White Rappers
In the early 2000s, more than a few observers of pop culture found it incredibly ironic that the top rapper was white (Eminem) and the top golfer was black (Tiger Wood). Golf has a reputation for being a very white sport, and hip-hop has been dominated by black males -- at least in the United States. But if an African-American has the skills and the talent necessary to rise to the top of professional golf -- and Tiger Wood obviously does -- there is no reason why he shouldn't be praised. Similarly, Eminem's success in hardcore rap is well deserved; the bottom line is that Marshall Mathers is damn good at what he does.
To be sure, Eminem has his detractors, who see his success as yet another example of white America's refusal to embrace African-American culture unless it puts on a white face. The problem with that argument is that many of the white kids who buy Eminem's CDs have also been strong supporters of Jay-Z, DMX, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Ja Rule -- all of those hardcore rappers have attracted very integrated audiences, and deservedly so. Very few of the white (or black) kids who bought The Slim Shady LP in 1999 or The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000 honestly believed that hip-hop needed a white face to be legitimate -- many of Eminem's white fans are people who had helped make Dr. Dre, Too Short and Ice-T rich long before they had ever heard of Marshall Mathers.
Nonetheless, the subject of white rappers remains a controversial one. Just as the question "Can a white man really sing the blues" has persisted over the years, there are those who feel that white people (or Latinos and Asians, for that matter) shouldn't even try to rap. But over the years, the best white rappers -- Eminem, 3rd Bass, Everlast, the Beastie Boys, among others -- have demonstrated that some white artists can, in fact, make valuable contributions to hip-hop.
The first example of a white person rapping in a hip-hop-minded style came in 1980, when Blondie had a major hit with the historic "Rapture" -- a gem that was way ahead of its time. Before that, various country artists had embraced a type of rapping -- Commander Cody's "Hot Rod Lincoln" (1972) and C.W. McCall's "Convoy" (1975) are two examples of country hits that involved speaking in rhyme instead of singing. But Deborah Harry's vocal on "Rapture" was the first example of a major pop-rock singer doing some rapping in a hip-hop-minded fashion. Then, in 1981, white soul/urban singer Teena Marie did some rapping on her hit "Square Biz". But neither Harry nor Marie were ever full-time rappers -- they were singers who wanted to offer some acknowledgment of hip-hop. The first example of white artists becoming full-time rappers came a few years later when the Beastie Boys decided to make hip-hop their main focus. The Beasties didn't start out as a rap group; formed in 1981, they were a punk band in the beginning. But by the time they recorded their 1984 single ("Rock Hard"), the Beasties had taken the hip-hop plunge. And two years later, in 1986, their first full-length album, Licensed to Ill, became a multi-platinum smash.
Though hip-hop continued to be dominated by African-Americans -- who invented the art form, after all -- more white rappers recorded albums in the late '80s and early '90s, including 3rd Bass, Vanilla Ice, Everlast and an obscure southern group called the White Boys (who provided some enjoyable but little known albums for Tin Pan Apple, home of the Fat Boys). In terms of styles, those artists ran the gamut. Everlast (who got his start with Ice-T's Rhyme Syndicate Productions) and 3rd Bass favored tough, gritty hardcore rap, as did the White Boys (who, like the Beastie Boys, had a strong rock influence). Vanilla Ice, however, was the epitome of bubblegum pop-rap; he appealed to a pop/Top 40 audience rather than hip-hop's hardcore. But he didn't appeal to either Everlast or the members of 3rd Bass, a Brooklyn group. As Everlast and 3rd Bass saw it, Vanilla Ice's rapping skills were limited at best -- and they felt that he was making it even harder for white rappers to be taken seriously. In fact, 3rd Bass' 1991 song "Pop Goes the Weasel" was an angry attack on the multi-platinum pop-rapper.
But if one believes that Vanilla Ice's bubblegum work caused other white rappers to be viewed with suspicion, you wouldn't know it by looking at 3rd Bass or Everlast's sales figures. Both of them were respectable sellers, although Everlast didn't become a huge name until he joined the group House of Pain in the early '90s. Everlast's debut album, Forever Everlasting (released by Warner Bros. in 1990) wasn't a big seller, and his contributions to House of Pain's self-titled debut album of 1992 are what made him a major rap star. After recording two more albums with House of Pain, Everlast resumed his solo career with 1998's ambitious Whitey Ford Sings the Blues. That Tommy Boy release found Everlast singing as well as rapping and exploring everything from folk-rock and alternative metal to Memphis soul; Whitey Ford Sings the Blues isn't for rap purists, but that doesn't make the album any less impressive.
Although the majority of white rappers have been male, some white female rappers have occasionally been signed. One of the most noteworthy was L.A.'s totally in-your-face Tairrie B, who described herself as "the ruthless bitch you love to hate." Despite the presence of N.W.A's Eazy-E, Schoolly D (who produced two songs) and Ice-T associate Bilal Bashir, Tairrie's debut album, The Power of a Woman (released by MCA in 1990) didn't sell -- in the early '90s, the hip-hop world obviously wasn't ready for a white female with such an angry, aggressive, in-your-face attitude. Nonetheless, Tairrie's album is historically important; The Power of a Woman marked the first time that a major label put out an album by a white female MC.
While Tairrie was very much a hardcore rapper, Icy Blu was the exact opposite; she was a bubblegum pop-rapper who Giant Records envisioned as a female equivalent of Vanilla Ice or a hip-hop version of Tiffany. Her self-titled debut album (which Giant released in 1991) was obviously aimed at the Tiffany/Debbie Gibson crowd -- Giant no doubt figured that the teen-pop audiences who were listening to Gibson one minute and Vanilla Ice the next would be equally receptive to Icy Blu. But Icy's album turned out to be a commercial disappointment. U.K. resident Betty Boo, however, was a half-Scottish, half-Malaysian female pop-rapper who did well in the early '90s (in Europe more than in the U.S.). Boomania, her first solo album, went platinum in England.
Other noteworthy white rappers who were active in the '90s or early 2000s included Young Black Teenagers (who weren't really black -- their name was meant to be ironic), Poverty, Tony D (whose 1991 release Droppin' Funky Verses was a solid but neglected outing), Stagga Lee and Bubba Sparxxx (a Georgia native). Sparxxx is among the white rappers who have come from hip-hop's Dirty South school, as are Tennessee's Haystak and the Atlanta-based duo Rehab, whose Southern Discomfort (released by Epic in 2000) was full of dark-humored references to substance abuse (a subject that, sadly, the duo's members had first-hand knowledge of).
No essay on white rappers would be complete without some mention of Kid Rock. Never a hip-hop purist, Rock is known for combining rap and alternative metal -- a potent combination, and one that has earned him more recognition from the rock world than from hip-hop's hardcore.
Most of the white rappers who have been big in North America have been U.S. citizens. But there is a whole other rap world that most American hip-hop heads -- black, white, Latino or otherwise -- know little or nothing about: the world of European rap. In Europe -- where hip-hop has been very integrated since the '80s -- there have been many famous white rappers, who have ranged from Italy's Articolo 31 to Germany's Die Fantastischen Vier. Although little known in the U.S., those groups are major hip-hop stars in Europe -- a place where MCs don't necessarily rap in English. Rappers usually rhyme in English in England, Ireland and Scotland, but in other parts of Western Europe, one is likely to hear white rappers getting busy in French, German, Italian or Dutch. And in Eastern Europe (where hip-hop has become increasingly popular since the fall of communism), white rappers have been flowing in languages like Russian, Polish and Czech. Not that black rappers have been marginalized in Europe -- that isn't the case at all. However, it is safe to say that most of the European hip-hop audience has long since grown accustomed to hearing white artists rap and believes that rapping doesn't necessarily have to be done in English. An Italian rap fan in Milan or Florence, for example, might appreciate everyone from OutKast to Italy's angrily sociopolitical 99 Posse, who have been compared to Public Enemy (although Chuck D and Flavor Flav, unlike the 99 Posse, have never rapped in Italian). Stylistically, the white rappers of Europe (much like Europe's black rappers) are an extremely diverse bunch. They range from hardcore rappers like Ireland's Scaryéire to pop-rappers such as Die Fantastischen Vier, who have been described as a German-language equivalent of DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince or Young MC.
Hip-hop came out of African-American culture, and chances are that the majority of important rappers will continue to be black (in the U.S., anyway). Nonetheless, the best white rappers deserve a shout out and should be applauded for their contributions to hip-hop.
Recommended Recordings:
Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP (Interscope)
Rehab, Southern Discomfort (Epic)
House of Pain, Same as It Ever Was (Tommy Boy)
3rd Bass, Derelicts of Dialect (Def Jam)
Tairrie B, The Power of a Woman (MCA)
Everlast, Whitey Ford Sings the Blues (Tommy Boy)
Bubba Sparxxx, Dark Days, Bright Nights (Interscope)
Tony D, Droppin' Funky Verses (4th & Broadway)
Beastie Boys, Licensed to Ill (Def Jam)
Young Black Teenagers, Young Black Teenagers (MCA)