Commercialism in (Underground) Rap

Commercialism or even "selling out" has been fairly common in rap throughout the years. Kanye West starred in Pepsi ads in 2005, Run D-M-C did Adidas commercials in the late 80s, and then you have whatever Snoop Dogg's career has turned into.

The argument in favor of these advertising gigs has always been something along the lines of "it's hard to make money as an artist, it's fine to collab with big brands to cash out" Maybe this is true to you, I personally don't have a concrete opinion on it. But the current sound and culture surrounding underground rap seems to reflect an overall attitude to reiect big corporations, big government, selling out, trends, etc.

However, this commercialism has certainly crept its way into the current underground rap atmosphere as businesses and record companies have noticed that this is where a large portion of the youth is concentrated.

For me, the first blatant example that comes to mind of this happening in contemporary underground rap is Yeat making "Rich Minion," a song to promote the Minions movie. This was a connection that was set up by Lyrical Lemonade founder, Cole Bennett. At the time, Yeat was not nearly as big as he is now and most of my friends and I found it pretty cool that someone we watched grow was now being recognized by such a monumental franchise.

This was an artist who came out of the underground with drug and sex filled lyrics being paid to make a song for one of the most popular children's movie series of all time. A bunch of my friends even went to see the movie purely because Yeat made that song (even though his song was not actually in the movie. Shortly after his, Lyft even offered an exclusive Yeat "Twizz Mode" on the Lyft app where the car icons turn into Tonka trucks.

Although Yeat was becoming more mainstream every day, I think this opened the eyes of many to the financial opportunities that lied within underground rap.

I know Playboi Carti is not underground, but he continues to have a special place in the hearts of underground fans whereas many underground rappers who "go mainstream" become less cool to fans. There is no shame in wanting to reach a bigger audience, but many feel that "MUSIC" was the beginning of Interscope Records turning Carti into a "Rap Caviar" artist. Whether you agree with that or not doesn't really matter, but I think everyone found it strange that neither Ken Carson nor Destroy Lonely (two artists signed by Carti) had a single feature on the album and Kendrick Lamar had three.

I don't know how much Kendrick and Carti's fanbases overlap but the two had never been on a song together before this album. It's pretty easy to see the motivation here considering Kendrick Lamar's popularity in 2024 as well as his 2025 Super Bowl Halftime performance.

Also during this year's WWE Wrestlemania, Timeless and FEIN were the official songs of the event. Do what you want with all that info.

So what kind of brand collabs and commercialism do we have going on in our scene right now? Nettspend - who claims he is not an underground artist despite what fans think - just went on a tour with Xaviersobased that was sponsored by Vans. Nettspend has also worked with Marc Jacobs, GQ, and more. 2Hollis now has a song in Fortnite, Sematary has clothing collabs with Affliction, I'm sure there's more I'm missing.

With how much underground rap fans tend to gatekeep, you'd think they'd be a little more upset or annoyed with these sorts of things. Again, these collabs aren't necessarily a bad thing, many of them are cool, but there is also commercialism in underground rap in more sinister ways.

There are a handful of "underground" artists who many media pages, fellow artists, and even sometimes fans know aren't genuine. From the start, these artists are usually manufactured b marketing agencies to seem like they are "underground" in order to cash in on the popularity of the "aesthetic" and score big record deals. They even buy promo posts from rap media pages and most of these posts look very natural.

If an underground rapper comes out of nowhere and grows fast with a rise that feels artificial, then it's probably too good to be true. Not saying you can't enjoy the music, but it is usually not art for art's sake.

What do you think about this kind of stuff? Should a line be drawn? When I'm watching TV and a commercial comes on I actually mute it just to spite its creator or company and make sure their ad does not work on me efficiently.

However, if I was offered a brand deal with Marc Jacobs, who knows if I would be any better?Many of the people reading this would probably take it as well, although it is easy to say you wouldn't. Where does culture end and commercialism start? What could we do to preserve culture?