9. Riff Raff
Riff Raff invites hate for a few reasons. Arguably, he's perpetrating a stereotype, and playing up a one-dimensional character. There are plenty of good reasons to suspect that the appreciation of his art has a strange relationship with race. One needs only to look at the relative lower profile of former comical partner-in-crime and African-American performer TKO Capone; how did Riff Raff leap frog ahead of him so suddenly?
There are also some less dramatic reasons for the hate he receives. Riff Raff is a performer more interested in entertainment than creating serious art, and for a certain strain of hip-hop fan, there's nothing worse than a rapper whose goal doesn't involve dropping a new Illmatic or Ridin' Dirty. As a rapper, the Caucasian sensation has had his fair share of catchy, funny songs, and it's understandable why people are drawn to his outlandish persona.
But he also provides quite a dilemma; similarly amusing Texan drawlers haven't ascended to the same profile, and it's not difficult to see that there might be a level of identification going on with his audience (down to the high-profile Diplo cosign) that gives him an extra boost. Riff Raff isn't taken at his word; it's all a joke, while non-white rappers are presumed to lack that self-awareness.
8. Shyne
It's hard not to feel sympathy for Shyne. He spent the better part of his adulthood behind bars for a crime he may not solely have been responsible for, and he ended up getting deported the moment he was freed. But since his release, he's really been racking up negative attention. Two factors seem to bear responsibility.
One: he keeps inserting himself into the news via false or overblown controversies (hating on Kendrick Lamar, accusing Rick Ross of mocking his recently-discovered faith). Two: incarceration somehow destroyed his rap talent, and he hasn't released a worthwhile song since the early 2000s. The best defense of his career is that he's suffered and so should be left alone to put his life back together. But every time he makes headlines, he makes it that much more difficult.
7. Cac Miller
For years, rappers like Vanilla Ice and Eminem faced criticism that their music was going to whitewash hip-hop, to present a safer version of music for white America that couldn't deal with the genre on its own terms. This was true to a degree, as it always is when white rappers are performing for a black audience. But Mac Miller, who shot from virtual obscurity to becoming a behemoth of independent rap music, seems to embody this idea with a greater resonance than most before or since.
When Eminem arose, much noise was made defending him on the grounds that he still came from the trailer parks, therefore represented for the underclass, and that he was undeniably skilled. Mac Miller has had to prove neither of these points. Mac Miller appeals to a very wide audience that has interest in seeing themselves on stage, where their identity is tied as much to skin tone as it is any kind of artistic accomplishment.
So it's easy to see why haters would be drawn to his career; he makes for an easy target, as does any artist who seems to have earned acclaim in part thanks to race. But that kind of blanket hate also refuses to acknowledge the ways in which he's managed to build a successful brand independently, without the assistance of major labels. His work connects with audiences for a reason, and sometimes it's just because those audiences like his songs.
6. Drake
Drake's got a significant hate-base for some pretty obvious reasons. His entire existence in the game relied on ridiculous advantages that most hip-hop artists had to fight for. He started out famous. He began with money. He represents a nation known primarily for rap acts like Swollen Members and Choclair. He has an accessible kind of yuppie vibe. He sings. But this is where the territory gets rocky, and his advantages—those things that gave him a leg up on the competition—start to become disadvantages. He sings. He doesn't have the typical hood cosigns. He's seen as soft.
In an artform where narratives are so heavily reliant on struggle, he's had none. But being the anti-underdog made him a weird kind of underdog, at least if you forget that he initially had a cosign from the biggest rapper in the game. But the most important quality Drake had was his drive. Where most rappers who start with money have trouble motivating themselves, he was, for all his faults, a student of the art and a clear workaholic. And it showed in his music. While his haters multiplied, and so did his fans.
5. Lil B
Lil B doesn't make it easy. He doesn't just troll those souls still uncomfortable with the concept of homosexuality; if anything, backpedaling on his I'm Gay album with a subtitle (I'm Happy) made him seem more like a standard troll and less like the master of head-games he'd presented previously. But his real art is that of the unapologetic weirdo, one who managed to reach a critical mass of Internet attention without ever really producing music that had a chance of crossing over.
There are legitimate reasons to be frustrated. In some corners of the Internet, he became more meme than musician, a lazy comedian's way to get a laugh without making a joke. And some will always be suspicious that a weirdo-rapper's fans are fetishizing his wackiness, rather than genuinely enjoying the art he creates.
But Lil B made some great music, at least for a period, and did push against the boundaries of what people thought possible in hip-hop, even breaking down the physical act of rapping. It can't be said that Lil B didn't deserve criticism; after all, his art was designed to provoke reactions at almost every level. But the haters who wrote off a genuinely unique artist missed some of the possibilities he opened up and questions he helped raise.
4. Kreayshawn
In case you didn't realize, Kreayshawn is female, which is one major strike against a hater-free career just off the top. That she also dares to appeal to women—just look at footage of her shows for evidence—is doubling down for haters, many of whom aren't willing to look at a female rapper who isn't Jean Grae (who, in turn, is herself only appreciated by these guys when she can be used as a point of comparison to which other females could never measure up, an unfair situation for everyone involved).
Her record label's inability to capitalize off of Kreay's buzz, releasing her debut album more than a year after her initial impact, has only proven haters right (at least, in their eyes), although marketplace performance is inconsistently applied to fans of underground hip-hop, and hardly even mattered to heads in earlier eras. It doesn't help that her album didn't deliver on the early promise of "Gucci Gucci," but critics were praying on her downfall from the moment she first appeared on the scene.
The fact that she couldn't replicate her initial hit's success was all the proof they needed. Ironically, it's the album's distance from the pop-rap sound of "Gucci Gucci" that makes her music so much less engaging. White Girl Mob cohort Lil Debbie has actually score a few minor creative successes via YouTube hits like "2 Cups" that are closer in spirit to what folks were looking for from Kreay in the first place.
3. Chief Keef
Chief Keef's haters are mad for a plethora of reasons, some justified, many not: His bars aren't strong enough, his success is owed to hipsters and Internet hype, he fulfills a stereotype and glorifies negativity, represents all that is wrong with our inner cities, is stupid, and "makes music for n****s that put their index finger under each word when they read." There's no doubt that his music has an uncomfortably close relationship with violence, albeit one not much different from Wu-Tang, Snoop Dogg or two decades worth of gangster rap.
But it's just a bit over the top. He's a 17-year-old, and while he will make (and has made) his own mistakes, haters have treated him like a one-dimensional caricature from day one. And a lot of the hate is based on perceptions and stereotypes about America's underclass. The media mocked him for wearing the same clothes two days in a row, and Twitter abounds with judgements of his presumed lifestyle.
For months, a false rumor propagated—unsourced, naturally—that Keef has Aspergers syndrom, which was even repeated as "fact" by the editor of a major music website on Twitter. With the arrival of "Love Sosa" (and the increasing perception that Keef may, in fact, not be a one-hit-wonder), convictions have shown some signs of softening, but haters still hate.
2. Lil Wayne
It's probably difficult to be the biggest rapper in the world and not also hold the title of the world's most hated. Anyone even reaching for the crown invites criticism just for being presumptuous. But to actually succeed, to accomplish where so many have failed, invites the most aggressive hate. And Lil Wayne is currently the most successful rapper working; even Jay-Z and Kanye West's collaborative album was dwarfed by sales of The Carter IV, which neared one million copies in one week.
The reasons for the hate are plentiful: Wayne uses Auto-Tune, dresses like a weirdo, releases pop songs, and to many, seemed to will himself into success by declaring himself "the best." But that is, at the end of the day, the nature of hip-hop, and an explanation for why success with a diverse audience is so important. You can't call yourself the greatest if people aren't going, and even then—or, especially then—some people hate.
1. Nicki Minaj
Let's get the very first reason Nicki is hip-hop's most-hated out of the way first: She's a successful woman. This much should be obvious. There are a lot of people out there who have zero time for female rappers, even if they have to couch it in criticisms of her appearance from the left (promotes unrealistic images to women!) or right (slut!), her use of over-the-top accents, or her decision to pay attention to her pop audience (as if her hip-hop supporters were keeping the lights on).
This isn't to say that some criticisms aren't legitimate; her career isn't flawless. But it's tough to imagine that anyone else in the industry would be put under the relentless microscope treatment Nicki has received in the past few years.
Shyne? He isn't hated on he's just irrelevant
