it's a hard knock life pt. 2

To add on to the Mahanthappa/Pi Records article, the musical equivalent of being poor in a rich country (rather than poor in a poor country) is being relatively unknown in a popular genre. To wit:

Lil Keke said he was satisfied with his career so far: "I wasn't living like a rapper," he conceded - no gold-plated Bentley, no new-money palace. "But I was living like a doctor."
(from Kelefa Sanneh's "The Strangest Sound in Hip-Hop Goes National," reprinted here)