Chris Webby “Certified” Music Video from John Ta on Vimeo.
This is my first music vid for up and coming rapper Chris Webby.
Chris Webby is part of a larger movement of “white boy rappers” coming up alongside Asher Roth, Sam Adams, Mac Miller, (sorry if I left anybody out) etc… in the post-Eminem era. (My boys, Junk Science, who are also white, are in their own category of hip hop – esoteric (Baje One!), beat-centric (DJ Snafu!), experimental hip hop)
Technically speaking, we are not in a “post-Eminem” era since Eminem is still around and still very relevant. The era we are moving into is one where all these suburban, private-school trained, middle class kids who grew up listening to hip hop in general, but Eminem specifically, see hip hop as a viable and acceptable form of self expression (thank you Eminem). It was through Eminem that the first breakthrough white boy rapper was accepted by the hip hop community on the whole. I saw some blogs calling it “frat rap.” There are even some blogs specifically geared towards this genre of hip hop (The Masked Gorilla).
But what music is teaching us and Webby is reminding us, is that, it’s not necessarily where you are from (The Ghetto) , but what you are dealing with that makes the music matter.
At any rate, much like how Webby enlightens us in this interview – it doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, or green, “if you’re nice, you’re nice,” and that’s all that matters.
The focus is on the MC’ing and in that category Webby is an important musician who is definitely “nice” and, much like Eminem, is going to sneak up on you with his healthy dose of self-deprecating humor and strong lyricism…
UPDATE:
Okay, so a friend of mine said I was being unfair in not giving credit to Snow, Vanilla Ice, and Beastie Boys, not to mention House of Pain/Everlast and 3rd Bass. But what sets Eminem apart from all of them is that he was fully accepted by the hip hop community, MTV, and the mainstream community as a whole – but especially MTV. So without discounting what others brought, you have to single out Eminem as someone who trail-blazed his own genre, his own category, his own history that paved the way for this new movement forefronted by Chris Webby.
Chris Webby’s “Certified” Video around the net: