Race in Hip-Hop

In the book I'm reading, 'Mexican Whiteboy' the protagonist Danny struggles to fit in with the Hispanic kids in his neighborhood. He is constantly judged for how he looks and not his abilities on the baseball mound. He proves he is more capable than meets the eye and some kids don't like it. Why does it matter how he looks? This reminded me of race in hip hop and the struggle white artists go through. It is widely believed that most rappers are of the African American race, which is ironic because statistics show 80% of the Hip Hop/Rap audience to be white. Hip Hop was born on the streets of South Bronx with DJ Kool Herc mixing samples of other records. The youth of South Bronx responsible for the movement were primarily "English speaking blacks" with roots from Jamaica and Barbados. Hip Hop/Rap is a beloved part of the African American culture, and today it's one of the most popular genres of music. Not long ago, it was hard for white rappers to earn respect. Eminem was definitely one of the first to do so.
   "I don't care if he's purple, as long as he can rap," said Dr. Dre in defense of Eminem being white. Why should it matter what the artist looks like if they're making good music that should be all the difference? I don't think it's fair to look at a white rapper as a foreigner, or as someone who doesn't belong. What is the difference between a black and white rapper? On Hot 97 FM radio, host Ebro had Macklemore on the show to discuss a little about this topic.
   Ebro asked Macklemore, "Do you believe you were embraced by white radio because you are white, and you rap?"
   Macklemore replies with a short, "yes,"
Macklemore then goes on to talk about the questions he's asked about the difference between him and an African American rapper.
   "Why am I safe? Why can I cuss on a record, have a parental advisory sticker on the cover of my album, yet parents are still like, you're the only rap I let my kids listen to. Why can I wear a hoodie and not be labeled a thug? Why can I sag my pants and not be a gang banger? Why am I on Ellen's couch? Why am I on Good Morning America? If I were black, what would my drug addiction look like? It would be twisted into something else versus 'Get back on your feet!' "
   Today, we are seeing a lot more white rappers making noise in the hip hop/rap scene. To name a few, Macklemore, Lil Dickey, Mac Miller, and MGK have all been successful artists. But is it really hard to earn respect as a white rapper today? The Fader had rappers Vince Staples, African American, and Mac Miller, white, to discuss the place of a white rapper today.
   "White people definitely root for white people," Vince Staples said.
   " That’s a huge reason why it’s become so big right now. People are like, “Yeah! A white guy rapping! I wanna support that because not a lot of white guys rap!” I remember hearing Eminem for the first time in my kitchen: I had a really little TV that was as big as my head, and “The Real Slim Shady” was on MTV. I definitely had a moment of being a young white kid rapping every lyric in the mirror," Mac Miller responded.
   "Maybe the problem is that black people don’t support each other and don’t (respect) each other as much as they should." Vince Staples said.
   This was interesting to me because Vince Staples made a good point. Since the white rapper seems to be outnumbered in the hip hop scene, he often gets respect from the white community because they can identify with each other. I think Vince Staples is suggesting an African American rapper isn't so hard to come by in the Hip Hop/Rap industry, so it's harder to earn respect. So this raises the question of if white rappers really struggle for the respect from the genre as they were used to.

Sources:

http://harvardpolitics.com/books-arts/politics-race-rap/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrMU9wm8hn4

http://www.thefader.com/2015/10/06/white-rappers-mac-miller-vince-staples-interview