Some people claim tattoos are being marketed primarily to a white Rock & Roll generation. Hip hop and R&B artists - from Tupac to 50 Cent to Eminem - have donned elaborate, detailed and beautiful tattoos even though tattoos are primarily associated with rock and bikers. Slain rapper Tupac Shakur illustrates how tattoos began to symbolize a 'gangsta' lifestyle in the tattoo he chose to put across his abdomen which read "THUG LIFE."
Hip hop and R&B artists are a kind of modern-day aristocracy. All you have to do is switch on MTV to find out how prevalent is their desire to be covered with tattoos. Rappers are both insiders and outsiders. Tattoos lend themselves very well to this double meaning because througout the history of tattoos they have appealed to the extremes of society from the drawing room aristocracy to the lowly criminal.
