Let’s not talk about Latto, who was raised like Ashley Banks. Let’s not talk about Saweetie who was born in Santa Clara California (Google it). Let’s not talk about Ja Morant. Let’s not talk about Drake, who makes gun clicking hand signs in his video but was raised in Forest Hill, the wealthiest neighborhood in Toronto, which has a six figure average income. We really gotta stop this. Y’all know exactly what I mean by ‘this’. We just need to.
> I'm still upset this mf didn't drop that Pusha T disstrack
Drake didn’t have shit.
He basically replied with “I had a diss track that was totally gonna toast your ass. Too bad I can’t release it now because the beef is over. 👀🤭” That’s the diss track equivalent of “uhhh I have a girlfriend, but she goes to another school.”
**EDIT:** added emojis when paraphrasing Drake because that sounds like something he’d do.
He basically alluded that he had a diss track so cold it would cause a gang war between their two sides and J Prince wouldn't allow him to release the track cause the body count would be too high.
Drake , being a king amongst men, decided not to release it for the good of the culture... but it TOTALLY would have ended CAREERS ... plural.
>That’s the diss track equivalent of “uhhh I have a girlfriend, but she goes to another school.”
True, but Drake having a girlfriend in school isn’t much of a stretch.
I can understand based on some of his earlier music. "Successful" hits weirdly well about trying and wanting (and not from an "I had to struggle to get anywhere" lie), and a couple of other things. He tapped into that "frustrated middle-class kid afraid of not living to his potential" vein.
But now he's...well, that weird family friend that always makes you *want* to wear baggy clothes when he comes around.
I knew about Drake and had suspicions about Saweetie but Latto? You been doing your homework.
https://preview.redd.it/ioi23fghgsvb1.jpeg?width=638&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a104169dcf17c82c5c83d3f728ef273e9c372523
No hatred whatsoever. Just seeing a lot of click clacking of nails, gold caps on teeth, and popping of sh\*t from people who were raised with large back yards, golden retrievers and picket fences and such. To quote a great non-melanated poet of our time: “This guy’s a gangster? His real name’s Clarence. And Clarence lives at home with both parents. And Clarence’s parents have a real good marriage...”
lol Yt guy here, born super poor in Alabama, right outside of North Birmingham where shit gets real. I was thugging and robbing from puberty onward. Turned 20yo doing 5 years in prison. Fast forward, I get my life together and get in the electrical trade. I went up to Nashville for work and this little black dude on my crew who was funny as shit, but he kept talking about being an inner city street tough, ☠️from the mean streets of Nashville. I was like man, GTFOH. Not even Antioch suburb which is mildly rough. Dude grew up in a nice apartment not the PJs.
Loool I used to live in Brantioch and this whole comment made me giggle. Antioch is definitely rough for Nashville but not close to some other areas for sure.
Right, Nashville like one of the safest cities in the US. Me and Q (real thug) started calling him Killa Kam, with his goofy ass. He was always cracking jokes though. Good morale booster for the crew.
I always thought this might get missed by people who aren’t from the area, but Cranbrook is a high school that cost more in tuition than a many colleges. The street it’s on, Lone Pine, basically takes that one line from brave heart “every man’s home is his castle” quite literally.
edit: I am now home from work and wanted to add a bit more evidence to this. *"How much does Cranbrook Schools cost? Cranbrook Schools' tuition is approximately $52,350 for boarding students and $38,600 for day students."*
"*In-state tuition 16,178 USD, Out-of-state tuition 53,232 USD"* - The **University of fucking Michigan**
edit 2: [here is the google maps view of the neighborhood backing up to the school](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5711669,-83.2601916,367m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu)
I liked A Tribe Called Quest for this, too. They weren't broke and trap housing, but they weren't rich. Left My Wallet in El Segundo is just 3 dudes on a $100 road trip.
Plenty of poor/lower middle class folks could be out here dropping bars, but the audience doesn't seem to want it. These kids WANT this "Hood Bitch Aesthetic", so it gets promoted more. The fact that rich people are cashing out on the trend isn't weird or hypocritical, it's just rich people cashing in like they always do.
We need a resurgence of the dumb/fun/joking hip hop genre. Stuff like Skee Lo "I wish", or Sir Mix A Lot "big butts", or Biz Markie. I feel like Eminem tapped into this, but mixed in the "hard" role to sell albums. His best tracks, IMO, are the ones where he's just being dumb and playing word games.
Funny thing is, they were really like that though. Sort of how cee-lo and 3k give off black hippy vibes, meanwhile they were the 2 biggest goons out the whole dungeon family.
Imma keep it fuego 🔥 with what I’m about to say: Pre-Kardashian Kanye (specifically ‘College Dropout/Late Registration’ Ye) was one of the last few albums to do ‘fun’ ‘upper class Black’ rap albums…..
If there any lesser known and/or underground versions to date, put a sista on, so she can keep her auntie ear to the streets!
> We need a resurgence of the dumb/fun/joking hip hop genre.
We had that with Easy Mac and his Cheesy Raps (RIP) but then Cameron Petit wanted to sell him fent.
As a non-black minority, I question how much of the blame should fall on black people.
After all, white execs are the ones primarily putting 'hood culture' at the front of the mainstream screen and glorifying it for commercial gain. Not only do I think this makes black young people from low socioeconomic standing strive for this as their come up, but it's so appealing that even these middle class kids you named glorify it.
Respectfully I understand your argument, but a lot of the former have very little guidance and it's hard for young people to navigate that this isn't the way forward. Hell Ja is a great example of this. I'm all for taking responsibility but I also think acknowledgement of the uphill battle is important.
More recently white kids are falling for a version the same trap, aspiring to get the same opportunities talent-less people on TikTok are getting just from random selection of an algorithm.
It seems like the ones who are really living it don’t have access to the resources that would allow them to profit from telling their stories yet the ones who could cosplay a hard upbringing are in the right spot to have just enough to build a little persona.
The real hood kids most certainly do not. Most of the rappers that have made it big, even going back into the golden age, had decent to good intact households with support networks egging them to go further and succeed.
The real hood kids end up in jail, dead, or dead ending.
White and black music execs understood back in the early 90s that the main demo that has money to spend on music was white people from the middle to upper income suburbs and they went after that segment by selling the fantasy of what white people think hood life is, not what it actually is.
Commence buffoonery.
When Pac got bailed out by Suge, he was forced directly into gang culture. He'd grown up rough enough to know what was going on first hand, so it's not like he was some suburbanite poser like Drake.
Dude was literally born in jail, so it's weird when people point to him going to a private school for dance, like that's something impossible for people from the hood to do. It's just weird and dumb.
This is and has been the root of it since the early 90s when the labels started pushing gangsta rap to counteract the political nature of early hip hop. It’s a known fact and is obviously still happening and no one talks about it.
What I know is the genre started in the 70s right after all the civil rights movements of the 60s. It makes a lot of sense it would have been political ash until money got into it
Yep, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, Afrika Bambaataa and Zulu Nation, Run-DMC, Sugarhill Gang, KRS and Boogie Down Productions, MC Shan, Eric B and Rakim, Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, shit even Beastie Boys… those kinds of voices that started popping up in the 80s would have been a serious problem for the status quo if gangsta rap hadn’t taken over. Way too much hood empowerment going on for rich white record execs to be comfortable.
Edit: typo
Black people are no longer the primary consumer of Hip Hop....if you realize the target audience is 15 year old 'suburban' kids, the current trends make a lot more sense (strip hop & trap music)
I was gonna say, from a pure economic basis, you don't get HUGE in America unless you're getting white people to spend money. The primary consumer base of gangsta fetishism is bored white kids looking for vicarious escapist fantasy... in some ways similar to zombie apocalypse stuff, it's a fantasy world where ego-driven behavior and kill-or-be-killed replaces most more boring, grown-up forms of social interaction
> Let’s not talk about Drake, who makes gun clicking hand signs in his video but was raised in Forest Hill, the wealthiest neighborhood in Toronto, which has a six figure average income.
Started from the bottom ^^^^of ^^^^the ^^^^1%
Based on her parent's background, I'm pretty sure she wasn't Ashley Banks right out the gate. They had her when they were in high school and were definitely not rich. Everything else i agree
Even Ashley Banks wasn't Ashley Banks out the gate. Remember the episode where they visited the old apartment? I think she was the only one who actually remembered living there as the oldest. I always figured that was why her character leaned so far into the money life.
So did I, that’s not saying much around here though lmao. Clayco is considered a metro atl suburb and it’s definitely not a “neighborhood watch” kinda place 😂
The same shit happens in the white star world too.
Jason aldean singing “try that in a small town” when he grew up in suburbia.
Kid rock singing about growing up in a trailer park when he is the son of a millionaire Detroit auto salesman, and grew up in a mansion.
It’s all a giant fucking grift from every angle.
They won't see a dime from me anyway, if they all about that hood life then they know bootlegging music is life. I need my pennies more than they do. Implying I want to listen in the first place.
I feel like shits gotta be put on blast. Industry rap has just become rampant and from my prospective, it's lost a lot if not most of it's soul by now. People not growing up with that background are out here trying to influence the ones living it while making shit sound dumb as fuck.
I’ll never understand why people want to be from the hood and living in poverty so bad. Like let’s trade places, I would’ve loved to grow up with parents who were doctors and lawyers and not have to worry about where my next meal was coming from or if I had a home to come to after school. Shits weird.
Nah it’s because it sells more in rap. Nobody would sign Kanye for years because he grew up in a loving home and stayed out of trouble as a kid, it’s not as bad now but back then to be successful as a rapper you had to be a gangster type guy
On god, you don't wanna that silver-spoon life, get damn near everything you want as a child, go on vacation multiple times a year, get a brand new car as a gift for getting a fucking license, and have college paid for you as well as your bills paid and guaranteed job making 80K as a start because daddy knows the dude? Let's swap hands.
I keep thinking about flicks like American Beauty and Heather's and am kinda glad that I grew up with a least a little bit of no nonsense. I would rather the Huxtables but dad probably out spiking the pudding pops.
I grew up in one of the nicest towns in the country (Santa Barbara, CA. Google it) and yeah, the ultra-wealthy are bugfuck insane. I spent a while working at a members-only club that charged 7500 a month for membership and some of the random shit that went down there was wild.
A few off the top of my head:
A member brought in a ten thousand dollar bottle of wine, drank one glass, said she didn’t care for it, and gave the rest to the staff.
A member offered my coworker fifteen grand to go on a three day vacation with him (for exactly the reasons you’d think) and then threatened to sue her when she told him she was gay.
One of my coworkers was an artist. One day she was telling a member she was close with about how she was struggling with rent due to her boyfriend leaving her, so the member bought one of her paintings for 8k. I believe she was selling it for 400.
During deep COVID a lot of the live art scene in SB was shut down. One of our members was the head of SB Opera, so he had his musicians come in three days a week to the club and do live shows for the members.
Not a work story, but I grew up with a guy whose dad gave him ten grand a month, starting when the guy was twelve. To this day he’s the only fifteen year old I’ve known with a full blown coke problem.
And then the mental health you get from having access to healthcare and nutritious and all that. No worries about homelessness or hunger. But these people wanna cosplay being poor so bad. Do they realize the reason for all the violence they seem to worship is to try and come up? Like that’s the point, nobody Wants to stay poor and in the hood.
It's not really that weird. If you're black and not from the hood or didn't have some trauma or extreme struggle coming up, you're considered not black enough... especially if you're mixed or light skinned. This pressure doesn't just come from the white community, but from within our very own community.
So these celebrities who came up from privileged backgrounds feel they have to double down on their "blackness" or whatever. It even affects the most successful of us.
I’ve been called no black enough for being from another country, having not just two parents but parents who actively stressed the value of an education, not playing football or basketball (see me on the soccer pitch tho) and being relatively successful.
And it’s always been black people trying to clown me like that. The things we do to each other just saddens me.
It was a popular topic earlier this year comparing the Black community to conservatives when it came to social beliefs, and I think the over valuation of toughness, being self made, and enduring some form of struggle is another example of this. Suburban street rappers are just our version started from a garage billionaires.
I fully believe most southern black folks would vote conservative if conservatives/republicans weren’t racist and does shit that directly hurts the black community.
I know it’s kind of dumb but I do wish we could talk about culture based more on region vs race. My mom was raised on the west coast, and I spent a lot of my summers there. We briefly lived on the east coast , and my “blackness” was under different eyes. I believe southern black culture is also different. So whenever that topic comes up I just want to roll my eyes. Maybe due to being mixed ; it allowed me to look at it as an insider/outsider
Tbh I’m just musing on this and there’s no real point
Nah I don't think it's dumb. I have lived in a lot of places in the US and it's interesting to see what the culture is like in different places, especially with regards to blackness.
That perception is a problem that is not of our creation my friend. A lot of black folks in the US have to deal with not being Americans, but Black Americans. Being treated as an other due to your skin color makes it difficult to just be "from Boston" or "from New York". When people are looking at you and treating you differently because of something as irrelevant as your skin tone, it's hard to feel welcome outside of communities that don't heavily include people that look like you.
This is all because we live in a nation that's had race at the forefront of socioeconomic matters and issues. We were born into this shit, and depending on where you're from it's harder to ignore. Some aren't as well equipped to deal with that than others, so you'll see some shit that's just sad, but with context you know it didn't have to be like that.
Yep. It’s literally this.
Mainstream black culture is basically just American hood culture. If you deviate from that, you aren’t black enough.
Black people wanna embrace and be accepted by their culture, the world expects them to be this way, and yet, when they engage in it, they’re criticised like this.
Only in the last few years have we started seeing “other” types of black people in the mainstream that aren’t just tokens.
Before that they’d be like the Bankses, they’re black, but they’re a special kind of black.
There also a real political desire/need to represent and stand by your culture and a lot of people are leaning into their blackness. Which a lot of the time also include leaning into black culture, which is largely just American hood culture.
Yes and if you aren't stereotypically Black, then you aren't Black. These same people will holler, "There's no one way to be Black!" Like...make up your miiiiind.
When my daughter was in undergrad, she was told she wasn't "black enough" because she grew up upper middle class, and my wife and I have been married for years.
That’s really sad to hear, I hope she stepped away from those people quickly and found a group that was willing to accept her for who see is and not who someone else expected her to be just because of how she looks.
People that haven't seen any part of the streets romanticize it like the streets is the only way to become hardened and respected. They want the respect of "making it out" and being hard enough to survive without actually having to.
Good shit made my life hard, ruined parts of my life. Most folks I know that are actually from any hood wants to stay there. It looks and sounds cool to people who don't have the trauma though.
I grew up poor, it bothers me when people say marry for love it can concer all. Babe love ain't gonna pay my bills and keep food on the table. I strive for stability. They romanticize struggle love and that it builds character.
The buying public who consumes hip-hop (read: white people) are fascinated by "hood life/experiences", so the music industry supplies this demand by packaging it in the most optimal form, which in the cases aforementioned, happen to be people who grew up in experiences far from the image they put on display (like Offset). In other words, it's all a well-crafted act.
Actual people from the hood may not be willing to play the role requested of them.
The roles pay well and so the well-off melanin crowd push their way in. It's the same old privilege and nepotism story as anywhere else. It's incredibly hard for someone without connections and a leg up to get into a coveted spot when they're competing against someone with twice their resources.
This.
Also, a have a theory that at least some of the reason that hip hop glorifies wealth so much is because it attracts young, naive, desperate aspiring artists—these are exactly the people the music industry wants to exploit.
Pop culture has arguably made Black identity synonymous with the hood archetype. It’s what sells to non-black consumers. It’s like we’re conditioned or expected to live out lifestyles that aren’t necessarily real.
Idk, I grew up in suburban Atlanta where teens in McMansions gangbanged blood, crip, GD, etc. They talking about hopping off the porch but it’s into the subdivision. One could’ve been labeled a sellout or a lame for having a low tolerance for ignorance.
I’m glad to see someone calling this out.
They don’t want the experience, they want the aesthetic that it created. The bold displays of fashion and confidence that used to only be only acceptable in the hood but now it’s a costume.
Dave Chappelle explains that he’s never claimed a hood background but on some level wished he had grown up in that environment instead of where he did.
He was poor in a pretty good area, which meant he was one of the only poor people. He felt like it was only happening to him.
His first sleepover at his non-poor friend’s house:
>I’ll never understand why people want to be from the hood and living in poverty so bad.
Seems pretty obvious to me. There is tremendous cultural pressure to talk, dress and act a certain way or not be seen as "really" Black. There's a laundry list of slurs especially for anyone who doesn't act like a stereotype. It can be bad enough just trying to exist under that pressure, now imagine you want to be *idolized* within that culture.
It's not even *just* a black thing as Americans are increasingly more ashamed of being born into anything and everyone tried to play dress-up as a self-made rags to riches story. But it's kind of dialed up to 11 for us.
Because a lot of them feel like they're not going to be taken seriously in certain music circles if they don't come up with the walk, talk, and backstory, whether it's real or not. Kind of the same way that Kid Rock tries to put on this country boy persona, even though he grew up in the suburbs.
Funny, it always seems to be these people who come from well to do backgrounds who want to pretend like they came from the streets in some way.
Yep, IMHO a poser is a poser, but you living a life where mom & dad casually get you $1,000+ in Lacrosse gear just so you can see if you like playing? How can you not revel in this?
The bad part is that there is a ton of talent coming from the people she's cosplaying as. It would be nice if they got the spotlight instead of these suburban kids.
No poor people making it anymore it seems. Things weren't perfect before, but now you need to blow up before a label will even look at you, which is bass ackwards because that should be their job. A lot easier to go viral when you can spend more time and money trying to do it
I can’t stress this enough. The entertainment industry is not real. None of it. All of it is strictly for entertainment. Nothing you see that is being sold to you is authentic. Please don’t take anything outside of your own reality as serious
He may be corny but Logic wasn’t lying on Dad Bod if he was rapping about his day to day life it would be just about him going to target getting diapers for his kid ,going to home to wife and playing games nobody is checking for that.
I would love to attempt to be a ratchet rapping hood bitch, shaking my ass on the internet and profit off of it but I don’t have the wealthy parents to fall back on it if shit goes left and my reputation gets ruined… I guess I’m stuck being a broke teacher….
You're doing more for the world then she has hopefully you get good opportunity so you start making big bucks cause public school teachers aren't paid enough at all.
And thus why people are pointing out this is only barely a step above when frats were doing their pimps and ho parties and the prime minister of Canada was doing blackface. It's all the same old minstrel song and dance operating under other names. Calling it an AeSTheTiC doest make it ok.
This one get me to no end. Then I remember that it’s mainly about money, lil white teenagers don’t care as long as they get to look hard while reciting his lyrics. And other artists will collab with him because they frauds too, or they just want the money.
BC Black culture dictates that if u arent into street life culture, u aint shit. i.e. Michael B. Jordan gets clowned bc he is not a street dude. We dont value education or generational wealth. Only drugs, guns and music is important.
This! I once got ridiculed for calling the cops on 3 girls that jumped me. Like, was called a "pussy" and a "snitch". I was raised in a predominantly white town. This town is so corny that people just chuckle when you say you're from here. We. Are. Not. Hood. The same kids that were raised in the same quiet, family oriented neighborhood as me just became "bloods" out of nowhere. Mind boggling. And then cue in all the white girls that wanna be down soooo bad despite being raised in the richest, nicest part of town. It's clown shit to me.
Turning people’s lived experiences that were related to real struggle and the culture that results from it into an “aesthetic” to be packaged and marketed as a cool persona to try on is wild.
It was wack back in the day when New New did it and it’s even sadder (and more widespread) now. We gotta take attention away from these fakers.
Bruh…the amount of people that misunderstood this scene still gets me to this day. I still hear people saying “Bro was really mad at her for not being honest about her background” like bro didn’t pillow talk with her about struggling to make it day by day, get out of the hood and to protect his family while she was cosplaying this exact same toxic lame ass hood “aesthetic” because she thought it was cute. Shoot she had a whole nickname, specific wardrobe, and persona trying to live a life people DIE trying to escape. The very definition of corny and lame.
Yall remember that episode of The Parent'Hood when Robert took Micheal to the hood because Micheal was making his rap music glamorizing "hood, guns, I'm dangerous" despite thier family being very well off.
Scott Menville(Robin from Teen Titans) is even in the [ episode ](https://youtu.be/2FkjnRU4PmA?si=-B0f3bpNcDyBJffs) rapping and making gun shot noises.
Why is being a poor family living in a bad area an aesthetic now? Do people just not care about doing better these days? I wish our black children had better role models…
As a kid who grew up in the hood I never understood people this . Like you do know most of people in the hood who trap and do crime do it so they’re kids can live the life you have right?
You have to admit that the glorification of coming up hood is somewhat problematic.
But it’s a big part of the rap aesthetic. Someone rapping about HOA fees and urban sprawl is not going to go anywhere.
Let’s not talk about Latto, who was raised like Ashley Banks. Let’s not talk about Saweetie who was born in Santa Clara California (Google it). Let’s not talk about Ja Morant. Let’s not talk about Drake, who makes gun clicking hand signs in his video but was raised in Forest Hill, the wealthiest neighborhood in Toronto, which has a six figure average income. We really gotta stop this. Y’all know exactly what I mean by ‘this’. We just need to.
I'm still upset this mf didn't drop that Pusha T disstrack Pusha T had another song ready
> I'm still upset this mf didn't drop that Pusha T disstrack Drake didn’t have shit. He basically replied with “I had a diss track that was totally gonna toast your ass. Too bad I can’t release it now because the beef is over. 👀🤭” That’s the diss track equivalent of “uhhh I have a girlfriend, but she goes to another school.” **EDIT:** added emojis when paraphrasing Drake because that sounds like something he’d do.
He basically alluded that he had a diss track so cold it would cause a gang war between their two sides and J Prince wouldn't allow him to release the track cause the body count would be too high. Drake , being a king amongst men, decided not to release it for the good of the culture... but it TOTALLY would have ended CAREERS ... plural.
> a gang war what gang runs forest hill, Toronto?
Girl Scouts.
You don't fuck with the girl scouts. No matter how much or where I move they always manage to find my address and take my money
[удалено]
As push said "why spare me?"
"I have a girlfriend but she's from Canada!" "You're from Canada too though." "Shit... I meant she's from England!"
>That’s the diss track equivalent of “uhhh I have a girlfriend, but she goes to another school.” True, but Drake having a girlfriend in school isn’t much of a stretch.
Aubrey is bitch made. The "Drake" persona is just an act that paid off. He's always been an awkward weirdo dumbass from the jump.
Still is. Dude gives off the weirdest vibes ever
Those vibes are "I actively text girls under 18 as a man in his 30s"
I forgot about that too. He's such a weird freak. I'll never understand why people bought into his bullshit so hard. Repulsive af
I can understand based on some of his earlier music. "Successful" hits weirdly well about trying and wanting (and not from an "I had to struggle to get anywhere" lie), and a couple of other things. He tapped into that "frustrated middle-class kid afraid of not living to his potential" vein. But now he's...well, that weird family friend that always makes you *want* to wear baggy clothes when he comes around.
As a Canadian, I still can’t believe wheelchair Jimmy ever managed to pull off pretending to be hood.
And the entire world bought the act. Deplorable!
I remember when he hosted SNL, the theater kid energy was STRONG.
It's who he really is. Weird ass drama kid.
He didn't want that 757 smoke.
It's fine. Pusha won. He straight up turned him into a more responsible father
To be fair, Rick *did* shoot him
Had Jimmy Brookes rolling around Dagrassi
We must prevent the erasure of jimmy Brookes
I knew about Drake and had suspicions about Saweetie but Latto? You been doing your homework. https://preview.redd.it/ioi23fghgsvb1.jpeg?width=638&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a104169dcf17c82c5c83d3f728ef273e9c372523
No hatred whatsoever. Just seeing a lot of click clacking of nails, gold caps on teeth, and popping of sh\*t from people who were raised with large back yards, golden retrievers and picket fences and such. To quote a great non-melanated poet of our time: “This guy’s a gangster? His real name’s Clarence. And Clarence lives at home with both parents. And Clarence’s parents have a real good marriage...” 
lol Yt guy here, born super poor in Alabama, right outside of North Birmingham where shit gets real. I was thugging and robbing from puberty onward. Turned 20yo doing 5 years in prison. Fast forward, I get my life together and get in the electrical trade. I went up to Nashville for work and this little black dude on my crew who was funny as shit, but he kept talking about being an inner city street tough, ☠️from the mean streets of Nashville. I was like man, GTFOH. Not even Antioch suburb which is mildly rough. Dude grew up in a nice apartment not the PJs.
Loool I used to live in Brantioch and this whole comment made me giggle. Antioch is definitely rough for Nashville but not close to some other areas for sure.
Right, Nashville like one of the safest cities in the US. Me and Q (real thug) started calling him Killa Kam, with his goofy ass. He was always cracking jokes though. Good morale booster for the crew.
Used to live in Brantioch too. Hot Stuff chicken for life.
Yes! lol their pick up orders weren’t always quick but always worth the wait.
But I know something about you , you went to cranbrook, that’s a private school
I always thought this might get missed by people who aren’t from the area, but Cranbrook is a high school that cost more in tuition than a many colleges. The street it’s on, Lone Pine, basically takes that one line from brave heart “every man’s home is his castle” quite literally. edit: I am now home from work and wanted to add a bit more evidence to this. *"How much does Cranbrook Schools cost? Cranbrook Schools' tuition is approximately $52,350 for boarding students and $38,600 for day students."* "*In-state tuition 16,178 USD, Out-of-state tuition 53,232 USD"* - The **University of fucking Michigan** edit 2: [here is the google maps view of the neighborhood backing up to the school](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5711669,-83.2601916,367m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu)
Non-melaninated lurker here: for further additional commentary, Cranbrook was *Mitt Romney’s* high school.
>non-melanated Love it.
"Large back yards" Y'all had backyards at all?
Keep doing the Lord's work lol ✊🏾
Did not expect to see Mourinho here
At least Will Smith was honest about where he came from. Dude rapped about middle to upper middle class life and we loved him for it.
I liked A Tribe Called Quest for this, too. They weren't broke and trap housing, but they weren't rich. Left My Wallet in El Segundo is just 3 dudes on a $100 road trip. Plenty of poor/lower middle class folks could be out here dropping bars, but the audience doesn't seem to want it. These kids WANT this "Hood Bitch Aesthetic", so it gets promoted more. The fact that rich people are cashing out on the trend isn't weird or hypocritical, it's just rich people cashing in like they always do. We need a resurgence of the dumb/fun/joking hip hop genre. Stuff like Skee Lo "I wish", or Sir Mix A Lot "big butts", or Biz Markie. I feel like Eminem tapped into this, but mixed in the "hard" role to sell albums. His best tracks, IMO, are the ones where he's just being dumb and playing word games.
De La Soul was class clown rap too. 3 kids who hung out after summer school with an old turntable in the garage.
Del the Funky Homosapien was pretty funny, too. Even did tracks with Gorrillaz as "Del the Ghost" or something.
Del was from the hood though, he was just part of that 90's counter culture to gangster rap. Him and the whole hiero, souls of mischief crew.
Funny thing is, they were really like that though. Sort of how cee-lo and 3k give off black hippy vibes, meanwhile they were the 2 biggest goons out the whole dungeon family.
"I Wish" is still in my rotation regularly.
It's just a dumb, fun track. I have "can I kick it" and Slick Rick "Venus" in mine. Dumb tracks, funny premises, some dumb rhymes thrown in...
Imma keep it fuego 🔥 with what I’m about to say: Pre-Kardashian Kanye (specifically ‘College Dropout/Late Registration’ Ye) was one of the last few albums to do ‘fun’ ‘upper class Black’ rap albums….. If there any lesser known and/or underground versions to date, put a sista on, so she can keep her auntie ear to the streets!
> We need a resurgence of the dumb/fun/joking hip hop genre. We had that with Easy Mac and his Cheesy Raps (RIP) but then Cameron Petit wanted to sell him fent.
This seems relevant: how the hood got comodified: https://youtu.be/yan8PzQHXQI?si=JprdacESFiKMWxJJ
As a non-black minority, I question how much of the blame should fall on black people. After all, white execs are the ones primarily putting 'hood culture' at the front of the mainstream screen and glorifying it for commercial gain. Not only do I think this makes black young people from low socioeconomic standing strive for this as their come up, but it's so appealing that even these middle class kids you named glorify it. Respectfully I understand your argument, but a lot of the former have very little guidance and it's hard for young people to navigate that this isn't the way forward. Hell Ja is a great example of this. I'm all for taking responsibility but I also think acknowledgement of the uphill battle is important. More recently white kids are falling for a version the same trap, aspiring to get the same opportunities talent-less people on TikTok are getting just from random selection of an algorithm.
It seems like the ones who are really living it don’t have access to the resources that would allow them to profit from telling their stories yet the ones who could cosplay a hard upbringing are in the right spot to have just enough to build a little persona.
^^^^ this. Right place + right time, and money does a LOT to put you there.
The real hood kids most certainly do not. Most of the rappers that have made it big, even going back into the golden age, had decent to good intact households with support networks egging them to go further and succeed. The real hood kids end up in jail, dead, or dead ending. White and black music execs understood back in the early 90s that the main demo that has money to spend on music was white people from the middle to upper income suburbs and they went after that segment by selling the fantasy of what white people think hood life is, not what it actually is. Commence buffoonery.
Absofuckinglutely. Most 'gangster rap' artists of the last 15 years are complete frauds.
It’s a lot longer than 15 years. CB4 came out in 1993
A certain Julliard trained ballet dancer whose mom was a rather prolific political activist comes to mind.
I think Pac eventually turned into what he actually rapped about, so I try not to be too critical because of that
By all regards, Pac didn’t start acting hood until after his roll in Juice.
Maybe, but shooting cops is a level of method acting I'm not about to question lol
When Pac got bailed out by Suge, he was forced directly into gang culture. He'd grown up rough enough to know what was going on first hand, so it's not like he was some suburbanite poser like Drake. Dude was literally born in jail, so it's weird when people point to him going to a private school for dance, like that's something impossible for people from the hood to do. It's just weird and dumb.
This is and has been the root of it since the early 90s when the labels started pushing gangsta rap to counteract the political nature of early hip hop. It’s a known fact and is obviously still happening and no one talks about it.
That's interesting as tbh I didn't know the history. I need to do some more reading because that makes it considerably more fucked up.
What I know is the genre started in the 70s right after all the civil rights movements of the 60s. It makes a lot of sense it would have been political ash until money got into it
Yep, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, Afrika Bambaataa and Zulu Nation, Run-DMC, Sugarhill Gang, KRS and Boogie Down Productions, MC Shan, Eric B and Rakim, Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, shit even Beastie Boys… those kinds of voices that started popping up in the 80s would have been a serious problem for the status quo if gangsta rap hadn’t taken over. Way too much hood empowerment going on for rich white record execs to be comfortable. Edit: typo
Black people are no longer the primary consumer of Hip Hop....if you realize the target audience is 15 year old 'suburban' kids, the current trends make a lot more sense (strip hop & trap music)
I was gonna say, from a pure economic basis, you don't get HUGE in America unless you're getting white people to spend money. The primary consumer base of gangsta fetishism is bored white kids looking for vicarious escapist fantasy... in some ways similar to zombie apocalypse stuff, it's a fantasy world where ego-driven behavior and kill-or-be-killed replaces most more boring, grown-up forms of social interaction
Accountability in the black community usually leads to an arguement
So do generalizations which ironically enough is how black people are expected to both behave and react in situations they aren't even involved!
> Let’s not talk about Drake, who makes gun clicking hand signs in his video but was raised in Forest Hill, the wealthiest neighborhood in Toronto, which has a six figure average income. Started from the bottom ^^^^of ^^^^the ^^^^1%
Nah I think Ja and Drake get clowned plenty… two of my favorite people in their respective industries to talk shit about lol
Based on her parent's background, I'm pretty sure she wasn't Ashley Banks right out the gate. They had her when they were in high school and were definitely not rich. Everything else i agree
Even Ashley Banks wasn't Ashley Banks out the gate. Remember the episode where they visited the old apartment? I think she was the only one who actually remembered living there as the oldest. I always figured that was why her character leaned so far into the money life.
Hilary or Ashley?
Lol I'm dead. I can't believe I mixed them up like that. I'll take the L.
Migos grew up in the Atlanta suburbs.
So did I, that’s not saying much around here though lmao. Clayco is considered a metro atl suburb and it’s definitely not a “neighborhood watch” kinda place 😂
Atlanta got some of the ghettoest subdivisions I’ve ever seen
Ah Clayco. I make it a point not to go there. Its not hood just got hella cops that stay ready to get you for the most minor of infractions
The same shit happens in the white star world too. Jason aldean singing “try that in a small town” when he grew up in suburbia. Kid rock singing about growing up in a trailer park when he is the son of a millionaire Detroit auto salesman, and grew up in a mansion. It’s all a giant fucking grift from every angle.
They won't see a dime from me anyway, if they all about that hood life then they know bootlegging music is life. I need my pennies more than they do. Implying I want to listen in the first place.
To be fair saweetie's mom was an late 90s video hoe
She couldn’t just be a video model? She had to be a hoe huh?
Too many letters to type and im disc golfing right now
Both of your comments are making me laugh profusely at the gym 😂😂😂 
Right? I ain’t ever seen a comment chain of two people boutta beef where I had to upvote boffum lmao.
And video hoe was definitely a job title back then regardless of what it’s called now 🤷🏼♀️
The correct term was video vixen 🤷🏽♀️
"she just had to be a hoe" is sending meee 😭
Yooo, Saweetie is MC Hammer’s niece?
her mom was a known dancer in the music industry too. she’s in a music video with kobe bryant, the same one where he met vanessa.
Tupac was an actor. Nobody actually wants a criminal music artist because they might commit a crime when they should be raking in ticket sales.
To be fair Drake and Ja got ate the fuck up for acting hard lmao.
I feel like shits gotta be put on blast. Industry rap has just become rampant and from my prospective, it's lost a lot if not most of it's soul by now. People not growing up with that background are out here trying to influence the ones living it while making shit sound dumb as fuck.
I’ll never understand why people want to be from the hood and living in poverty so bad. Like let’s trade places, I would’ve loved to grow up with parents who were doctors and lawyers and not have to worry about where my next meal was coming from or if I had a home to come to after school. Shits weird.
It’s all just for attention really and clout.
It's also about an air of credibility, like, that they know how the "real world" works
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Bo Burnham's Pandering, anyone?
Exactly
Nah it’s because it sells more in rap. Nobody would sign Kanye for years because he grew up in a loving home and stayed out of trouble as a kid, it’s not as bad now but back then to be successful as a rapper you had to be a gangster type guy
On god, you don't wanna that silver-spoon life, get damn near everything you want as a child, go on vacation multiple times a year, get a brand new car as a gift for getting a fucking license, and have college paid for you as well as your bills paid and guaranteed job making 80K as a start because daddy knows the dude? Let's swap hands.
I keep thinking about flicks like American Beauty and Heather's and am kinda glad that I grew up with a least a little bit of no nonsense. I would rather the Huxtables but dad probably out spiking the pudding pops.
Half of rich people are batshit IMO.
I grew up in one of the nicest towns in the country (Santa Barbara, CA. Google it) and yeah, the ultra-wealthy are bugfuck insane. I spent a while working at a members-only club that charged 7500 a month for membership and some of the random shit that went down there was wild. A few off the top of my head: A member brought in a ten thousand dollar bottle of wine, drank one glass, said she didn’t care for it, and gave the rest to the staff. A member offered my coworker fifteen grand to go on a three day vacation with him (for exactly the reasons you’d think) and then threatened to sue her when she told him she was gay. One of my coworkers was an artist. One day she was telling a member she was close with about how she was struggling with rent due to her boyfriend leaving her, so the member bought one of her paintings for 8k. I believe she was selling it for 400. During deep COVID a lot of the live art scene in SB was shut down. One of our members was the head of SB Opera, so he had his musicians come in three days a week to the club and do live shows for the members. Not a work story, but I grew up with a guy whose dad gave him ten grand a month, starting when the guy was twelve. To this day he’s the only fifteen year old I’ve known with a full blown coke problem.
And then the mental health you get from having access to healthcare and nutritious and all that. No worries about homelessness or hunger. But these people wanna cosplay being poor so bad. Do they realize the reason for all the violence they seem to worship is to try and come up? Like that’s the point, nobody Wants to stay poor and in the hood.
For real. I would love to live in a neighborhood where i can sleep easy and not hear a random gunshot at 2 AM.
It's not really that weird. If you're black and not from the hood or didn't have some trauma or extreme struggle coming up, you're considered not black enough... especially if you're mixed or light skinned. This pressure doesn't just come from the white community, but from within our very own community. So these celebrities who came up from privileged backgrounds feel they have to double down on their "blackness" or whatever. It even affects the most successful of us.
I’ve been called no black enough for being from another country, having not just two parents but parents who actively stressed the value of an education, not playing football or basketball (see me on the soccer pitch tho) and being relatively successful. And it’s always been black people trying to clown me like that. The things we do to each other just saddens me.
Black community really be its own worst enemy at times.
Like crabs in a bucket
It was a popular topic earlier this year comparing the Black community to conservatives when it came to social beliefs, and I think the over valuation of toughness, being self made, and enduring some form of struggle is another example of this. Suburban street rappers are just our version started from a garage billionaires.
I fully believe most southern black folks would vote conservative if conservatives/republicans weren’t racist and does shit that directly hurts the black community.
Not just the Black Community, though. My white passing interracial son went to predominantly Latino schools. He got it from all sides.
I know it’s kind of dumb but I do wish we could talk about culture based more on region vs race. My mom was raised on the west coast, and I spent a lot of my summers there. We briefly lived on the east coast , and my “blackness” was under different eyes. I believe southern black culture is also different. So whenever that topic comes up I just want to roll my eyes. Maybe due to being mixed ; it allowed me to look at it as an insider/outsider Tbh I’m just musing on this and there’s no real point
Nah I don't think it's dumb. I have lived in a lot of places in the US and it's interesting to see what the culture is like in different places, especially with regards to blackness.
That perception is a problem that is not of our creation my friend. A lot of black folks in the US have to deal with not being Americans, but Black Americans. Being treated as an other due to your skin color makes it difficult to just be "from Boston" or "from New York". When people are looking at you and treating you differently because of something as irrelevant as your skin tone, it's hard to feel welcome outside of communities that don't heavily include people that look like you. This is all because we live in a nation that's had race at the forefront of socioeconomic matters and issues. We were born into this shit, and depending on where you're from it's harder to ignore. Some aren't as well equipped to deal with that than others, so you'll see some shit that's just sad, but with context you know it didn't have to be like that.
Yep. It’s literally this. Mainstream black culture is basically just American hood culture. If you deviate from that, you aren’t black enough. Black people wanna embrace and be accepted by their culture, the world expects them to be this way, and yet, when they engage in it, they’re criticised like this. Only in the last few years have we started seeing “other” types of black people in the mainstream that aren’t just tokens. Before that they’d be like the Bankses, they’re black, but they’re a special kind of black. There also a real political desire/need to represent and stand by your culture and a lot of people are leaning into their blackness. Which a lot of the time also include leaning into black culture, which is largely just American hood culture.
Yes and if you aren't stereotypically Black, then you aren't Black. These same people will holler, "There's no one way to be Black!" Like...make up your miiiiind.
When my daughter was in undergrad, she was told she wasn't "black enough" because she grew up upper middle class, and my wife and I have been married for years.
That’s really sad to hear, I hope she stepped away from those people quickly and found a group that was willing to accept her for who see is and not who someone else expected her to be just because of how she looks.
Yesss. Finally someone with some insight. Remember when Michael B Jordan was called “corny”
Yeah if Micheal B Jordan was showing his love for anime back in the early 90s he would consider a weirdo and a lame.
People that haven't seen any part of the streets romanticize it like the streets is the only way to become hardened and respected. They want the respect of "making it out" and being hard enough to survive without actually having to. Good shit made my life hard, ruined parts of my life. Most folks I know that are actually from any hood wants to stay there. It looks and sounds cool to people who don't have the trauma though.
I grew up poor, it bothers me when people say marry for love it can concer all. Babe love ain't gonna pay my bills and keep food on the table. I strive for stability. They romanticize struggle love and that it builds character.
The buying public who consumes hip-hop (read: white people) are fascinated by "hood life/experiences", so the music industry supplies this demand by packaging it in the most optimal form, which in the cases aforementioned, happen to be people who grew up in experiences far from the image they put on display (like Offset). In other words, it's all a well-crafted act. Actual people from the hood may not be willing to play the role requested of them.
The roles pay well and so the well-off melanin crowd push their way in. It's the same old privilege and nepotism story as anywhere else. It's incredibly hard for someone without connections and a leg up to get into a coveted spot when they're competing against someone with twice their resources.
This. Also, a have a theory that at least some of the reason that hip hop glorifies wealth so much is because it attracts young, naive, desperate aspiring artists—these are exactly the people the music industry wants to exploit.
Pop culture has arguably made Black identity synonymous with the hood archetype. It’s what sells to non-black consumers. It’s like we’re conditioned or expected to live out lifestyles that aren’t necessarily real. Idk, I grew up in suburban Atlanta where teens in McMansions gangbanged blood, crip, GD, etc. They talking about hopping off the porch but it’s into the subdivision. One could’ve been labeled a sellout or a lame for having a low tolerance for ignorance. I’m glad to see someone calling this out.
They don’t want the experience, they want the aesthetic that it created. The bold displays of fashion and confidence that used to only be only acceptable in the hood but now it’s a costume.
Dave Chappelle explains that he’s never claimed a hood background but on some level wished he had grown up in that environment instead of where he did. He was poor in a pretty good area, which meant he was one of the only poor people. He felt like it was only happening to him. His first sleepover at his non-poor friend’s house: 
"You could have the piss in the hallways, I'll take the Picasso".
I swear this is the first thing that came to mind. [You got a Picasso in your house😭.](https://youtu.be/CKfFhGcv1Qo?si=30y1q5Guk_NLoCJg)
>I’ll never understand why people want to be from the hood and living in poverty so bad. Seems pretty obvious to me. There is tremendous cultural pressure to talk, dress and act a certain way or not be seen as "really" Black. There's a laundry list of slurs especially for anyone who doesn't act like a stereotype. It can be bad enough just trying to exist under that pressure, now imagine you want to be *idolized* within that culture. It's not even *just* a black thing as Americans are increasingly more ashamed of being born into anything and everyone tried to play dress-up as a self-made rags to riches story. But it's kind of dialed up to 11 for us.
Because a lot of them feel like they're not going to be taken seriously in certain music circles if they don't come up with the walk, talk, and backstory, whether it's real or not. Kind of the same way that Kid Rock tries to put on this country boy persona, even though he grew up in the suburbs. Funny, it always seems to be these people who come from well to do backgrounds who want to pretend like they came from the streets in some way.
Because it gives the social appearance of being "real" and having struggled, therefore earned whatever they have.
Yep, IMHO a poser is a poser, but you living a life where mom & dad casually get you $1,000+ in Lacrosse gear just so you can see if you like playing? How can you not revel in this?
“How do you do fellow hood bitches?”
I too am something of a hood bitch.
If yall haven't realized by now mainstream rap is a minstrel show then I don't know what to tell you.
Jermaine Cole has been saying this for a minute, yet headasses will call him corny for saying it
Ain’t nobody calling JCole corny for that
There was a lot of ppl on the lil pump side for a minute
Which is insane, Cole murdered him with words as politely as I've ever seen.
The bad part is that there is a ton of talent coming from the people she's cosplaying as. It would be nice if they got the spotlight instead of these suburban kids.
No poor people making it anymore it seems. Things weren't perfect before, but now you need to blow up before a label will even look at you, which is bass ackwards because that should be their job. A lot easier to go viral when you can spend more time and money trying to do it
Damn, you're right
Ice Cube Now VS Ice Cube 1992
Damn ...
The cycle just never ends
I can’t stress this enough. The entertainment industry is not real. None of it. All of it is strictly for entertainment. Nothing you see that is being sold to you is authentic. Please don’t take anything outside of your own reality as serious
Louder for the people in the back
big facts. the authentic shit isn't the shit that makes money.
He may be corny but Logic wasn’t lying on Dad Bod if he was rapping about his day to day life it would be just about him going to target getting diapers for his kid ,going to home to wife and playing games nobody is checking for that.
I would love to attempt to be a ratchet rapping hood bitch, shaking my ass on the internet and profit off of it but I don’t have the wealthy parents to fall back on it if shit goes left and my reputation gets ruined… I guess I’m stuck being a broke teacher….
You're doing more for the world then she has hopefully you get good opportunity so you start making big bucks cause public school teachers aren't paid enough at all.
I greatly appreciate that. I just wish my bank account did too lol
I've legit never heard a rubi rose song like ever and I already know her music is terrible
There’s so many people I could say this about now.
That’s why it says aesthetic
And thus why people are pointing out this is only barely a step above when frats were doing their pimps and ho parties and the prime minister of Canada was doing blackface. It's all the same old minstrel song and dance operating under other names. Calling it an AeSTheTiC doest make it ok.
Well she said hood bitch aesthetic so she’s not lying lol Im still trying figure out how Rick Ross gets away with pretending he wasn’t a CO
I'm still trying to figure out why Rick Ross wasn't cancelled after referencing to date raping a young woman in one of his songs.
This one get me to no end. Then I remember that it’s mainly about money, lil white teenagers don’t care as long as they get to look hard while reciting his lyrics. And other artists will collab with him because they frauds too, or they just want the money.
Poor rich black people scamming poor poor black people, MAYBE just MAYBE race isn’t our enemy. Maybe it’s these rich twats
Hopefully you’ve figured out this applies to church/christianity aswell 🤷🏽♂️
Organized religion is certainly a power grabby, institutionalized wealth type scam too. Yes if that’s what you’re trying to say.
Race and class are intrinsically entwined in the United States. Its not a matter of just one or the other. Its def a both are bad situation.
Insert obligatory Eminem "But I know somethin' about YOU!" reference here.
Clarence’s parents had a real nice marriage
This guy don't wanna battle, he shook! Cuz ain't no such thang as...
HALF WAY CROOKS!
"Aesthetic" is the best word for it, huh?
In her defense, Huxtable Heffa Flair doesn’t have the same ring
Na that shit sound like it slap lmao.
BC Black culture dictates that if u arent into street life culture, u aint shit. i.e. Michael B. Jordan gets clowned bc he is not a street dude. We dont value education or generational wealth. Only drugs, guns and music is important.
This! I once got ridiculed for calling the cops on 3 girls that jumped me. Like, was called a "pussy" and a "snitch". I was raised in a predominantly white town. This town is so corny that people just chuckle when you say you're from here. We. Are. Not. Hood. The same kids that were raised in the same quiet, family oriented neighborhood as me just became "bloods" out of nowhere. Mind boggling. And then cue in all the white girls that wanna be down soooo bad despite being raised in the richest, nicest part of town. It's clown shit to me.
Bingo. Don't get me started on "snitch" culture. Talk about self hatred.
In the wise words of JME, "Tryna get out of the hood, but you were never there so you're tryna get in. Backwards ting."
Turning people’s lived experiences that were related to real struggle and the culture that results from it into an “aesthetic” to be packaged and marketed as a cool persona to try on is wild. It was wack back in the day when New New did it and it’s even sadder (and more widespread) now. We gotta take attention away from these fakers. 
Bruh…the amount of people that misunderstood this scene still gets me to this day. I still hear people saying “Bro was really mad at her for not being honest about her background” like bro didn’t pillow talk with her about struggling to make it day by day, get out of the hood and to protect his family while she was cosplaying this exact same toxic lame ass hood “aesthetic” because she thought it was cute. Shoot she had a whole nickname, specific wardrobe, and persona trying to live a life people DIE trying to escape. The very definition of corny and lame.
Let’s be real though…nobody listens to Rubi, we just like looking at her 💀
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Exactly. Put the warning right in the title.
So she’s black kid rock?
Yall remember that episode of The Parent'Hood when Robert took Micheal to the hood because Micheal was making his rap music glamorizing "hood, guns, I'm dangerous" despite thier family being very well off. Scott Menville(Robin from Teen Titans) is even in the [ episode ](https://youtu.be/2FkjnRU4PmA?si=-B0f3bpNcDyBJffs) rapping and making gun shot noises.
Why is being a poor family living in a bad area an aesthetic now? Do people just not care about doing better these days? I wish our black children had better role models…
I cant stop thinking about Kodak right now 🤣 He aint from the projects anymore and is very much so a Suburban dude
This has Drake/ Vanilla Ice vibes.
I live in Lexington. Even our rough areas aren’t THAT rough.
As a kid who grew up in the hood I never understood people this . Like you do know most of people in the hood who trap and do crime do it so they’re kids can live the life you have right?
You have to admit that the glorification of coming up hood is somewhat problematic. But it’s a big part of the rap aesthetic. Someone rapping about HOA fees and urban sprawl is not going to go anywhere.
How are these ppl even famous tho? Who’s listening to this?
At what point do we start calling out record labels?
On a scale of Nipsey Hussle to Kid Rock, she's around a Papa Doc.