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Blurred Reality: Art or Commerce?

© Steve Juon

There is a strong irony at work in the hip-hop industry when an underground label like Rawkus Records takes out ads in major trade magazines that say Mos Def's new album "Black on Both Sides" is "shipping gold".

Firstly, let's be blunt. "Shipping gold" is a term for rappers on No Limit with no talent. It's for the washups who will never sell as many records as Master P or Silkk the Shocker who need some sort of bragging rights; so they claim that they've "shipped gold" to stores across the country. To be RIAA certified as SELLING gold though those albums actually have to cross the sales counter and walk out the door. Albums which DON'T are often shipped BACk to the distributor or dumped in bargain bins. I'd call +that+ "shipping lead."

Secondly, we are living in a rather paradoxical time and era where it's no longer clear what it really means to "keep it real." Even though this phrase has always been somewhat suspect, it takes on a new twist of unreality when so-called underground artists are being promoted in a No Limit-esque fashion in major trade magazines. I'm sure I and a lot of other people genuinely +do+ hope that Mos Def sells a half million or even a million copies of his album. He is a creative and talented artists - a self-styled "ghetto philospher" who turns cold cities into inhaling skylines. Such art deserves commerical and not just critical recognition.

The problem though is a question that Danja Mowf articulated on his album "Word of Mowf" - what happens if underground was the lick and commercial went underground? Would it make any sense? Imagine Mos Def selling Nike and Pepsi. No, don't imagine - recognize. These things are already happening - billboards for jeans and credit card commercials are part of his roster. Of course he was an actor before he got large in rap ("The Cosby Mysteries") but it's still perplexing. We all want to see rap artists who make quality music prosper but at the same time we somehow feel that their music is tainted when they sell millions of records and become pitchmen for soda and fried chicken. Part of that is jealousy, but part of that is also because artists often seem to lose touch creatively when everything they say or do is worshipped by a star-struck media. It's hard to keep a keen edge on your work when a life of glamour and glitz dulls the blade.

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