On Monday, the Heritage Festival held their third-annual Town Hall forum on whether hip-hop produced good role models. Although the panel ruled in favor of hip-hop’s positive aspects, the discussion also covered various arguments for and against rap. As important as the question of whether heroes exist in rap culture, a more important question in my mind was not discussed. Namely, does hip-hop culture have a positive effect on society in general?

This isn’t about whether rap lyrics are mysognistic or promote violence and general thuggery. It’s about whether the way of life presented throughout hip-hop culture has a positive influence on the people who follow and believe in it. When it comes down to it, the lifestyle depicted by rappers is a pipe dream that is impossible for most people to grasp. It causes many people to live beyond their means and makes them unhappy with their lives unless they are conspicuously consuming.

That isn’t to say that everyone involved in hip-hop is unable to live like the images depicted in magazines and music videos. Important rap figures like Damon Dash and Master P have parlayed both business knowledge and their knowledge of rap culture into multi million-dollar empires. As helpful as these businesses are in providing jobs, these empires are frequently built on the backs of those least able to afford purchasing the clothes, liquor and cars necessary to live like their idols.

In fact, these empires, both black-run and white-run, frequently prey on the rappers they employ. Many of the rappers aren’t really as rich as they seem. Many record labels sign recording artists and give them advance money, presumably to pay for the costs of recording records. What the money is frequently used for – and tacitly supported by the record label – is to buy all the things that help the rapper show off: the fancy cars, the jewelry, gigantic mansions with swimming pools full of video hos.

More worrisome is the effect the false images record labels and rappers create. Hip-hop culture is arguably the most mainstream depiction of the life people who are poor and/or living in the inner city live. All too often, hip-hop culture promotes getting rich and living the high life, but doesn’t present any other way of doing so except by rapping, being a star athlete or movie star.

At the same time, it frequently implies the way to happiness is to purchase as much of the things one’s favorite rap heroes can, even if buying them greatly stretches their resources. These dreams block out the many other ways people can get out of the ghettos, the projects or other poor neighborhoods they live in. The idea of going to college, getting an education and starting a career is subsumed by the get-really-rich-really-quick lifestyle seen on television and movies.

In addition, because it is so prevelent and promoted by a primarily white-influenced corporate culture, mainstream hip-hop presents a stereotypical and warped view of what black culture primarily consists of. This is as harmful to those living in the suburbs as it is to those in less fortunate neighborhoods, because it creates and promotes stereotypes of what life is like “in the ghetto.” There is more to black culture than mainstream hip-hop implies, much of which has been and will be demonstrated during the remainder of the Heritage Festival. On Tuesday, a poetry slam was held focusing on the spoken word and jazz tradition. Various community service projects have been held throughout the week. And tonight, the Pan-Hellenic Black Greek Step Show will showcase African dance.

There’s even more to hip-hop than the mainstream would like you to believe. Plenty of underground rappers touch on interesting non-mainstream topics, like the political bent given by Public Enemy, Sage Francis or KRS-One, or the simple wackiness embodied by Kool Keith, Aesop Rock or Del Tha Funkee Homosapian. Mainstream rap should take a hint from its two most popular acts, Outkast and Eminem, whose lyrical content extends beyond the bling-bling life style and diversify its depictions of what it is to be hip-hop.

Ben Nanamaker is a junior in journalism. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].