I have always loved rap. I’ll listen to any kind and even though I may not always understand it or need to listen to it a few times to get it, I think the lyrics are some of the smartest around.
I’ve been listening to the new ‘Roots’ album a lot. My favorite track - 75 bars - was playing on my way to work this morning. As I was listening I got this twinge of jealousy. Rappers, as much as you think they have no regard for their audience, are in total tune with their audience. They have been for 30 years. Everything they do is for their audience. And they can write and pour every bit of passion into developing their product for that audience without any regard for anyone else. If you don’t like it, f**k you, don’t listen. It’s not written for you.
How blissful to be able to do the same thing as a marketer. What’s that? Isn’t everything we do supposed to start with defining the audience? Yea, it is and in most cases, does. However, somewhere between defining the audience and submitting the copy for approval, the large number of people involved in approving the copy actually become the audience. It’s tweaked a thousand different ways to satisfy the nuances of all the individuals involved in the approval process, losing the very essence of what made it accurate in the first place.
Why is this? Why do we abandon the groundwork we’ve invested in a project to appease the layers of approval? I know why I do it - to protect my relationship with the decision makers, my job and the jobs of those I work with. I guess that makes me a sell-out, by rapper definition.
How different would it be if we could just be free to write what we know resonates with our audience? How different would it be if we could just write like a rapper.
