I once hated on everything on the radio. “Those rappers are sell outs,” I thought to myself. “They have no balls.”

As I’ve become older I realize that I was wrong.

Rappers who have found success in popular culture are simply giving people what they want—something that all successful businesses learn to do.

I recently read The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau . In it, he uses the analogy of people eating at a restaurant. Imagine if you were go to a restaurant, and after you ordered your food the waiter took you with him into the kitchen and began teaching you how the meal was made and about all of the ingredients required.

Some people may enjoy the educational experience, but for the most part people just want to sit down and have a meal prepared for them. People would stop coming and the restaurant would go out of business if all of the waiters did this.

This thought process can be applied to music as well. With hip hop music, some people may want to hear about how wack other rappers are and how sharp your lyrical swords are, but most people play hip hop music for other reasons.

The artist inside everyone wants to make what they want to make, and this is great as long as you aren’t in a position where you need to make money off of what you create. The unfortunate part is that many rappers seem to be under the impression that all rappers should stop trying to make music people like so that people will listen to their music by default.

For every 10 successful and untalented rappers, there are more than 100 talented and unsuccessful rappers. But spending time publicly hating on rappers who have found an audience just makes a person look salty. The phrase “That ain’t real hip hop. Don’t listen to it” can be translated as “If this person would stop making music you like, maybe you would give my music a chance.”

I am not suggesting that you should stop making the music you love; I’m saying if you want to sell it, be aware of what people are looking for.

I found a great list of the top 6 reasons people listen to music on PsyBlog.org.uk.

6. To learn about others and the world.

We learn about the world and the people that live in it through music. It can teach us how people think and give us lessons to live by.

Nobody can tell your story better than you can. Give people the truth about where you are from and who you are. (The only reason people ever knew about my music was because of my song about Oregon, Oregon Homeboy.)

5. Personal identity

We tell the story of who we are through the music we listen to. “Even the broadest genres like rock, classical and blues begin to give us a picture of a person. We also seem to discover ourselves through music: it can teach is who we are and where we belong.”

4. Interpersonal relationships

We connect with others through our music. We listen to music and discuss it with our friends. We play our favorite songs and sing along at parties. We dance with each other.

“One study tested whether exposure to romantic music makes a woman more likely to agree to a date Gueguen et al. (2010)…The percentage of women who agreed to a date almost doubled from 28% to 52% after they had been played some romantic music.”

2. Negative mood management and Diversion (tie)

Music can help is deal with being in ugly situations. Listening to someone talk about a situation we are going through helps us by reminding us we are not alone.

One of my favorite songs is called Postal by Louis Logic. In the song he talks about working at a jobs he hates while trying to make it as a rapper. “So I work over rhymes and am behind in my paper work, I’m late for work cuz I spend my nights chasing skirts.”

Music also works as a diversion. Music can make time fly faster whether you are working at a job you hate or driving to and from a job you hate.

1. Positive mood management

Music helps set the tone. Whether you want to be romantic, relaxed or want people to get moving.
“In one study by Ziv et al. (2011) participants were falsely told they’d done badly on a task. Those who were played some positive music afterwards, were more hopeful about the future than those left in silence.”

Positive music can make bad and good moods better.