Are the big rap concerts becoming gatherings of rich?

“We cannot yet be poor. Because everything is inclusive apart from the exclusive places, right?”, Marracash saysshiny and sharp like a blade, in the tail of “Cosplayer”. The surge in the cost of concert tickets is an incandescent topic. It has been for decades, certainly not since yesterday, as it reminds us Kurt Cobain’s shocked gaze in 1993in an interview on MTV, when they told him that some pop artists like Madonna made it pay from 50 to 75 dollars to attend their own performance. Over the years the situation has gone significantly to worsen. According to a Pollstar investigation, widespread at the beginning of the year and on which the New York Times has carried out several insights, Between 1981 and 2012 the cost of tickets increased by almost 400%. There is no high -level concert, today, as the recent also show Radiohead cases in Bologna or The Weeknd in San Siroso the fans do not complain of the cost of tickets To access these events, which, however, are almost always sold out. It is the game of supply and demand: as long as there are those who are willing to pay those figures to attend those concerts, The wind will blow in that direction.

The fulcrum of this reflection, however, is another and has more to do with the type of audience that is inevitably magnetized by a process of this type. He has more to do with sociology than with the economy. And it is a speech that must be carried out, in particular, on rapa genre that has always wanted to represent Società bands That today, paradoxically, to listen to the big names of that world, they can no longer go because you “cut away” from the access cost. A total short circuit. Songs that center the road, social redemption, hunger for revenge, deprivations, violence, but also rebirth, all those themes dear to rap artists and hip hop culture, today, in certain contexts, from which type of fans are sung, if a ticket to attend the live of a big one has an almost prohibitive price? Certainly not by those who those stories of poverty may have really experienced them on the skin and which at most will be able to fill the spaces at the bottom or more distant than a large location.

Are the rap concerts, in particular the international ones, becoming gatherings of rich? Many artists, who for many girls and boys are symbols of social revenge, should ask themselves about misalignment Which is taking place between what is sung and who would like to represent, and who actually is under the stage in the end, perhaps in the exclusive pit. The context of elitist live often creates a distance that in turn can undermine the authenticity of those who perform. Some could object: many rappers now celebrate luxury, brand and wealth, perhaps the expensive lives are not inconsistent, but consistent with the parable of the genre in the mainstream. And this is actually a further node that, however, does not escape a challenge: to decide whether to defend the accessibility of a genre, which has precise roots between the less well -off bands, or accept the transformation of rap into music, which provocatively, we can define “elite”. Italy, in particular in recent years, has hosted some of the greatest exponents of the Urban scene: Travis Scott, Tyler, The Creator, Kendrick Lamar, 50 cents, Kanye West (in the listening party version) and recently Drake.

How many have been really accessible for large bands of the population? Yet many of these artists, in their songs, have spoken or speak of those on the margins. Tyler, The Creatorthat this problem understood before many, also for the promotion of his latest album “Don’t Tap The Glass “set up pop-up concerts with an average cost of ten dollars. Of course, the places were limited and the live was reduced, but they were a small signal. What if the future of rap passed again from the mythical block party, made for people, in the neighborhoods of origin? If today an important and mainstream name decided to organize one, with a symbolic entrance ticket, to reconnect with that public public who has always supported him, would leave a sign, an imprint.