Watching Public Enemy interacting with the Skid Row crowd on Sunday afternoon, and seeing how accessible they were, with absolutely no VIP section or other entourage usually surrounding big stars, I was thinking they were keeping things very simple.
But how many rock/rap/hip-hop stars manage to do this and keep this direct contact with their fans? This kind of relationship is currently exceptional as there is a deep disconnect between rock stars and their audience.
In the 70s, punk rock exploded and wanted to get rid of class privileges by denouncing greed, preaching independence, anti-establishment philosophy, and a DIY ethic to stay away from major corporate record labels.
So what happened? Now most rock stars belong to a new class, a class of privilege, unreachable by the fans. P Diddy has a personal entourage of about 30 people, Mariah Carey bought a nine-car garage Beverly mansion of $125 million a few years ago, Beyonce spent $100,00 for a pair of legging and a matching bra for a BET award show, Jay-Z spent $250,000 on champagne to celebrate his new album, she bought him a $2 million Bugatti for his birthday, and the two spend $1200 on a simple lunch at NYC’s Nello restaurant. How can they understand the struggle of common people who have to pay their rent each month? If they come from a modest origin, they have completely forgotten about it.
And I am not even talking about the Bonos of this world,Bono who pretends to have a social consciousness but flew his hat first class from London to Italy a few years ago.
These are just random examples, and there are certainly tons of other ones. These people live at a level a wealth not conceivable for most of us, they live in their own world, on their own planet, and simply cannot relate to their public. And there generally is a negative correlation between a rock star’s social consciousness and his/her ever-expanding ego.
I am not sure of what happened, why revolutionary feeling and social responsibility are almost gone from most rock stars’ minds these days, and if they are still present in the discourses of some, why it often is a falsehood with some self-promotion purposes.
Rock stars wanted to change the world in the 60s,revolutionize it in the 70s, but these days, they just want to buy it. Can yourealize what could be done by selling Jay-Z’s cars or Bono’s designer glasses collection? Wealth creates such a disconnect between stars and their audience,that very few of them know how to reconnect that bridge.