There is always the underground rapper people enjoy, and you want to see him come up. That's kind of how it is in wrestling.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Wrestling has grown so big... it's almost a culture. And it's a culture of all types of vibes, just like hip-hop has all kinds of vibes and rap has all kinds of vibes.
The roots of rap are originally ghetto-ised or extremely working class. So when you're an artist who's making something which isn't how its mainstream appearance should be, there's always these strange questions of authenticity and what you have to do to be 'real' as a rapper.
I've been a hip hop head forever. So when it turned out that we were gonna start getting celebrity guests for every show, I wanted rap guys from the get-go.
It's kind of beating a dead horse if you're talking about going out and saying wrestling's fake, or this or that. People don't want to hear that. They want to hear, they wanted to find an inside story.
Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.
It doesn't get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing.
Rappers should just be able to perform what they create and satisfy the people that like and love them.
It's certain rappers that can really rap, that really spit all bars, so I understand why someone would say, 'You not a real rapper.' But the main thing is, if you can make good songs, who cares? So I don't know why guys be tripping on Drake. He makes great music. He's dope.
Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.
Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?