Hip Hop & Vulnerability: An Under-appreciated Privilege

I just finished reading Common’s Let Love Have The Last Word and just ordered Jay-Z’s Decoded. Finishing the Common’s memoir amid the unfortunate news about DMX’s overdose really made consider not only how much vulnerability is required to be a celebrity but also to be in hip hop.

Vulnerability: the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.

DMX’s story, Common’s story, Jay-Z’s story, Lil Wayne’s story, Kanye’s story, even Drake’s story. The fact that we even know a small glimpse of their life before their celebrity is a true testament of how open an artist must be in order for their art to resonate and connect with others. That’s how they build their audience.

The issue becomes when the audience feels entitled to seeing every aspect of their life both before and during their celebrity. There are no boundaries between the artist and the audience. It is popular today for audience members or trolls to ridicule celebrities for their circumstances that are made public. An example of this is DMX’s recent hospitalization. A man was sent to the hospital for succumbing to an addiction and the Internet exploded with debates of his impact and relevancy in hip hop today. God willing, when DMX returns to the world, he will see the love poured out for him but he will also see the hate, the insensitivity, the indecency, and that’s an issue.

Common shared the story of his struggles in fatherhood, his alcoholism and his sexual assault. I can’t imagine the anxiousness surrounding the release of his memoir. How would the stories be received? What will the DJ Akademiks’s, the Charlamange’s, and the Shade Room’s react? How will they twist this into some debate where people share their thoughts that truly don’t matter because we are lucky to have an artist be so open with the world anyway.

I guess the point of this post is to call for respect for each other regardless of their celebrity or lack thereof. No matter how you feel about a situation or circumstance shared with you, be grateful to be let in on the story.