Sellout

Sellout as defined by Dictionary.com

A person who betrays a cause, organization, or the like; traitor.

A person who compromises his or her personal values, integrity, talent, or the like, for money or personal advancement.

Over the years, this term has been used to describe people from all walks of life/areas. Lately, this term has been used by fans of the music industry to let the world know what they think about their favourite artist going 'mainstream'. My question is...Have they really sold out?

Follow me on this one. 

An artist is discovered, his/her/their music hits the public in all ways possible, artist has a following, artist becomes rich. Somewhere along the line, a few followers fall off the bandwagon for some reason or the other, but the main reason is because the artist has decided to 'sellout' and go mainstream. Now I get that as fans we easily identify with an artist mainly because their music 'speaks' to us on some level and we use this as means to escape our reality. To lose this ability to escape reality for even the duration of the song would be a tragic event and we would look to blame the culprit, in this case the artist. 

I too have fallen into this 'trap', until I sat down and thought about this situation (yes I admit, I was bored out of my cotton picking mind) and came to a rather interesting conclusion/observation/revelation. We aren't angry at the artist because we believe he/she/they have sold out, we are angry with ourselves that we fell for the 'game'. What 'game' you may ask...the mind game that the artist is actually making the music for us. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the artist doesn't love making music or doesn't have love for the fans....I'm saying that at the end of the day, they are in it to make money. Where is the money...that's right main stream

There are many examples we could choose from but Black Eyed Peas and to a lesser extent Ludacris are standing out in my mind. I know a lot of you are saying BEP?? Ludacris?? They sold out? For some people BEP, pre-Fergie days and post-Fergie days are two separate entities and there are some people that say by appearing on a track with Justin Beiber, Ludacris has in fact sold out. I actually think that they didn't, they haven't 'sold out' or betrayed anything. They came into the industry to make music and make money. Check and Check (well technically the second would should be Cheque...HA!!! I kill me!!!)

So with this new found 'wisdom', I realised that I no longer was annoyed/angry/upset when the artist went 'main stream', what did get me worked up was seeing people still falling for the 'game'. 

Enjoy the music for what it is, what it does...it just might add a few years unto your life