Originally published at: Vanilla Ice and the birth of inauthentic hip hop | Boing Boing
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Sugarhill Gang did it first.
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MTV did it.
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At one point black artists had to use payola just to get on the radio but after a while, white artists managed to throw even larger handfuls of money to get on the radio. That’s why Mackelmore & Iggy Azalea had the top played rap songs everywhere except on actual hip hop stations at one point.
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Macklemore was one of the most embarrassing parts of recent Hip hop history. The fact that his album beat out Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and Jay-Z for a Grammy is one black mark that will haunt the award for as long as it remains relevant. I’m so glad Mackelmore took the hint that the culture didn’t want him and bounced.
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Music fans have labored under the delusion that there is an authentic spark that prompts great artists to rise to the top in every era. In fact, almost every successful artist/group was a packaged product that was coddled and well funded by their labels. Sure, there are surprise hits and the occasional outsider artist that broke through, but they are the rarest of exceptions. For better or worse (mostly worse), record labels have been the primary driving force in the evolution of jazz, rock and roll, pop, hip hop and just about any other genre imaginable. Even in the era of the internet where upstart artists can build a career from absolutely nothing, recording and releasing their own material with the potential to reach millions of fans, the sales numbers from the traditional industry are more robust than ever and are still dictating what comes over the speakers at Target, Chipotle and SoFi Stadium.
(sorry, I can’t seem to find the full version of this)
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I don’t think this is unique to hip hop at all. We look for authenticity in our art everywhere. Certainly you can fake it and market yourself into something you aren’t - sell an image. But the ones who become known as “the best” seem to do so effortlessly and come off as “real”. YMMV
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Damn that Sylvia!
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Can we unpack the idea of “authenticity” though… or inauthentic for that matter?
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rap has lost its edge.
I’m pretty sure Chuck D and his crew covered this territory 30+ years ago.
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Vanilla Ice was not a great rapper, but the playing field was swamped with average rappers in his time just like the music industry was swamped with average and below-average acts since forever. the sin, as said in the video, was in giving a mediocre rapper “the push” solely because he was white. but just before him, MC Hammer had become the all-time highest selling rap act strictly because of packaging: how he danced and dressed and overall image, not anything to do with his entirely forgettable rhyme skills. but I’m not defending VA, he sucked, but if it hadn’t have been him, it would have been some other honky within that same year; the labels wanted a crossover version of Hammer and they were going to make one regardless of who.
what’s funny to me is that if, say, Leaders of the New School or Brand Nubian or Gangstarr had had the idea to loop the intro to Under Pressure first, it would have become instant canon. That loop is so dope, if it was anybody else, you’d still be hearing it in old-school sets along with T.R.O.Y., Scenario, D.W.Y.C.K., Can’t Trust It and all the rest. what a waste.
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I remember a lot of people thought the Beastie Boys were “inauthentic” despite them being there in NYC at places like the Latin Quarter, witnessing and being genuinely into the music and culture.
There was one Doonesbury cartoon where his folksinger character “Jimmie Thudpucker” addresses the notion of “selling out”-- it’s an issue with white musicians, but with black musicians it’s just call “success.”
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IIRC, early in their career, they were really copying Run DMC with their look and vibe, to the point of showing up on stage with Adidas track suits etc. It was when they did their own thing and stopped trying to be something else that they found their own voice and authenticity. And they had a large creative arc. Their growth between Licensed to Ill and Pauls Boutique to Check Your Head was seen in their sound and lyrics.
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And don’t forget, the Beastie Boys started as a punk band
BTW the drummer is Kate Schellenbach who later went on to Luscious Jackson
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I should probably read their recent book, but I thought it began as sort of a joke on their part, the whole “Cookie Puss” single and all. They themselves thought it was kind of phony for a bunch of punkers to be rappers, and the goofball hellraiser frat-boy image was part of their schtick. Which later came back to bite them in the ass.
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Vanilla Ice was just not a very good rapper, as far as skills go, but the beat from “Ice Ice Baby”. . . I still enjoy it.
Back then if you found a good loop and put heavy drums on it, that was half the battle.
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