rejected by hip hop, thus punk

Considering that hip hop derives from African American culture, and that the founders of the genre were African American, is it wrong for white people to attempt to make hip hop music? (Think of some of the more successful white artists and society’s reaction to them-the Beastie Boys, Eminem, Vanilla Ice).

I just thought of something about this question so I guess I’ll blog.

Everyone in class agreed upon that to be ‘right’ for white people to make hip pop music is to have a street credibility, right? So… I guess that’s why most white people are playing punk music and black people are doing hip pop? To me both genres are the same; they are all commenting about the society or struggles that one goes through.

Personally, I don’t agree to the argument that to be a genuine hip pop artiste, one has to have street credibility. Maybe my understanding of street credibility is wrong, feel free to correct me. From my understanding, street credibility is the level of believability of a person based on his experience or knowledge of issues on the street. Most of these experiences that one has to have are all illegal and negative events. So to quality as a hip pop artiste, who has to have a troubled childhood or a history of violence.

Does it mean that only people who have lived in poverty and shot someone know the meaning of suffering and deserve respect? I agree that a person who had such experiences depicts a realistic picture of the society. But to say that a person born in a rich family does not understand these problems is just wrong.

Being born in a rich family does not mean that one is not able to understand the feeling of despair. For example, someone who grew poor is able to tell you how hard it is to break out of poverty and how the society keeps people stuck in that vicious cycle. However a rich kid is also able to tell you the same thing about the society because a privileged life means a life of conformity and suppression. A rich kid does know what it is like to not have freedom, and how suffocating the society is. So why can’t a person born in a rich family rap about police brutality? Can’t one just use police brutality as a metaphor?

but more people would say he can't rap about that, because he has no street credibility..........so...thats why he goes punk......