If there’s any area of the entire world where white people are both outnumbered and overmatched, it’s the world of hip-hop. Rendered the outsiders in a culture that was created for and by the black community, it’s one historic art form that they’ve never been able to truly co-opt in the vein of others. After all, rock & roll was invented by black people, but the average person may think of that genre and immediately envision a gallery of long-haired white dudes.

But when it comes to rap music, the genre’s star power and the capacity to shift the culture generally remains in the hands of those who first pioneered the sound and brought it to the masses. Now the biggest form of music in the entire world, the sound that was devised in the inner-cities now fascinates those in the suburbs like never before. And with the notable exception of Eminem, its superstars are hardly white.

Sure, there’s vets like El-P, Aesop Rock and Atmosphere. Or occasionally, you get an MC that has a fleeting moment in the sun such as Macklemore or Asher Roth. But barring the late, great Mac Miller, the past decade or so has seen little to no white artists being clutched to hip-hop’s heart in the way that Em or a regional legend like Paul Wall was. So much so that in the case of Machine Gun Kelly, it took a transition to another genre for him to become the superstar that he’d always foreseen himself as. But if any caucasian MC has been a staple in hip-hop recently, at least in commercial terms, it’s been Gerald Earl Gillum, better known as G-Eazy. Or at least that was the case until a successor arrived with bigger hits and, more importantly, a greater appreciation from the culture that was missing from his run in Jack Harlow.

#JackHarlow #Geazy #HipHopMadness

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Narrated by: Spencer Pearman
Written by: Robert Blair
Edited by: Roman Bill
Music by: Josh Petruccio

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