I think it is a 'recurring theme' you can identify. I've been very fortunate to interview many big names in hip-hop and discuss it with people across the spectrum of that scene and it comes up a lot. I realise there is a group also who like hip-hop and listen to different styles. These people you mention are different. I am talking of the purist core. I know producers like Stacey try and share their music by talking to artists from the urban ranks and they come up up against the same kind of resistance. I think he met Jay-Z once. I find the same prejudice in techno, mind. Hip-hop is a big world and it's pretty much pop culture now, but as I have reiterated I am talking of the hardcore purist element at its core - which probably doesn't feel totally comfortable with the 'crossover' phenom anyway.
> I don't know. I've always seen the world of underground hip hop as being > pretty receptive to incorporating or listening to other styles, but what > percentage of the hip hop world is listenening to or participating in > underground hip hop? I don't mean De La Soul, but the band that presses 1000 > copies of their own record. If this was the culture Eminem came from, it's > not the culture he helps define today. So yeah, I'm seeing mainstrem hip hop > (which doesn't need to be defined by Puff Daddy) this way, but it's just a > generalization. I know many exceptions, but I think the rule holds true. Hip > hop is a big world.
