Rappers selling themselves as cartoonish bad guys - are white listeners to blame?

This word makes me hungry.

Don't blame whitey for selling out your culture to them. Please, the "White kids made me make millions by playing a racist caricature of myself" argument is a bit weak. There's no excuse for greed.

OTM

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0323/coates.php (s'about a year old or so)

On the minus side: wouldn't a rapper who isn't, at heart, a thung gangsta protest?
I mean, how often does this exchange take place
New Rapper: "Hey, I'm not a gunslinging, ex-dope pushing proto-psychopath...I'm a poet and a philosopher!"
Record Company Exec: "Yeah, yeah, sure. But, son, that doesn't sell! You have to toughen up your image if you're gonna make it in this industry!"
New Rapper: "Y'know, if I have to become a phony, No thanks. I'll just go back to poetry slams and open mike night."

Also: How does Eminem (the world's second whitest man) fit into this "gangsta rap = pandering to white people's fantasies" scenario?

Also II: Subthread... does C&W pander to Urban Youth's fantasies of southerners reckless, whiskey-addled, redneck bacchanalia?

"White America has always had a perverse fascination with the idea of black males as violent and sexually insatiable animals. A prime source of racism's emotional energy was an obsession with protecting white women from black brutes. Since the days of Birth of a Nation up through Native Son and now with gangsta rap, whites have always been loyal patrons of such imagery, drawn to the visceral fear factor and antisocial fantasies generated by black men. Less appreciated is the extent to which African Americans have bought into this idea. At least since the era of blaxploitation, the African American male has taken pride in his depiction as the quintessential man in the black hat. It is a desperate gambit by a group deprived of real power—even on our worst days, we can still scare the shit of white suburbanites. "

(there's lots to be debated here, but really i'm too busy to even be posting this)

that's surely an indication of how low we've sunk rather than his usefulness

Are you kidding? Public Enemy had a huge following of white college-aged kids.

Maybe because a lot of black people have the same fantasies.

xpost that post you quoted was sarcastic.

(its all over but the self-promotion)

multiple x-post!!!

"In the 30s, on any balmy sunday eveneing throughout the rural south, the evening's entertainment -- boxing -- would usually being with a battle royal. This regal name hardly describes the nature of the event. A gang of "colored" youngsters -- ranging from adolscents to college age -- gathered in a boxing ring for a blind-folded, no-holds-barred brawl. There were no weapons except fists, but the physical damage that ensured in the frenzy was monumental. The last man standing won a nominal prize that hardly compensated for hte broken teeth and fractured bones resulting from these gang bangs.

To the (white) audiences who witnessed these battles royal, it was an appetizaer for an entire night of manly action. Ernest Hemingway, that definer of all things American and masculine, used to organize battles royals for boxing events he hosted in his beloved Key West, Florida.

For the young black men who pummeled each other in the quest for a bit of spare change, it was a hance to prove their toughness to friends, rivals, and themselves. For the bigggest and most brutal participants, it was a way to get paid and, in a weird way, flaunt the physical power that the white viewers otherwise feared in everyday life. For white audiences, the white viewers the heated bout allowed them to see the blacks as comical figures whose most aggressive urges were neutered for their amusement.

At certain moments, when hip hop is at is most tragically comic, I can image it as a '90s battle royal, where young African Americans step into an arena to verbally, emotioantlly, and yes physically bash each other for the pleasure of predominantly white spectators worldwide."

Of course, later in the same introduction, George concedes:

"Battling may be essential to hip hop's evolution and the energy that keeps it dynamic, but its manifestations and effects are too compelx and often contradictory for a single metaphor, no matter how resonant, to capture its essence."

Tony Starkes/Ironman!!!

I'm a white fan of hip-hop, and I generally prefer stuff that's either obviously pantomime (Kool Kieth) or chilled/conscious (The Pharcyde, Outkast, The Roots) to 50 Cent's tired old Gangsta Shtick. I'm not a 14 year old suburban American, though.

Having said that, I love 'Doggy Style' and 'Straight Outta Compton'.

KRS and Chuck are the ones to have blamed the rappers and the black audiences themselves as opposed to oppressive white thing for the 'problem' within gangsta rap and it's offspring tho no?

And were the wu superheroes in their video game? I never played it.