02.12
Yesterday, my boy Ra blogged an interesting post about the declining need for street cred to be successful in hip-hop.
Photo jacked from Officer Chat
His post compares the rise and success of 50 Cent , Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Drake and contrasts their “Street Cred”. It’s a good but rather lengthy read; so I jacked a few snippets so that you can get the main idea…
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The No Shot Zone Part 1
by Jag Ra
The subject I would like to examine in this installmant of the “No Shot Zone” is a new phenomina in hip hop that has developed over the last decade. This is that fact that rappers no longer need street credibility to be accepted.
50 Cent was the trifecta of street credibility. A former drug dealer from South Jamacia Queens New York who was pretty much born into a violent lifestyle. A man that was shot 9 times by a rival and lived to tell about it.
With the addition of a 1 Million dollar deal signed by Eminem and gangtsa rap legend, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent’s story alone could persued people into buying his album without hearing one note of his songs. (I’m sure some did). He was a force to be reckoned with, the total embodiment of a hip hop subgenre with a enough hype to lauch a spacecraft.
Kanye West was the son of a college professor who lived in the more suburban outskirts of Chicago. He was not a thug, drug dealer or gangster at the time of his record deal.
While 50 rapped about his past, violence and pimping on his album. Kanye rapped about college, working at the gap and Jesus. Dispite the contrasts both 50′s “Get Rich or Die Trying” and Kanye’s “The College Dropout” shared an accepted hip hop point of view.
Kanye West was the first big blow to the idea that rappers needed for street credibility. This is the reason why 50 challeged Kanye in a public record sales battle. When Kanye won it was a powerful indication that the tide was changing in hip hop.
Lil Wanye had more street cred as a young teen than many do in their adulthood. He’s been shot on 2 occasions and has arrests for firearms and drugs. As he got better as an artist throughout the years he surprisingly made it to the forfront of hip hop and has stacked more street cred on the way.
….During the rise of street mentality in hip hop, rap became a tool to delare masculinity and inturn became very homophobic. In countless beef records recorded, accusations of homosexual behavior was used to insult and discredit [opponents]. So when this was caught on film and came out in 2006, Lil Wanye was at risk of losing all of the street cred he had built.
I mean I really don’t know what that picture was about and I think it’s bad enough that the guy calls himself “Baby” and that Wanye call him “Daddy” but to each his own. If hip hop let it by, that has shown some growth.
Before his rise to rap stardom Drake was well known in the tween and teen demographic as Jimmy Brooks on the high school drama “Degrassi: The Next Generation”. During the shows run Jimmy was shot in the back and left wheelchair bound.
Almost a decade after 50, who’s story of surviving 9 bullets wounds spured on his hype, we have a rapper who’s biggest street cred draw was being shot on a T.V show. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not questioning his credibility as an artist, just examining how the standards of hip hop have changed.
He has worked from the ground up to present to us the charater of Drake. You can see the contrast because in interviews he seems like he’s back to being same old Jewish Aubrey. I don’t know I if would have nominated him for a Grammy for the work he’s done, maybe an Oscar.
One thing is certain though, with the current status Drake has obtained, the neccessity for a rapper to acclumulate street credibility is offically DEAD. I think that’s a great thing because this means that people are looking at the music first again.
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Photo jacked from Profhacker
I think Ja makes some good points in his post. Although this trend may have become rather apparent , if not obvious, to most of us, I was just glad to see that someone actually took the time to write about it. Again, I only took some snippets out of the full post, so check be sure to check out all of Ra’s thoughts on the subject.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Comment away, bitches!
