that depends what part of the rap industry you're talking about, if you're talking about someone like dj screw then i'd say his market was almost entirely people from the ghetto, if you're talking about puff daddy, then his market was white women who aren't from the ghetto.

Politics in music can suck my arse for sure, regardless of the nature of the problems.

There's gonna be exceptions, and massive ones when it comes to someone like P Diddy, but I'm talking more generally in terms of the industry as a whole. It's certainly true that major artists like the Wu-Tang, NWA, etc, relied almost exclusively on the college audience in terms of sales.

yeah, but on the other hand wu-tang started out by selling their first single out of the back of their cars.

Hip Hop is a shite medium when it comes to do anything politically releveant, exactly like rock and roll. It has a vague scope of influence that remains exactly that , vague, because it also delves in the oppressive nature of the treatement of people of darker colour than the lighter supremacy in such a simplistic way that becomes too incomplete and irrelevant in the reality of things. Its message is often thought as having a more powerful resonance than effectevely it has.

People do anything everywhere, Wu Tang Clan are great but ultimately irrelevant to any political decision taken by anyone seriously.

the only political band that matters is amen.

"i go to work
i lick your ass
on my way to the top
I'M JUST A LIE
IN MY MIND
I SIT AND LICK
AND COMPROMISE"

see? Brilliant.

my point was that without first gaining support in poor neighbourhoods in new york wu-tang probably wouldn't have been able to break through into the mainstream, where as this was not the case at all with puff daddy, he bank rolled himself to fame and success. i wasn't really making any point about politics.

isn't the guy from amen the son of a multi-millionaire?
i.e. that song is not about politics but about his own oedipus complex.