Rap Myths You Probably Believe (Thanks to the Media), Part 1

As you probably assumed, I am a huge Hip-Hop fan. You also know that the media has a history of habitually lying about reality. Well, when it comes to Rap, it's no different. some examples of these myths include things like....


1) It takes no skill to Rap.


Whenever you turn on BET, MTV, or the radio, it always seems as if you get something along the lines of this....

this...

or this.

You would probably think to yourself, "Man, Rap sucks. It takes no skill to do it whatsoever." Of course, you'd be wrong. Check out out this video of Mos Def freestyling:

Here is Black Thought of The Roots freestyling:

You can even listen to Rakim rapping on his song called "Lyrics of Fury":

So as you can see, it does take skill to Rap. You can't just throw random words together in a jumbled mess and call it 'Rap'. This reminds me of another myth. 

2) Nobody cares about "old school".           

How many times have you tried talking to a teen nowadays and heard them say, "Don't nobody care about (insert Hip-Hop legend)". From the looks of things nowadays, it would certainly seem like that. I mean, seriously, who really cares about somebody like Rakim?

Oh, I don't know, about a million people at least.

Before you think that that's a fluke, here is a picture of A Tribe Called Quest preforming live:

 All these people came to see Soulja Boy.

How about De La Soul?

  They're only here to open up for Gucci Mane.

If you  thought that was something, look at the crowd who came to see The Pharcyde live:

Moments before they were pelted with bottles.

Not only do they pull large live crowds, but people actually went and bought their albums. "But hey," you might say. "That was then. Nowadays, it isn't peaches and cream. It's all about the money. Talent doesn't matter." Sure, whatever. Even though The Pharcyde has millions of views on their music.

3) It pays to be a moron/cliche.  

With all the attention that people like Chief Keef  get, it should be easy to get a career in Rap, right? Sure, if you want your career to end quicker than a cup of water being dumped into an empty sink. You see, a lot of people think being a jigaboo is the way to go. And in a lot of cases, it is. However, don't expect to stick around long if you do. We all know the song "Cat Daddy" by the Rej3cts. Name another song by them. Exactly. We know the song "Teach Me How to Dougie" by Cali Swag District. How about Nelly's debut album Country Grammar, which sold approximately 9 million copies? I'll give you $5 (just kidding) if you can name at least 5 songs off of there. Exactly. As you can see, it doesn't really pay (long term) to be cliche (hey, that rhymes!). Even Adam Buckley has ranted about this nonsense:

   

Even the late Baatin of Slum Village addresses this issue in their song 'Tainted' (at 1:21):

 

Remember, YMCMB and MMG are exceptions, not the rules. This leads me into another point....

4) Radio matters.

A lot of people complain about how music executives use the radio to dumb down Rap fans. And for a long time, that was the case. But it isn't like that now. Let Adam Buckley again explain everything:

 

So, yeah, that's pretty much the reason why no one should care about the radio. Moving on!

5) Sales of singles matter more than anything else.

Hey, but with all the ruckus and whatnot, the record labels sure are making a ton of money off of hit singles. They must be raking in loads of money that way! Who needs people to buy whole albums anymore?

They do, of course.

You see, making the Rap industry single-driven instead of album-driven is one of the most asinine business decisions you could make. Why? Lets use simple math to solve this. Say, one rapper sells 4 million singles. A single costs about $2 each. That would make $8 million in profit. But, say, another rapper sells 1 million albums. Lets say they cost $15 each. That would add up to $15 million in profit. You see where I'm going with this? The second rapper just made 87.5% more profit, despite selling 75% less units. So all the over-promoting of the "hot new single" is really causing them to lose profit, rather than gain it.

Something else that should be noted is the fact that 'Midnight Marauders', 'Wu-Tang Forever', 'Illmatic', 'The Low End Theory', 'The Great Adventures of Slick Rick', 'Stillmatic', 'Enter the Wu: 36 Chambers', 'Aquemini', 'Beats, Rhymes, and Life', 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back', 'Fear of a Black Planet', 'Paid in Full', 'Reasonable Doubt', 'Straight Outta Compton', 'The W' 'Amerikkka's Most Wanted', 'Death Certificate', 'Eazy-Duz-It', and 'The Don Killuminati: the Seven Day Theory' all went platinum/multi-platinum, yet none of them had any Top-40 hits. 

And you wonder why some people don't care about radio hits.  

    

Page 1                                                                  Next Page