Before you clown me for the ridiculous title of this entry, hear me out.  Whats the upside of being a stripper?  You get quick money, lots of attention, and a possible escape from poverty.  Look at rappers.  Rappers enter the music business, to get quick money, lots of attention, and an escape from poverty.  The downside to being a stripper is, the industry takes what they need from you and spits you out.  The sex industry is not willing to accept a womans evolution from a beautiful young woman to a beautiful old woman.  Rappers are also plagued with being in an industry where evolution is hardly tolerated.

MC's these days are caught in a catch 22.  Either continue to do the same music your entire career and have people turn away slowly from stagnant growth.  Or try to evolve your music and have your "die hard" fans turn on you for not being on that old classic stuff.  The easiest example of this is Jay-Z.

Jay-Z is probably one of the most prolific rappers of our time.  Boasting one of the largest careers and largest successes any MC has ever had.  The problem with Jay is he is getting old.  His entire career had songs about the drug game, mafioso stories, and hustler anthems.  As he gets older and enjoys his successes in the music industry, he faces a problem.  HE ISN'T A HUSTLER ANYMORE!  Being in an industry where keeping it real is a focal point he's faced with a choice.  Either continue on the same Reasonable Doubt tip, or evolve.  Jay elected to do the latter, to the dismay of many of his fans (including me).   In Kingdom Come he left the drug lyrics behind to give a more real testament of what its like to be Jiggaman now (as opposed to 88).  It was recieved in many hip hop circles as one of the weakest Jay albums ever and the reason people kept saying was "he ain't on that Blueprint/RD/Black Album tip." 

So how does a rapper win these days?  Do you cater to your "die hard" fans who want you to keep your music constant?  Or should your die hard fans love you no matter where life takes you or what you evolve into? It could be that the rap game chews rappers up and spits them out when they are no longer of use.  It has to be only rap music too.  You don't hear Beatles fans saying "they ain't on that 'Hold Your Hand' tip".  They went from poppy boy band to singing about socially conscious and political topics keeping their fans the entire time. 

Rappers the new strippers?  I guess its up to the MC.  I just hope that regardless of what the fans do, rappers march to their own beat instead of shaking their ass for the industry.

haha... cosign, even though you kinda went off on a tangent with the jayz thing, or maybe i didnt understand it clearly

i been was sayin rappers is gettin treated like hoes in the game... they get signed to a label (club), rap and display their talents (strip), people buy their cds and go to their shows (tip), and they take all those profits and give a large percentage to the label execs (pimp/club owner)... and as for the growth thing, we dont want to see rappers grow, but we get mad when they switch up their style... its like the way we look at strippers... we look down on them for shakin their asses and showin titties, but then thats all we expect from them... when we see a stripper in regular clothes and a bookbag goin to a class which ironically she had to strip to pay for, we look perplexed... same way we look at jay when he switched from hustler to business man (maybe thats what you were tryin to say?)... but there is one difference between rappers and strippers... stripping requires you to do only one thing... anything else is unprofitable... you stop stripping, youre not gonna get stripper money... rap enables you to speak your mind... you can talk about hustling or whatever and get rap money... but even if you change it up youre still gonna get rap money, you just gotta know how to own it and make it believeable

Oct 10, 2008 - 06:52PM, Bathing Ape still da goat, b wrote:

so if i slide jay-z a few dollars, will he take me in the back room and give me a lapdance?? (no homo)

Are you the same bathing ape who had that big **** in the avi and was always talking shit about lupe?

Oct 10, 2008 - 07:06PM, Ghetto Apostle wrote:

First up....Great read.  Now to answer your question on Jay not being a husstla anymore?  I believe he still is..A husstla is someone skilled in turninig a profit no matter what the enterprise (40/40 club, Rocawear, and those hotel ventures, Nets part ownership, Star Roc). I also take the term of husstling meaning making a dollar out of 15 cents, or getting a lot of money doing what you do best...But this isn't a all about Jay thread...

I'm just confused, are you implying that rappers either remain the same, without evolving with the times, and on the other hand, if they do change, they pretty much resemble strippers in the sense that they shake their asses to whats hot?  Because in that sense, then a lot of these rappers would be strippers, especially on some down south bounce beat tip...

The reason I believe that we aint on that Beatles tip with any hiphop artist is because of US, the fans....I remember hip hop late 80's as a youngsta and early 90's getting into my teens.  There was always the gold chain and the fashion, but now it's broadened to cars, vixens, mansions, how tall someones paper is etc  The only reason Hip hop artists don't enjoy the longevity unless they switch up their style is because all these new materialistic things are changing; someone needs to have a bigger chain, the latest ride, the latest video vixen, and those that fail to hang with the times are easily forgotten.  To me, hip hop isn't respected as much as it was 15 years or more ago.  That's why in other musical genres, you can hear Tina Turner going on tour and selling out concerts, Madonna switching up her style for the upteenth time and selling mad records, and guns n roses going on tour after a long ass time and still getting love.

And yes, I think fans should stick it out with artists, no matter how tough the scene gets.  Sometimes we all go looking for the next big thing when in reality the most original thing is something we've always enjoyed.  It's a double sword, but I would rather see an artist evolve with the times and be original than cater in to what they think the fans want..

When I say Jay isn't a hustler anymore I mean that he isn't a gangsta/drug dealer anymore and it would be silly for him to be rapping about living that lifestyle at this point.  So hes basically forced into the concept of evolution, which failed for him because Kingdom Come was one of his worst recieved albums.

Oct 10, 2008 - 07:22PM, Ghetto Apostle wrote:

Oct 10, 2008 - 07:18PM, Ink of a Scholar wrote:

Oct 10, 2008 - 07:06PM, Ghetto Apostle wrote:

First up....Great read.  Now to answer your question on Jay not being a husstla anymore?  I believe he still is..A husstla is someone skilled in turninig a profit no matter what the enterprise (40/40 club, Rocawear, and those hotel ventures, Nets part ownership, Star Roc). I also take the term of husstling meaning making a dollar out of 15 cents, or getting a lot of money doing what you do best...But this isn't a all about Jay thread...

I'm just confused, are you implying that rappers either remain the same, without evolving with the times, and on the other hand, if they do change, they pretty much resemble strippers in the sense that they shake their asses to whats hot?  Because in that sense, then a lot of these rappers would be strippers, especially on some down south bounce beat tip...

The reason I believe that we aint on that Beatles tip with any hiphop artist is because of US, the fans....I remember hip hop late 80's as a youngsta and early 90's getting into my teens.  There was always the gold chain and the fashion, but now it's broadened to cars, vixens, mansions, how tall someones paper is etc  The only reason Hip hop artists don't enjoy the longevity unless they switch up their style is because all these new materialistic things are changing; someone needs to have a bigger chain, the latest ride, the latest video vixen, and those that fail to hang with the times are easily forgotten.  To me, hip hop isn't respected as much as it was 15 years or more ago.  That's why in other musical genres, you can hear Tina Turner going on tour and selling out concerts, Madonna switching up her style for the upteenth time and selling mad records, and guns n roses going on tour after a long ass time and still getting love.

And yes, I think fans should stick it out with artists, no matter how tough the scene gets.  Sometimes we all go looking for the next big thing when in reality the most original thing is something we've always enjoyed.  It's a double sword, but I would rather see an artist evolve with the times and be original than cater in to what they think the fans want..

When I say Jay isn't a hustler anymore I mean that he isn't a gangsta/drug dealer anymore and it would be silly for him to be rapping about living that lifestyle at this point.  So hes basically forced into the concept of evolution, which failed for him because Kingdom Come was one of his worst recieved albums.

I see what u sayin....but what about Amercan Gangster?  Wasn't he doing the whole evolution concept with that move while trying to remain relevant?

Well with American Gangster it seems as though he found a loophole to still rap about the gangster lifestyle while not playing his fans.  He tried his hand at evolution, it didn't serve him well so he, in a way regressed back to the elementary content, while stepping his flow to another level.  So yes he evolved in the lyrical department, but was still feeding us the same rehashed lifestyle.  I loved the album, but after considering Jay's point in life I see it in another light.