20 Things People Think About Rap That Aren't True

Urban legends of urban music.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

Hip-hop heads are notorious gossips.

We can front like gossip blogs and reality TV aren't the 5th and 6th elements of hip-hop. We can pretend that the hypermasculine theaterics make it different. But the truth is, rumors and urban legends make their way through hip-hop circles as readily as they do celebrity rags at the supermarket.

The only real difference is, at least we've got a better soundtrack.

If you've ever wondered whether rappers on Koch really made $7 per album, or thought that DJ Khaled was just a lucky opportunist, you might want to take a look at 20 Things People Think About Rap that Aren't True.

RELATED: 25 Things Everyone Thinks About Hip-Hop (But No One Will Say)
RELATED: 40 Albums That Were Unfairly Hated On

Prodigy Is From Queensbridge

Not Available Interstitial

T.I. Is a Snitch

Not Available Interstitial

Kanye Produced "Down and Out" For Cam'Ron

Not Available Interstitial

DJ Khaled Does Nothing

Not Available Interstitial

Independent Rappers (Like Macklemore) Go No. 1 Without Major Labels

Not Available Interstitial

Big Sean or Drake Created The #Hashtag Flow

Not Available Interstitial

The KKK Owned Troop Sport Clothing

Not Available Interstitial

Rappers On Koch Get $7 Per Album

Not Available Interstitial

Jay-Z had Cathy White (His Alleged Mistress) Killed

Not Available Interstitial

Rappers Actually Own All the Things They Floss in Videos

Not Available Interstitial

When a Rapper Gets a Million Dollar Record Deal, They Are One Million Dollars Richer

Not Available Interstitial

Someone Else Had Jay-Z and Beyonce's Baby

Not Available Interstitial

Tommy Hilfiger Didn't Want Anyone Associated With Rap Wearing His Clothing

Not Available Interstitial

Tommy Hilfiger's clothing became a hip-hop staple in the mid-late 1990s. It was around that time that libelous rumors started spreading, often by mysterious email chain letter forwards.

The most noxious was that Hilfiger had appeared on Oprah, and when asked about the popularity of his clothes among African-Americans, stated that, had he known black people would have worn his clothes, he never would have made them in the first place. Many times, the rumors indicated that this statement inspired Oprah to throw him off the show.

It was completely untrue. In 2007, Hilfiger made his first appearance on Oprah's program, and addressed the issue. Oprah's website has a transcript of the exchange.

"It hurt my integrity, because at the end of the day, that's all you have. And if people are going to challenge my honesty and my integrity and what I am as a person, it hurts more than anything else. Forget the money that it has cost me."

Timberland Hates Black People

Not Available Interstitial

A common rumor in the 1990s was that Timberland's former chief executive, Jeffrey Swartz—the grandson of company founder Nathan Swartz—didn't like black people buying his products, and had some kind of racial animus towards Timberland's African American clientele.

The source of this rumor is likely Swartz's own words, largely taken out of context. In a 1993 New York Times article detailing the boots' increasing appeal among hip-hop fans, Swartz described his intended audience thusly: "honest working people." This is innocent language on its own, but obviously loaded in a racial context.

But it wasn't the hip-hop world that perturbed him about Timberlands' new fanbase at the time; it was fashion trends in general. Times reporter Michael Marriott described the company's mantra thusly: "Timberland must forever favor what is functional over what is fashionable." What concerned Swartz wasn't the race of his consumers; it was the fickle nature of relying on fads to dictate the direction of business.

In fact, Swartz was, until he sold the company a couple years ago, one of the more progressive executives in the United States. In the early 1990s, he funded an anti-racism advertising campaign, and has long had an environmentally-friendly record. But he did indicate some greater understanding of where things went wrong when he was interviewed by the Financial Times after he sold Timberland to VF Corp in 2011:

"The data was excruciatingly clear if we had had the brains to understand it. A young kid wearing outdoor hiking boots in city fashion ... It wasn't a caricature," he said. Instead, it connected back to the essence of the brand.

He added that, even in concrete jungles, "people said 'with Timberland boots on our feet we feel nothing can stop us ... I live in a rugged world and I want to feel powerful and secure'."

Lauryn Hill Said She Would Rather Her Babies Starve Than White People Buy Her Records

Not Available Interstitial

Rappers Write Their Own Rhymes

Not Available Interstitial

Raekwon Invented Mafioso Rap

Not Available Interstitial

Suge Knight Held Vanilla Ice Out of a Balcony

Not Available Interstitial

2Pac is Alive

Not Available Interstitial

Jay-Z Is In The Illuminati

Not Available Interstitial

Latest in Music