MTV's Carvell Wallace offers a condensed history of white rappers.
As the genre grew from art to hustle to full-fledged industry, multinational corporations began to exert increased control over its products and direction. Protecting its cultural roots against the ensuing opportunistic influx became a martyr's errand; so much so that Rakim himself felt it necessary to reframe his famous line, placing it in entirely different context on his 1990 single "In the Ghetto": "So I collect my cash, then slide / I've got my back, my gun's on my side / It shouldn't have to be like that / I guess it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at." Rather than an open invitation for all into rap, the line is flipped into a necessary reminder of the genre's dour beginnings. And possibly a subtle dis at what it was already becoming.
Blondie's Rapture was the first rap video MTV saw fit to play. The second was a comedy song by Rodney Dangerfield, embedded above.
