy, just becomes a silly theory. We've gotta look at the world in general, as a whole. Fox News, CNN News, BET, MTV2, Teen Mom, Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Soprano's, Trailer Park Boys, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Real Housewives, Love and Hip Hop, Flava of Love, Basketball Wives, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, The Real World, Duck Dynasty, (I'm sorry for this, but I gotta keep it 100) MMG, YMCMB, Lil Jon, Trinidad James, Wiz Khalifa, Kid Ink, Iggy Azalea, Trey Songz, Young Jeezy, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Jay-Z (and that's my man, on everything I love) Snoop Lion, The Wolf of Wall Street, Paid In Full, The Hangover, The Armed Forces Commercials full of minorties front and center, Mcdonald's commercials, Some of the Car Commercials, The Hair and Beauty Infomercials on late at night, Extenze, Adam & Eve commercials, Hugh Heffner, Victoria Secrets, Versace, LV, Hilfiger, 50 Shades of Gray, Family Guy, The Tea party, the shit written in school text books, and I'm just gonna stop there, because I'm sure you get the point.
Now, without making a statement, let me make another list.... Marvin Gaye, JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bob Marley, Nas, Lupe Fiasco, Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo, Katt Williams, Dave Chappelle, Chris Tucker, J Cole, Obama, Black Panthers, Allen Iverson, The Boondocks, Tyler Perry, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Paul Mooney, Farenheit 9/11, 2pac, Muhammed Ali, Abe Lincoln's coin, DMX, Cousin Jeff, Tavis Smiley, Stephen A Smith, Eminem, Jesus, Ghandi, Public Broadcasting Stations, Historically Black Universities, Tiger Woods, Poncho Villa, Che Guerrera, Geronimo, Big Krit, Outkast, FUBU, Phat Farm, Behold A Pale Horse, books banned from public schools and libraries, Occupy Wall Street, and I will stop here, right after, the TRUE details of World History.
When I was a little kid, like 9 or 10, my dad told me that its not a coincidence that all the reruns of black comedy shows air between 5-6:30pm, and made me watch the News with him because it was important that I know what is going on in the world. I thought he was being mean at the time, but now, I see it, and its not just the reruns of black sitcoms, its also George Lopez, Friends, 106th and Park, and others. Its amazing the lengths that they will go to, to shield, hide, and/or bury the TRUTH. 1, William Goodgame
|
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
The Lesson
