Reply #6: The corporations promote the ignorant ones on purpose, and put down

[TroubleMan]

the brilliant ones. There are a lot of extremely smart and politically aware rappers out there, but the corporations won't promote them because they don't want to hurt their sales to white teenagers - who buy more rap records than anybody.

I think I'm the only white person who listens to X-Clan, Dead Prez, and The Coup (that's why most people never have heard of them - white audience won't buy it). Anybody hear from KRS-One lately? I have - he's still putting out great albums, much better than that crap on BET, MTv, and the radio....you won't see him though unless you look. Mos Def....he's the best rapper out there right now, and he's just to good for them to put down. They sure as hell try their best to not promote Talib Kweli, though. Other intelligent rappers like The Roots and Common have to work hard to get some airplay. Every Common or Roots song on the radio has to be absolutely brilliant for the media not to ignore it, but Lil' Jon, Nelly, and the other "bling, bling" rappers can put out the same song over and over again...just change the title and the hook, and they get all the air play.