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[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Thirteen year-old urban black kids listen to much of the same crap as 13 year old suburban white kids, yes. That is unavoidable simply because you cannot escape mainstream music and people in general are programmed to like it.

But what is on the radio is what 13 year old surburban white kids think is authentically urban and black. Thirteen year old urban black kids listen to a lot of local shit, underground mix tapes (unauthorized mixes of established (or not) beats* with established artists and not established artists rapping over them) and whatever their parents listen to (groups like Dead Presidents, Roots, Talib Kweli and other authentic hip hop voices that mainstream will always shun), which surburban white kids don't typically have access to. Also, 13 year old urban black kids buy mainstream hip hop in bootleg form because it's too expensive for them otherwise. So, what drives the mainstream hip hop market really is what labels can sell to a mainstream (read: surbuban, white) audience.

Jay-Z is listened to by everybody.

TM

*Jay-Z always releases his albums without the beats as well, so underground djs can show their creativity with them. And there are always like 500 versions of each of his songs that you hear on the streets in Brooklyn because people make money by creatively re-doing them and selling them for $5 a pop. But only he and a few others can do this because he knows his albums will sell even though there are sometimes better versions to be found elsewhere.

Who is Jay-Z?