Part II...

Part 2… My Pen’s my Mac-10

written by JusHH

Last week, we analyzed the “value” of street credibility as it pertained to a single incident involving Shyne and Diddy. This time we’ll discuss if street cred really affects if an artist sells records or not.

Having street credibility in rap must mean something, 50 Cent couldn’t have sold $20 million records off of just punch lines and delivery. The gangster persona definitely has to affect the bottom line for some of these rappers. Jay-Z summed it all up on 2003’s “Moment of Clarity”, “If skills sold, truth be told/ I’d probably be, lyrically Talib Kweli/ Truthfully, I wanna rhyme like Common Sense/ But I sold 5 mill, I ain’t been rhyming like Common since.” The truth is that we live in a society that loves the lure of violence and throws money at anything that perpetuates this idea. Violent video games and movies outsell and enjoy more commercial success than their more “conservative” counterparts. When N.W.A debuted in 1991, America fell in love with the “gangster in the hood” and completely ate it up. Their albums sold millions more than other artists whose lyrics didn’t involve the same subject matter. Today rappers like Young Jeezy will sell a million records despite being considered to have inferior talent. People love his swagger and how his drug dealing history, backed up his lyrics. If you read magazine articles on new rappers you will find out whether or not he’s been shot or spent time in jail before you even know what inspired him to do music. Rappers are being signed on the strength of their street credibility and how “sexy” their back-story is. The rule of thumb seems to be, the more gangster the better.

To see if this theory holds up, we’ll analyze the effect that street credibility has recently had on Soundscan results. Take T.I. for example. In 2006, he released the album King and it literally thrust him to the top of the Hip-Hop world. So much was made of the fact that his album was the highest selling during that calendar year. People loved his tales about the “trap” and living in the worst hoods of Atlanta. His checkered past only helped push the gangster image portrayed in his lyrics. Fast forward to 2007, the stage is set; the whole world was ready for TI to release his follow up album TI Vs. TIP. Shortly after his album is released, T.I. is brought under federal charges for illegal gun possession. The list of weapons that he was alleged to have bought read like the Terminator movie. With the straps and gats that fill his verses, this was the street credibility boost that would surely continue his momentum. However when T.I. actually got into trouble, it wasn’t reflected in his album sales. In fact, it fell short of King and went flat by year’s end. Legal troubles hurt Cassidy’s career even more. Despite having an incredible hit single, his sophomore album bombed in the stores after he went to jail for involuntary manslaughter. It’s hard to get more gangster than being involved in a murder, yet people didn’t flock to the store to cop the album. Prodigy, Remy Ma and a host of others either saw their stocks drop or remain stagnant when they found themselves on the bad end of legal issues. If having street cred is the way that a rapper sells records then why does it seem to hurt them when their rhymes actually come true?

Nelly, Kanye West, Eminem, Outkast, Ludacris. What do these rappers have in common? They all have multi-platinum sales without having any street credibility worth noting. Not only are they not viewed as thugs, the streets aren’t even the focal point of their music. This shatters the notion that a rapper “needs” to be a gangster in order to enjoy any kind of commercial success. The truth of the matter is street credibility has no more affect on the commercial success of a rapper than his skin color or his regional representation. In the music business, there is only one thing that determines whether or not an artist will sell, mass appeal. If your music can appeal to a wide range of people, it will sell – period. Eminem might have caught the eyes of many because he was white in a “black man’s” industry, but it was his catchy singles and undeniable talent on the mic that gave him a successful career. The ground is littered with other white rappers who just couldn’t cut it. Nelly sold 9 million records because “Country Grammar” could be played in your whip and at your grandmother’s house during your family reunion. It’s the appeal of the music that matters; the “street cred” is simply one of the many gimmicks that are exploited. 50 sold so many records not because of how many triggers he pulled but because “In The Club” was the number 1 song on the planet and that album had a half a dozen quality hits. TI Vs. TIP didn’t outsell King because “Big Things Poppin’” couldn’t compete with “What You Know” and “Why you Wanna” and no bump in street credibility from an arrest could do anything about it. There are thousands of rappers who’ve shot, stabbed and mutilated many of people in their verses and their albums sit on the shelves and collect dust.

The gangster is just subtext. People bought Get Rich or Die Tryin’ for the same reasons that they went out and saw The Godfather… they wanted a quality product. Although our country has a fascination with the fantasy of gangsters, it’s not important to them that 50 actually goes and sells crack any more than they want Al Pacino to shoot a cop in the face. Fabolous has literally admitted in interviews that he lies and exaggerates in his lyrics, yet people still go out and buy his records. Why? Well if you heard “Make Me Better” and “Breathe”, you would buy it too. Jay-Z insinuated that Common suffered commercially because he didn’t talk about guns or drugs but his near platinum sales of Be prove that it had nothing to do with “what” he was talking about but “how” it came across. Be had hit singles that were the most widely accepted of his career. People couldn’t care whether or not Rick Ross actually sold coke; they just wanted to knock their heads to that “Hustlin’” beat. So don’t get caught up in the hype. Being a gangster means absolutely nothing if you can’t deliver in the studio. 2Pac did have the number 1 album in the country when he was in jail but if you put out “Dear Mama” and “So Many Tears”, and had that magnetic personality, he could have went to Mars and Me Against the World would still top the charts. So if you are a rapper and think that you are going to be successful simply because you “keep it real”, you’ve got another thing coming. Your thug image will only take you as far as your beats and your bars. Put the guns and drugs down and simply entertain us - that’s all we ever wanted in the first place.