Ok, I like most every damn body watched "I Love New York" on VH1 last night. It's a hot ass mess in the making, and I have no problem admitting that it's a not-so-guilty-pleasure watching grown people make fun of themselves. I'm not even going to comment on the show, since the rest of the blogosphere can handle that for me.
I'm talking about the other hot ass mess in the making that was on right after New York's debauchery went off. Ego Trip's The White Rapper Show is in search of the next great white rapper. They bring a whole bunch of white kids to the South Bronx (that's my HOME! *sniff, I miss the days on 143rd & Willis*)and challenge their rhyme skills, hip-hop knowledge, and their ideas about race. The premise of the show seems ok enough, but just watching this made me wanna throw up. Foolywang done completely wrong.
For VH1, the channel that didn't allow hip hop until just a few years ago is commercializing what made my hood famous and turning it into a joke. I could get all into the cultural implications of such a move, but I'll spare you--ask your favorite Hip Hop head to explain it for you. But on this one, I side with the hip hop heads. It's not a white/black thing, but you don't need to turn hip hop into something like this. There is no need for people to be sending in tapes of themselves begging to be on this show like it's The Real World or something, showing off their paltry rhymes and trying their damndest to look black. I'll go so far as to say, some of the people on that show act like all hip hop is is Adidas track suits, shelltoes, dookie rope gold chains, or AF1's and camo shorts like one chick seems to think. Hip Hop doesn't need an American Idol type of competition or to have a reality show to pick it's newest stars. Save it.
2 Comments:
tasha, good post. i havent seen those shows you are talking about (mtv uk will bring over soon, no doubt) but i know what you mean about a hip hop pop idol. there is NO need for it. it is a shame though because this was bound to happen with the star-power of hip hop itself. do you feel in a way that is has become hijacked? i think flavour flav being on that VH1 reality show was like putting the nails in the coffin. it has become too commercial.
"Too Commercial"
That about sums it up, doesn't it?
It is all about business, and how much money there is to be made by it.
For better or worse, large corporate interests have seen the money-making poetential from the current state of hip hop.
The "current stage" refers to the fact that more and more white people are consuming hip hop... the music, the styles of dress... even the styles of speech.
Let's keep it real (I can't believe I just used that term, lol) and acknowledge that the "hijacking" of hip hop signals it's full arrival on the scene of American pop culture.
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