What Happens When The Money Goes?
Let me get a little philosophical, if I may. With the flurry of activity over the last week with new albums dropping like bombs on Afghanistan, it got me thinking about what motivates your favorite rapper to pick up the mantle and embark on a risky career of uncertainty, fleeting fame and more often than not, poverty?
Which got me to ask my next question: if there was no money in hip-hop – and I mean back to 1986 no money – what would be left? If there were no 360 deals, no video budgets, no awards shows, no commercials, no obvious way of getting paid – what would hip-hop look like?
Most hip-hop heads will likely see that type of situation as a blessing. Without the corporate label sell out antics, thing would quickly get back to what was most important: dropping dope records. Now that every rapper is an underground rapper, you would no longer be playing to a wider market, you’d be rapping for the streets. Hip-hop would finally get back to basics, where only those who truly love the music would bother to pick up the mic.
But if we flip it another way, with no investment and no label push whatsoever, I wonder if we would have ever actually heard from many artists that are common place right now. Sure, you can’t throw a baby without hitting an aspiring rapper these days, but that also means there is a higher percentage change that someone great will emerge from the volume of albums coming out.
I have always seen a silver lining on the amount of interest and attention given to hip-hop in the last 10 years or so. I remember when I could never find an album and the ones I did find were few and far between. Not being in New York, I didn’t have easy access to demos, mixtapes or radio. There was one rap video show for an hour a week. That was it. It was damn tough to find hip-hop in my town.
But I do how many artists would remain if there was no promise of a payoff, if the best you could ask for was to earn enough to get by. No Maybachs and no mansions. No Grammy categories or platinum records. No shots at those motivated by the idea of a better life through music, as that can be a viable way to change your situation. But I’m talking about those who see hip-hop as a plausible alternative to a regular 9-to-5 simply because so many others have done it.
If the money went away, would it clear out the clutter or starve out new ideas and stifle fresh music? I ask you: would hip-hop grow or fade away?
Thought provoking piece that could really apply to any genre of music.
If you look at punk rock in the late ’70s for example, it was the work of The Clash, The Buzzcocks, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Ramones that made labels and the music “industry” take notice. After that the industry got a hold of it and started cranking things out for the bucks. Follow it down the line and we get washed out commercial shite like Green Day or even worse, a couple of generations later Fall Out Boy.