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Originally Posted by Rob Instigator
besides the party beats there is also a HUGE undercurrent of crack-slingin' glorification, or at least description of the trap life.
I always try to explain it to my friends that when you are poor, when you grow up without material things to use as status symbols, you use non-material things to prove your worth, such as how many babes you bone, who bones the hottest babe, who sells the most dope, who steals the best car, who has been shot and lived, who went to jail and didn;t punk out. etc. You rap/sing about what you know about.
Those things do not mean shit to most of middle america, regardless of race, because their lives are about material possession without the stress of wanting things you can never have, like buying a new ipad every year, new iphone every year, which car mom and dad will buy you for your 16th birthday, who has the best threads,that mommy paid for.. etc. These people see the current wave of rap and find nothing redeeming in it, but fuck them. it is not for them.
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Dude, what era of the American middle class are you referring to exactly? Because shit... I used to make what I though was a fair amount of money for living in a mid-level city. 40-45k/year tops. Nothing super impressive, but it was a lot more than many of my friends made. But I never had enough money to do the things you're talking about. Not even close. With expenses factored in and student loans and helping my girlfriend through grad school, I was paycheck to paycheck.
The middle class doesn't really exist anymore unless you live in a very small town and make a shit ton of money for that area. I'm talking like, 70k or more in an area with no more than 10,000 people, where the average household income is less than 25.
My parents were college professors and magazine editors and even in the good old '90s, buyinf a new car was a massive decision that required a loan and a conmittement to sticking with said car for 5-10 years.
Maybe I grew up poorer than I remember, but I think you're talking about upper-middle class folks at the very least, if not straight up rich people.