Thanks to our long time reader Spidaman3 for pointing out this article from Slate titled The End of Street Cred which seems to fall in line with a piece I wrote in October Why I No Longer Care Rick Ross is a Fake.

While I do agree with many of the article’s sentiments, it’s hard to look back in rap’s history where actually having street cred ever mattered. The only instance that comes to mind is when Jay-Z flashed a picture of a young ballerina-clad Prodigy on the Summer Jam screen back in 2001. The thing is Mobb Deep didn’t put out great music after and we’re arguably entering the sunset of their careers. Who knows if they had put out great music after the incident where their careers would have been?

I am a firm believer that great music triumphs over everything. No one would have predicted we would have a Canadian rapper (Drake) as one of the top selling rappers. Speaking about things other than the music like street cred is fun but we have to always remember that kind of stuff lives in a separate realm from the music. What an artist does in the studio and what an artist does or did in his personal life is two different things. As much as hip hop likes to think it’s different or be perceived as different by other genres, it’s still based on how good the music is at the end of the day. If Ross had made mediocre music after being exposed, his career wouldn’t have lasted this long.