When I think of a “sell out” you know who pops right into my mind? Iggy Azalea, pure and simple. This renowned female rapper ironically begins her hit song “Fancy” with the lyrics “First things first, I’m the realest.” Ummmm…all I have to say to that is: HA! I agree to disagree. Iggy was born and raised in Australia, and moved to Miami at the age of 16 to pursue her rapping career where she met rapper TI, who produced her first single “Glory.” And now, this girl raps about growing up on the streets, having a tough life, being in the “murda business,” and being associated with some other things that don’t even pertain to her life.

I have to admit, she can come up with some good rhymes, and her music is catchy (hence the reason her singles were on the Top 100 Hits twice in a row), but her songs lack meaning and veracity. She sings about things that she doesn’t believe in and has never experienced, and therefore, her songs are of no value and deliver no important message to listeners whatsoever. Iggy creates commercially successful music that is solely for the purpose of appealing to the American public, and consequently compromises her true identity and values. She even avoids rapping in her Australian accent, and instead, chooses to take on what many critics call a “southern black girl” accent. And that’s exactly what I call a sell out.

But don’t get me wrong, there is such a thing as producing a form of art that can make one a lot of money and at the same time, convey a meaningful idea to audiences. Movies such as Wall Street and Taxi Driver are examples of two great works in which producers Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone managed to accomplish both of these goals without being sellouts. Both of these films revealed the type of life that New Yorkers living in different areas of the city and time periods had undergone. In Wall Street, for example, Stone’s movie depicted the corruption, greed, and competition that was, and still is prevalent on Wall Street through the characters of Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko. And in Taxi Driver, Scorsese portrayed the filthy, perilous, and prostitution-filled Times Square before Disneyfication through the eyes of post-Vietnam veteran, Travis Bickle.

Without a doubt, these movies were very lucrative, with Taxi Driver making $28 million, and Wall Street $44 million. Both of these great films conveyed the unfortunate and true message that in New York, it’s all about survival of the fittest and that “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to make it in this city.” Some people become pimps, some turn to prostitution, and others simply resort to cheating people out of their money. These two ingenious producers (who did I mention were born AND raised in New York) successfully created two exceptional movies that were prosperous and entertaining, and had most certainly delivered an important message to their audiences.