it is an obvious empirical fact that white rappers exist, and an obvious empirical fact that a white market for rap exists, too. i am aware that the market for rap has more whites than blacks in it. but, that implies less than is usually assumed. numbers pulled from nowhere, but if the black rap market is something like 4%/8%, and the white rap market is something like 6%/70% then that is half of black people but only a tenth of white people. and it is no doubt more than half and less than a tenth.

i don't claim to know why these white people feel an attachment to an inherently black form of protest. i guess that solidarity is meaningful. but, if you're listening to music out of solidarity then you're missing the point of what music is. there are other aesthetic factors. and, of course, there are white people that grow up in black neighbourhoods, too, and don't feel that exclusion, or feel included by the exclusion. but, i wouldn't be the first to claim that a large percentage of them just honestly don't get it, and are operating on some kind of vacuous "cool" factor that most people don't operate on.

the reality is that most white people are going to listen to the form and find themselves unable to relate to the topics being discussed because it doesn't reflect their life experiences and therefore be disinterested in delving deeper into something that was obviously not made for them. and, why should they want to delve into it if it wasn't made for them?

i know that this idea that hip-hop was going to be the new mainstream was widely circulated around fifteen years ago, but the reality is that it never got there and that the window has since long passed. it's never going to get there, because it's never going to make sense to the majority demographics as anything besides a form of ethnic protest that does not belong to them.