Street Cred
 

Rap's been described as the "Music of the streets", and most songs i've heard deal with violence, hustling, ect. Is it possible to suceed in rap, without having lived on the streets, shot a gun or sold prostitutes? Do you really need these things to qualify as an artist?

Depends what your target audience is. I mean you can do a song with J-Lo and say "I'm Reeeeeal" and your not.

Or you can NOT rap about shoot'n people, and still be about the streets. Try to compare peeps like

J-Live/Jay-Z = both ill rappers, totally different audience, both from the street.

I just think, if rappers are sayin 'i shot some muthafucker and sold drugs and shit' then it makes it more interestin and it sells more records.

I bet most of the rappers sayin they've shot somebody actually havnt, they just wanna make loads of money by sayin it

Real gangsta's are people who don't claim to be gangsta.

I ain't on your dick or nothing but damn,m you speak'n the truth.

is it THAT COOL to shoot someone. My God, Lord help me if I have to blow someones head off for any reason. That shit's just retarded. Anyone with street cred don't get put in higher level than anyone with lyrical talent. Or at least they shouldn't

Actually I think it's cooler to be shot nowadays than to actually shoot someone :rolleyes:

I mean everybody knows the prime example of this...and he's the coolest mother fucker on the planet "apparently"...well according to his record sales anyway.

Duh, you aren't cool if you sell records. your only cool until you sell a record. Once you sell THAT record, your mainstream, no longer underground,. and you've sold out to corperate America.

But everyone in the mainstream is sooooooooo cool.

You hurt my feelings dangit :(

i agree with canuck, it depends what ya targert audience is, jus look at Will Smith is target audience is like 12 to 15 year olds and he dont cus in his tracks either

canuck u are speaking the truth.(no d/r)
y shud i kill some1 jus so ppl out there will go he's dope to watever i bring to the game. rappers shud be crdited on flow, lyrics, the way they construct sentences to make them the best ever, apparently 50 dnt belong here, coz to me he's another manufacturerd bitch.
the game is fucked and ppl see it from different sides, its jus how u view it which makes the game unique for every 1 whose ever listened to a track.

it just depends on how you sayin it..most rapper prolly
sold drugs, but killin naw!

who cares most rappers are full of shit anyway, they all have the same exact storys and most of the time their story is bullshit made up to sell records. as long as it isnt vinallia ice claming ghetto when hes from suburbs i dont care.

if i gave a damn about street cred i wouldnt listen to guys like mos def.

who cares if you sold drugs or got shot that doesnt make your music dope.

Thas speaking the truth right there.. There should be nomore post

It depends... for me, credibility means truth. If your telling the truth, then you deserve all the credit you get, if you make good music. And your making crappy music, and lying to sell records, then you don't deserve credibility.

For example, Nelly had two proffessional baseball contracts before he started rapping, and he preaches his thug mentality, his drug hustling, his "thugness" on most of his music. His music just happens to be over-produced pop garbage.

Then we got Immortal Technique, who tells stories that people can relate to, talks about real issues like government and politics, whilst preaching that he had to hustle to stay alive. He also happens to be a great lyricist in terms of vocabulary and poetry, and his flow is awesome. He has a mic presence. He came from a poor country in South America, and most likely struggled in the American ghettos to survive because he didnt have much money as a child.

Immortal Technique = truth + skill

Nelly = fake image + no skill

Immortal Technique gets credibility, Nelly doesn't.

most rappers get there original funding selling drugs where they live until they got in a financial position to get studio time and market themselves.alot get shot or put in jail before they get an oppurtunity to sell records and that gives them the sense of street cred that the hip hop world looks for these days-1

Re: Street Cred
 

An Opinion Of An "Artist" Is In The
Eye Of The Beholder...

i think if you spitting that hot shit on wax...talking about you.. don't give a fuck... you ain't scared of shit.... kats in tha street are defintly going to test your gangsta...

and for some reason, ppl live and thrive to see that shit happen.


and from my evaluations...you going to need some type of gimmick, to be noticed..cause everybody thinks they can rhyme now.


most go for the killer/hustler edge for the relations values...plus the bad boy image. it sells like sex. you don't have to ... but if you wanna get notcied.. controversy is like the only way to go.

^ but see, you dont HAVE to be a thug to be a good rapper. Canibus has gone to college, never talks gangsta crap, is basically a net nerd and writes words most ppl need a science textbook to understand. Yet he is one of the greatest lyricists ever because of his complexity in rhymes, vocab and poetry... he also has a hot flow

But yeah, its obvious he doesnt have much street credit, since he doenst really make "street" rap. He makes intellectual rap.

^ read my post again.

never said anything on being a good rapper.

my post was based on ... street cred.. and going for the top of the charts sales.

But yeah, its obvious he doesnt have much street credit, since he doenst really make "street" rap. He makes intellectual rap.

I wasnt talking about street cred up until that point. I know what your getting at, i was just mentioning that canibus is a good rapper yet has little credibility because of his style.

^ wow your first post was a freepost. we can expect great things from you, a great contribution to RB's growth.

And it is possible to succeed in rap without having shot people etc. Look at chingy, he just chucks a stupid catch phrase and flows over an irritating club beat and BAM! you got a platinum record

How many niggaz who will actually kill still rhymin?
How many niggaz who are actually signed still killin? ..
.. and when it comes to killin a mic, they ain’t willin
And I’m supposed to be shook? that’s the shit that kills me

-Pharoahe Monch:Ghost Weed Interlude from De La Soul's Art Official Intelligence-

Truer words were never spoken.

ll cool J was from the burbs apparently, but i dont know he got any street cred,

he might of had some when he battled alot???

can has street cred.. because he's from it. he known to approach kats and battle them right there on a corner.

you don't need to be a criminal to have street cred. you just have to be in the streets.

i'm from the suburbs... my life has totally sucked up to now partly from my longtime girlfriend dying, which made me not give a fuck in school, grades fell, "not givin a fuck" attitude towards everything ect... i've never lived the street life but I think people will listen to what I have to say and what i've been through... what's your thought's on that?

I think if you rap about what you know, and it's sincere and heartfelt, cats will feel you. As long as you bring skill to the table also. I'm not clowning at all, but I think you might be a little suspect in the sincerity department considering you just said you're from the burbs, but your name is 9mm.

It's alot of artist have made a conferable living not making 'street' records....

You got poeple who ain't from the streets and don't make street songs like the Atmopheres and the Def Jux people and all that...

You got the people that ARE from the streets but DON"T make street music, like the party/ladies shit like the Loons and Fabolous cats and the artisic shit like the Kwelis, Commons and Little Brothers....

To real keep it for real, alot of poeple from the street DON't WANT to talk about shoot, killin', and glorfiing shit and if they do the moral reasons/political awarness for them sayin that is always tooken out or edited out.....its those bitch ass A&R and record companies that make the rappers talk, say and act a certain way to sell. ANd most of the movers and shakers that tell the artist to 'act street' ain;t even from the streets at all...

High-Ku my name is "Nine Millimeter" cause I taken 2 Co2 powered guns into school one day... I was selling one and showing the other off cause it was really dope... anyways the teachers caught me and I was supended... so people started callin me "nine", one of the guns was a 9MM, then when I got into rapping I make it full to "Nine Millimeter"... I think thats a dope name for rap anyways... there that's that sorted!

also a lot of you have good points on this topic :thumbup:

^ i like your avatar

anyway, if what you say is true, you could easily have credibility... as long as u had skills as well... it doesnt matter about who you are or what you've done.. it only matters if you bring truth and meaning with skills

If i heard a song about how someone found a 15c on the ground on their way home from the corner shop, and it was lyrically tight with a nice story... i'd listen to that anyday rather than hearing about how your gonna pop a cap in my ass and smoke weed

like everyone else has said, gangsta sells theres no doubt about it. Whether its true or not is another story. Id much rather hear a tight flow with a bad beat than a sorry flow on a played out (popular) beat. Least then i know the artist has skills just the production sucks. Ive lived all my life in a ok part of the city, we were just about middle class. But ive seen it all here too, and i know a few rappers that came up around here made their studio payments from hustlin, a lot of cats who dont get educations and dont know a trade other than hustlin and rappin make their money off sellin drugs cause its what they were brought up around, so all i have to say is that i can understand on the first album talkin about fights, drugs and the everyday hustle but once you make a million dollars, shut the fuck up about it cause when you move in to your million dollar house with 5 trucks on 24's you aint got no reason to rap about the shit you dont do no more cause its faded like most of the rappers end up being.

^ very true.... but it all depends how you do it... if you can reminise your past without sounding all gangsta, then its ok...

hmm.....i think you only really need street cred for 'gangsta rap'...but what is gangsta rap? and why do we care....i mean like g said you are going to have to do something to get noticed....but what kind of artist would you be if you made up an image just to be heard? stay true to you fuck street cred if you deserve to be on you will be simple as that.

^^ yea totally... I deffently aint gangsta, I like guns and shit, collecting them, shooting targets and shit... but i've been doing that from the age of 11... I didnt even know about drugs, crime, ect back then... I love guns but i'm not going to go out killing people... and yea with rapping, I used to write a bunch of shit about killing people, but not in the last 6 months I havn't, I write about my problems... btw my 16 track mixtape is coming up, haha

*cosigns* If your hated but listeners love you it multiplies your gangsta-ness but shooting people is almos expected, its not new, who cares? u can kill a nigga, so can anyone else but if a nigga tries to kill you, wow your the man...Everyone loves the hated but hate a hater, 1luv.

^ sad but true