They enjoy the Backpacker NW Rap, the same way we like foreigners who say things like "Wassup?" or "What it Do?". Its a condescending thing, not a respect thing. They like us as long as we sound like them and are their Mini-Mes.
"ALL people in those other places don't want to hear gangster rap from a city they don't perceive as gangster"
Exactly why I bring up DVDs all the time. Your favorite gangster rappers really might be that cool `in person', when they're not 'acting' the part online or at a show. But if its only 10 people that get to see them behind closed doors.....its hard to get that out there.
Its one thing to put on a good show, and be nice, and sign the autographs, and even smoke a blunt or two with fans....but after all that...then what? What does this artist do for fun? What kind of TV or video games do they like? What does the inside of their house or home studio look like? What are their non-Rapper/Producer friends and associates like? What kind of mood are they usually in when they aren't cheesing and politicing?
Take some nerdy wannabe, and they cannot pass these tests. It will not happen. People will see books and neatly-folded beds, and glasses-wearing Abercrombie-sporting dorky-looking friends, and all this other kind of shit, and put 2 and 2 together that this person isn't who they say they are. On the other hand, you take someone that raps about it....then you go to their hood and their area and see their people, and it really is that...its a whole new outlook.
I'll leave it to someone else to say "The music is what matters", "Sooner or later, it'll happen", and all this other sappy, dont-hurt-anyone's-feelings utopian shit. In the real world, we need to see artists and actors when they aren't "in character" to see how they really are and know if they are really worth all this money and time they expect you to invest in them.
