Not sure what to say about this Toyota and its Swagger Van commercial.. Yeah its funny to a degree.. you can’t go wrong it’s a tried and true formula. Its the classic ‘fish out of water’ skit.. The art of irony. Get a non typical family-Translation white folks and have them rap and folks pay attention. Hey it got me typing up this little missive..so it worked.. At the end of the day its entertainment .
On another level.. I think we need to acknowledge that Hip Hop, has saved way too many businesses that ultimately disrespect it. We can through the years of fashion statements Hip Hop made from Timbalands on up to baggy panths which you can now buy at Macys. Skinny jeans? -Yeah rockers wore them, but Hip Hop blew them up.
We can talk about the various drinking trends.. from Ole E (Old English malt Liquor)which was sold at the Kool Herc‘s historic first party at 1520 Sedgewick in the Bronx on up to Patron, Hennesy and whatever expensive concoction we getting into nowadays.
If we have fools acting up and causing drama, the salacious coverage and ensuing controversy saves the day. Ask Bill ‘Oreilly who in many circles is more known for his arguments involving the Rap world and Rap icons far more then he is any political issue.
I mean if we really wanna get technical, Fox was unknown as a network until the swagger of In Living Color came along and made them a destination place. Even MTV which was floudering after their initial boost from Michael Jackson owes a fat check to Hip Hop. Can You say ‘Yo MTV Raps’?
Were any of us really talking about the Surreal Life or the VH1’s reality shows until Flava Flav came along? How many spin off shows came from his bigger than life persona? We had like 5 different shows from starring spurned bacholoratte NY who in turn spawned off shows from her suitor Chance and company.
Would had cared about Kim Kardashian even with her sex tape had it not been for this country getting acclamaited to a woman of her build thanks to hours of rap videos featuring video vixens prepping us. As a matter of fact the acceptance of curvy women is a thing we owe to the Hip Hop video.
Radio stations?? Don’t get me started.. The Hot 97s, the KMELs, Power 106s, jamming this and jamming that.. Many of those stations started out as rock or dance stations. Hip Hop put them on the map and kept them there. Look at their histories and tell those owners to pay up. In the case of stations like KMEL and Hot 97 they going on 20yrs in the same format, much longer then many of their rock counterparts..
Y’all ever here of Summer Jam..? The history behind it was it started ouyt as a rock concert in Boston.. Nobody cared until Hip Hop put its stamp on it. Now it’s an annual event that earns many radio stations up to a third of it’s annual budget.
Tailor Swift? Say what you want, yes she was known. Yes, she sold millions, but Kanye put her ass on the map in a ways that she could only dream of..
I could go on and on, but you get the point.. So here we have Toyota.. a car company that has been racked with bad publicity and was at the bottom of the barrel. Guess what they turning to to bring them back? Yeah you guessed it.. My question is when will Hip Hop bring Hip hop back..