“Underground” Hip-Hop Fans: A Walking Contradiction
It’s amazing what being confined to a bed can do to you. I’ve suffered from the flu for about a week now, keeping me sidelined from just about everything important. With this being the case, my only activity to keep me from going completely insane was to listen to music. As I lay in bed, inching closer and closer to my inevitable death, listening to the finest Hip-Hop, I began to think about the culture and us as fans.
Have you ever thought about how flaky we as Hip-Hop fans are towards the music and artists? We must be the worst bunch of supporters in any music genre- one reason being we don’t support. Now this article isn’t going to turn into an observation of how rappers can’t sell a CD to save your mothers’ life, but I will say this; Without getting into statistics, independent artists continually flop release after release to a fan-base crying for real-music. It’s pitiful. As of late, we have seen artists release their projects for free, then a few months later re-release them for a small fee as to say to the fans, ‘I did good right? I deserve your money now, right?’
Next, we have a division within the genre. The gap between the underground and mainstream continues to increase, with artists falling in one category, and shunned by the other. I’ve been playing Big K.R.I.T. in abundance lately, looking at interviews of his and whatnot. A couple of months ago, the Mississippi artist signed to Def Jam, a great feat; or so I thought. A number of comments from fans towards the signing perplexed me- instead of being happy and congratulating the artist, three words were repeated in the comment section, “Don’t Sell Out”.
Does simply selling equate to selling out?
We as underground, independent, alternative, conscious, whatever you like to call it, Hip-Hop fans have a problem with too many people favoring an artist we favor. Let’s take the cliché’ ‘They need to play real-music on the radio’. That’s not what you want, ‘underground’ Hip-Hop fans. On the contrary, you are quite happy with having Rapper X all to yourself on your iPod. Ultimately, Hip-Hop fans are selfish. And this selfishness is the reason the only artists that have a chance to sell are Drake and Kanye West. If I were an artist, why would I even bother?
This reads to me like you are definitely still suffering from the flu. To your credit, you packed an impressive amount of generalizations into four rambling paragraphs, but I still don’t even know how to respond to this. Reads like a first draft for sure.
I can answer your question, though: “If I were an artist, why would I even bother?” Because we have no choice. Because we love to make music. Because coming back from a tour with no money doesn’t bother me when I just got to travel around the country playing music.
I agree that the music industry has serious problems and hip hop culture is more than slightly fucked but I don’t think you really managed to say much here.
“Because we love to make music. Because coming back from a tour with no money doesn’t bother me when I just got to travel around the country playing music. ”
Word?? Love you Hip Hop enough to come home and not beable to feed your family? You love hip hop enough to come home to an eviction notice. To have to drive a cab like Cappadonna had to do. Are you kidding me? So you would go on a 40 city tour and not have a problem with making your label millions of dollars while you have to split up 45K between you and your homeys like ATCQ had to do?
The article makes very truthful generalizations. I think he pretty much touched on the fact that Hip Hop fans are some of the worst fans of any music genre. We feel like we are owed, but tend to not want to give back. We think that because an artist is popular and has fans, its okay that we don’t invest in their product because some other fan will. But some how, that doesn’t mean we don’t respect them or their music. Right?! I do it, you probably do it, and to keep it simple, that’s just absurd.
That’s all i gotta say. It is what it is…
It’s not even about hip hop, it’s music, just plain music, and yes to all of the above. Music has absolutely ruined and saved my life. Most of what you’re talking about in your comment, though, applies to lazy artists who made shitty business decisions. Most of what you’re saying is Worst Case examples from the past. Anyone who’s on a label is signing up to get fucked, hopefully that’s common knowledge by now, after 10,000 artists have proved it in public.
It’s 2011, we should be learning from those mistakes instead of treating the past like it’s the only future we’ve got.
Don’t blame the fans, tighten up your business.
And also, if you’ve got a family to feed….get a job that can feed your family! Real simple.
This goes for all genres of music, specifically punk rock, but also easily applied to hip-hop.
THE TRUTH!!!!!!!!!