Caucasian persuasion

Reece Baskin says he eats, breathes and lives hip-hop.

"It's not just music to me," the 24-year-old Rochester resident insists.

To most people, Baskin is better known as "Reece Q," a local MC hoping to take his love of hip-hop as far as he can. He's been rapping since his teenage years and, recently, thanks to a strong push from local music blog Act:Live, Baskin's become one of the Rochester's more buzzed-about MCs.

Oh, and he just so happens to be white.

Up until a couple of years ago only a select few got to hear Baskin rap. He didn't start rapping publicly until 2007, when he finally overcame the fear that his skin color might deny him acceptance into the hip-hop culture.

 "I was a white man doing a black man's art form, and I didn't want to be ridiculed for it," Baskin says. And he's not alone in his hesitation.

Anyone who's seen 8 Mile knows the struggle that can come with being a non-black MC. It's guaranteed to be the first thing brought up in a freestyle battle, and no matter how talented you are, you'll likely always be categorized as a "white rapper."

Yet, over the past few years, acceptance has grown. The number of white MCs in hip-hop has ballooned, both on an underground level - with artists like Sage Francis, Atmosphere and Aesop Rock - and in the mainstream with the breakthrough of Asher Roth.

At a recent benefit show for Act:Live, the basement of Dub Land Underground on Alexander Street was filled with music fans of various nationalities. And, coincidentally, every MC who performed was white.

Such acceptance can, in large part, be attributed to a breakthrough moment in hip-hop history. In 1999, the video for Eminem's "My Name Is" debuted on TRL and kick-started a career that has sold more than 34 million records.

Eminem certainly wasn't the first of his kind. Artists like the Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass gained fame

in the late 1980s. However, in 1990, the massive success of and fallout from Vanilla Ice became a black eye on the face of hip-hop and made it hard for white MCs to be taken seriously. (Acts like MC Snow, Insane Clown Posse and Marky Mark didn't help matters.)

It took someone with Eminem's skill and charisma to remind people that white boys could rock the mic too. Eminem's talent was regarded on such a high level that his skin color became a benefit rather than a detriment. As he once proclaimed in the song "White America" - "Let's do the math. If I was black, I would have sold half."

Eminem became the new face of an institution that wasn't used to having someone with his skin color at the forefront - kind of like President Barack Obama.

"Outside of hip-hop, in politics, or whatever, when certain people get into certain positions, there'll always be ethnic issues," says Richard "Ric Rude" Baier, a 25- year-old local MC. "That's America to me. It's too much based on the physical."

And yet, as much as Eminem has inspired a generation of kids who look like him to start rapping, there is a common misconception. Not every white MC is a product of Slim Shady. Many, including several from Rochester, were rapping long before Eminem ever broke into mainstream. And long before Eminem was ever rapping on the streets of Detroit, hip-hop was having no trouble resonating with suburban, white America.

 "That's who's always been buying CDs," says Larry "Laz" Green, 28, who raps in local hip-hop band Subsoil. "Hip-hop is the culture suburban white kids emulated, because their lives lacked that coherent adventure. I remember going to the Up In Smoke Tour and 80 percent of the crowd was white."

Still, as Eminem's new album, Relapse, hits stores 10 years after his first hit single, it's hard not to ignore his impact. While white kids may have always invested in hip-hop, Eminem made it once again OK for them to participate in it.

"He definitely made it acceptable," Baskin says. "He showed that there were white dudes out there that had skills and could be taken seriously."

Yet, some are still cautious. Just as there may be ignorant people waiting for Obama to fail so they can discredit the concept of a black president, 29-year-old Rochester resident Mike "ContaC" Hoepfl says the same could happen to him and his fellow white MCs.

"Nowadays, a lot of kids that are rapping have no idea of the doors that were opened for them," he says. "And all it takes is another Vanilla Ice to knock us right back down again."