Free The Tanning of America by Steve Stoute Page B

worldwide economy—is that it began in the bedrock of hard times. With that as a draw pulling in everyone, the color lines dropped, and there was a common language and attitude to share that created a sense of unity, of community.
    To clarify, this new urban religion—which, after “Walk This Way,” had begun to infiltrate most major cities and parts of their suburbs—was not a rallying cry for an almighty being, or for “the One.” The rallying cry, at first, was just to tell and hear the truth—that being poor f**king sucks. It was a call to confront the other truth that in coping, the ways of the old institutions—the church, the schools, the government, the law, and the parents—had failed.
    Then it became more than just a badge of credibility to be the rapper who could stand up and say, I come from nothing and look at my success . Technically, not all hip-hop artists were from abject poverty or gang-infested turf either. The cry accommodated that fact and it became enough to say, Hey, I know the life, I know being poor, I know injustice, hypocrisy, I know the pain, the crack, the burned-out buildings, the terror of the hallways, the killings, the drivebys. Or, later on, if you’re white and you’re Eminem— Hey, I know the drugs, the emptiness, the trailer parks, and I hate my mom. That, by the way, was just crazy, especially in the African-American community, because, as you may know, all our mothers are saintly.
    Plainly, the core experience of poverty, however it was described, had a dog-whistle effect in the frontal lobes of youth around the world. Ghetto and barrio kids would hear the stories of trailer parks and get it. Kids in affluent homes or in sleepy suburbs heard the call of generational despair and understood it. The commonality no longer had to be shared experience per se but was about the linkage of feelings—all kinds of emotions that could be conjured by a thumping beat, rhymes, wordplay, anger, humor, arousal, resentment, boredom, joy, excitement, curiosity, you name it.
    All of this was a rallying cry that crossed so many color, class, and even age lines and drew in so many followers that by the time Jay-Z came along in 1998 with “Hard Knock Life”—in which he sampled none other than a song from the Broadway show Annie with little orphan voices singing “instead of kisses we get kicks”—coming from poverty was the status symbol that gave definition to all the other status symbols. Later, Jay-Z and Will Smith would team up to produce a remake of the movie musical.
    The impoverished, unapologetic mentality was seductive. The attitude became viral. Coming from nothing and having a reason to push, to grind, the “can’t stop won’t stop” part of the hip-hop creed, gave life meaning and light in dark times. And the attitude was f**king hot. It had a look, a language, gestures, a posture, a dance, such that kids who didn’t come from nothing wanted to have the badge too, to dress like it and act like it. That was the mix that became contagious. Because of the music, and, as we will see, especially music videos, it caused contagion that would lead to consumption in order to have the badge. Mass consumption.
    It was only natural that brands were destined to become the beneficiaries of aspiration when the common message was one of going from poverty to success. Brands, after all, were being used by hip-hop to chart growth and proclaim the possibilities. I can play a thousand rap songs from every era that all say the same thing— I went from this to that . Brand alignment was your proof: See, I made it here, I have a BMW . (Or fill in the blank.)
    Your imagined or real rival for supremacy could then answer: A BMW? Wow. Guess what? I got a Mercedes.
    The dialogue required you to top that : Mercedes? Oh yeah, well, I have a Maybach.
    Next? Look, you drink Moët & Chandon, but I’m drinking Dom