There’s no other art form that has been spoofed and lampooned as much as hip-hop. It was the butt of everyone’s jokes for decades, and even now, after years of mainstream exposure, the wider world’s lack of understanding of the music still makes us feel like we are being laughed at whenever a rapper appears on a network talk show, or in a serious debate piece.
The world of advertising has always been wise to the power of hip-hop’s popularity though, and that’s why seeing rappers get paid to sell products has been happening for years.
But while sponsorship is one thing, using an artist’s music in a commercial, on a TV show or in other marketing campaigns is a whole different thing. Flattery is nice, but for the most part, when a rap song is used in an advert, its as a pastiche, and chosen for irony.
A recent example is a price comparison company in the UK using Snoop Doggy Dogg’s What’s My Name to soundtrack a commerical of a nerdy white man riding through the hood in an imaginary low-rider full of ghetto chicks. Snoop himself makes an appearance, suggesting he was more than OK with his music being used, but lets face it, there isn’t much that Snoop won’t do for money.
Snoop isn’t alone either, and that’s where the lines get blurred. Bruce Springsteen is one of the wealthiest musician’s in the world, but still rakes in millions of dollars from long and epic world tours. He does have integrity however, and on several occasions has turned down lucrative offers to use his biggest songs in commercials because he didn’t like the ethics of the company.
But few rappers have pockets as deep as Springsteen, and are therefore less likely to turn down a huge paycheck to use one of their songs. As a result, some of the best hip-hop tracks of all time have been used and abused and taken completely out of their original context in commercials, promos, TV shows and trailers, to the point where they have lost much of their original power.
The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Can I Kick It? by A Tribe Called Quest, Time 4 Sum Aksion by Redman, Sound of Da Police by KRS-ONE, and countless Run DMC tracks have all been used to death, and their legacy is now somewhat diluted.
We know you can’t stop the profit, and as long as the permission is being granted and the artist is making their money, it’s relatively acceptable. But as fans of real hip-hop, it might have been nice to keep some of these classics as ours only.
