The White Rapper

When I think of various genres of music there are types of people we associate. When I think of Salsa music, I associate Hispanic people. Or when I think of heavy metal music I think of white people with long hair and make up, and so on. When I first hear the beat to a rap song drop I am usually expecting to hear the voice of a black person start flowin'. Over the past couple of decades that stereotype of only a black person rapper has changed. Some of hp hop greatest artists are white, or even other ethnicities.

When thinking of white rappers, anyone who lived somewhere near the 80's thinks of Vanilla Ice. His song "Ice Ice Baby" which came out in 1989 tok over, making Vanilla a huge superstar. Sadly the song was too big for vanilla and he was never able to match its success.

Eminem on the other hand,  who was the white rapper who became the face of white rappers first became popular in 1997 with his album The Slim Shady LP. minem has continued on his career for over 15 years, being one of the best selling artists ever. The movie 8 Mile which came out in '02 told a story very similar to Em's growing up in the streets of Detroit.

The last white rapper I want to talk about is someone who is only achieving critical success now. Macklemore and his producer Ryan lewis currently have one of the top songs in America, Thrift Shop which is player all over the world. Macklemore is different from Eminem in that he doesn't have a similar relatable story to many black artists, Macklemore grew up in seattle, not much of a "hood" life over there. Macklemore though uses his gift as a way to talk about real issues and important topics on a public stage. Rather than just talking about girls and money, he discusses homophobia, addiction along with other real life issues.

Going from the days of Vanilla Ice where he was pretty much a novelty act, to current day with Macklemore and many other white rappers who are looked at on just as equal as black rappers.