Waving stacks of cash while showing off luxury vehicles and expensive jewelry is a rap pastime, but some believe the behaviors can create distance between an artist and their audience. Rap icon MC Eiht has been in the industry since the late 1980s, so he's witnessed rap and hip hop evolve and shift throughout the decades. He had a few things to say about the ostentatious actions of rappers and reminded them that their fans can't afford the same luxuries.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t wake up and drive Bentleys, put on $100,000 chains, and can’t go buy Birkin bags and sh*t like that," Eiht told HipHopDX. "There’s a lot of us who live in reality still and, you know, there’s gas bills, light bills, you gotta pay your mortgage and you gotta buy groceries, so that kind of puts that in a reality state of life isn’t a party.”
He added that although someone isn't "dead broke," the average person's life doesn't involve tossing around tens of thousands of dollars on a whim. “Life is a struggle. A lot of people don’t tend to realize that," he said. "You get a lot of music and emceeing where people depict that ‘everything is great, life is perfect, I get to drive a Lambo around.' Okay, good for you, but let’s not forget, 80 percent of those people buying your music are probably struggling and average muthaf*ckas every day.”
MC Eiht warned artists that they "should be careful about the music you make" as well as what they say to fans. “You makin’ songs like, ‘I’m this, I’m that and I got everything,’ and you want the average muthafucka to come spend they money on your record when to me, it’s kind of braggadocious to your fanbase."