Hip-Hop Needs To Be More Like Wrestling

As hip-hop has become more corporate and image driven I feel the time has come for artists to embrace the idea of playing the role as opposed to living the lie. If you listen to the lyrics of most hip-hop songs or watch the videos you know that rappers aren't trully living the lifestyle they are portraying. The problem is they still feel the need to perpetuate the lie, an act that is extremely insulting to the hip-hop audience. Industry rule #4,080 dictates that less than 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1% of rappers can really afford their own plane, their own 200 foot yacht, their own villa on a private island, or $5,000,000 in jewelry. Hip-hop needs to take a page out of the WWE playbook. Remember when wrestling decided to stop pretending that the holds and punches were real? Wrestling took off because it no longer had to hide behind the facade of realism. It could simply be enjoyed as ENTERTAINMENT! It's ok to pretend to be a drug dealer, or a hitman, or a gangster, or that you have 13 cars in your driveway. It's ok to get into character. Mariah Carey has fake boobs and Bruce Willis doesn't do his own stunts yet we still love them all the same. Once hip-hop rids itself of the notion you have to do what you say on a record, the industry and the fans will be much better off.