>> For so long hip hop culture has been the culture of poor people. The art of beta culture. An oddity that voices the raw emotion of the poor, and that glorifies the suboptimal traits that keeps poor people from mobilizing up the ladder in society. To outsiders, that’s all it is. But by using his voice and stage to elevate rap as a useful medium for informing business, it is creating a legitimacy in the business world for this culture and those that come from it.
This is problematic and untrue. There is a great deal of sophistication and cultural consciousness in hip hop and it certainly has its share of successful businesspeople. Sean Combs (formerly Puff Daddy), Jay-Z and Dr. Dre come to mind immediately.
That's only 3 people and they have all come up as entertainers first. Why entertainers first?
I agree that hip hop is packed with sophistication and cultural consciousness, but hordes of young wealthy teens listen to rap music almost exclusively as entertainment. They often don't parse the emotional and powerful context of the lyrics - as they are often tied to racial, social, and financial issues they have never had to deal with. They often listen to it as outsiders in that regard.
By prefacing his posts with lyrics, Ben is focusing on the good parts of rap music - hustle and determination - as opposed traditional media which very rarely does that. In that regard he is "legitimizing" rap in the eyes of many people, or at least opening up their eyes and mind in a positive manner.
Excluding entertainers - if you look at CEOs, executives, tech startups - I think what he's saying is extremely evident. It's also especially strange how few there are considering how influential hip hop culture is in current youth culture, and how influential African American culture has been in the history of America.
Are investors rational decision makers? or gate keepers? It's hard to say in a system he so eloquently and accurately described in the first few paragraphs, and where so few companies actually get funded.
There is a great deal of sophistication and cultural consciousness in hip hop and it certainly has its share of successful businesspeople.
This is not in contradiction with your quote.
Sean Combs (formerly Puff Daddy), Jay-Z and Dr. Dre come to mind immediately.
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding your point, but all three artists reached business success through hiphop. Jay-Z was selling mixtapes out of his car to get enough recognition to release Reasonable Doubt.
Jay-Z is fairly well known to have reached considerable wealth prior to Reasonable Doubt. The 'Classic Albums: Reasonable Doubt' doc covers this quite well. The route of selling 'In My Lifetime' out of his car was one in turn that he escaped.
This is problematic and untrue. There is a great deal of sophistication and cultural consciousness in hip hop and it certainly has its share of successful businesspeople. Sean Combs (formerly Puff Daddy), Jay-Z and Dr. Dre come to mind immediately.