The difference between rappers and car insurance salesmen may be blurring.It goes without saying that Lil’ Wayne’s influence is one of the most far reaching in today’s popular culture. He is a one-man media machine — showing up on ESPN, being interviewed by Katie Couric, pushing Gatorade through voice-over commercials and, you know, not to mention rapping to millions upon millions of teenagers. He is one of the most valuable resources an advertising agency could ever lasso.Lil’ Wayne made headlines last year by releasing many Internet-only mixtapes. Available for free download, the only profit Wayne received was the profit of fame. This undoubtedly helped him sell more than one million copies of his studio release “Tha Carter III,” in its first week of release.What is interesting about Wayne and rap in general is the fact that it almost mirrors, to a point, what Andy Warhol did when he was blurring the line between commercialism and art through his Campbell’s Soup prints, among others. Many rappers use simile and metaphor extensively in their songs, often times as a type of boast. They will compare themselves to things as a means of showing how good they are (at their art, I suppose, though often time they are more vague).Wayne often mentions things from the commercial world in his rap, and he doesn’t stop at boasting about having nice products (i.e. Cadillacs, Patron, Impalas, Ralph Lauren, etc.), but he even goes on to mention things from every walk of commercial life. At one point on his mixtape “Da Drought 3” he says,  “I’ve been around / I’m still around / like the Geico caveman.” He mentions a marketing tool of a car insurance company in a free mixtape that thousands download. And since Wayne is such an influential figure for many people whenever he mentions a brand — as he often does without any emotional connection to it such as the previous example — we hear it, process it and remember it. It is a new form of advertising without brands having to pay for it.And he does this constantly. Rappers using the commercial world to explain their art is probably about as blurred as it gets. So the question is obvious and simple: Is this art? If not, what is it? It seems like a popular culture artform, as it is the music of the people in many ways, the new form of jazz.While no one can say for sure, it creates a world of commercialism in art that seems to be heretofore absent. Good or bad is irrelevant. What it means for art is an entirely different question and one I do not have an answer for. Either way, it is changing the landscape of reactionary music. Most times, these stories of commercialism are told by those who seem to have the most reason to revolt against the norm but instead they wish to achieve the norm (which is seen in coming from poverty to owning “nice” things).Will Geico start paying Wayne to rap more about its caveman? Probably not, but it certainly is a distinct possibly. And that opens the floodgates.The road is cleaving, and a fork is forming.A choice has to be made soon.—-Contact Travis Andrews at [email protected]