(Photo: REUTERS/Mike Cassese)

By Calvin Stovall

Jeremy Lin is Notorious B.I.G. in ‘93. He’s also Nas in ‘91. 50 Cent in ’02. Every other rap phenomenon we’ve watched take the game by storm from out of nowhere. In sports, the overnight celebrity is rare — AAU, the NCAA and scouting practices ensure that we know who’s talented enough to make it before they get to the pros. The Internet has had a similar effect on the rap game. The blogosphere and magazines like Fader and Spin act as the minors and college ranks, providing a space for new talent to be discovered and monitored before they get a shot at the big time. Once a rapper’s buzz reaches a certain level, he graduates to the majors, signs a deal or stays indie, starts getting press in XXL, The Source and VIBE and is thrown into a deep pool of up-and-comers until he proves he’s worthy of greater accolades. For the most part, if you want to be a famous rapper, you have to go through this system.

But the system is flawed. Sure, blogs serve as a great proving ground — you earn your stripes by building your buzz and as you go from blogs to magazines to TV, you hopefully improve incrementally — but who was the last star that this system produced? The vast majority of rappers fostered in the blogosphere struggle to make the next step and many don’t last past a year. Take a look back at your old XXL Freshmen covers — a lot more Charles Hamiltons and Pills than Drakes and Nicki Minajes.

That’s because Drake and Nicki, like Jeremy Lin, took the road less traveled. No one took Drake seriously initially because of his Degrassi background, so he was overlooked by the system and had to work outside of it. While at the time he was surely upset about not getting the same predictive accolades as peers Wale, Cudi and B.o.B, his exclusion turned out to be a blessing. He went around the gatekeepers and created his own lane. Nicki did the same, so did Odd Future.

Jeremy Lin’s path through the D-League and free agency is currently proving the ineptitude of his sport’s system for assessing talent. In the future, best believe NBA teams will start valuing a player’s smarts a lot more in scouting just like 50 made the rap world see the true value of mixtapes. Phenoms don’t come out of nowhere on purpose. All 30 teams had a chance at Jeremy Lin in the draft and Drake was putting out mixtapes and videos long before So Far Gone blew. Since we couldn’t recognize on our own, they had to break the mold and force us to look at things differently. So stop trying to find rap’s next big thing on the blogs, he’s not there. When the time comes, he’ll make himself known. Until then, sit back, keep your hands high and enjoy the Jeremy Lin phenomenon.

Comments (1)