It's Tha Reeaaallll

Excuse the shameless Beyonce pic, I had an interesting “discussion” with my sister the other day. She says that Beyonce is “fake” because “her fans don’t know who she really is” and it made me think about all the times I’ve written about “keeping it real” who is real, realness, the realest, etc. My question to ya’ll is what do these artists owe us, if anything, when it comes to the “real”?

Personally, I feel like artists don’t owe us anything except quality entertainment. So if Beyonce wants to keep her private life private, more power to her (and Hov). But I guess the difference with Hip-Hop is that artists constantly remind us how real they are and how they live what they rap, write, etc. But even this has come into question as a recent video from Pusha T shows us his modest yet nice house and his rimless BMW X5. Busta Rhymes had a similar sentiment when he described what happens when he gets in the booth, “you become whatever you want to be”.

The fact is I’m still just looking for honesty; whether it be a rapper telling me what the truth is or him truthfully telling me that what he’s saying is not the truth. But does he even owe me that?