diggyG:

how do artists from a higher socio-economic class cover artists whose fanbase is in a lower socio-economic class, without being unintentionally disrespectful?

I'd hazard a guess that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant came from slightly "higher socio-economic classes" than, say, Sonny Boy Williamson, Willie Dixon, and Howlin' Wolf. Page and Plant flat-out plagiarized those gents, lyrically if not always melodically, and profited mightily thereby. Now that's disrespectful.

Seems like it'd be hard for almost anyone who owns a guitar of their own to avoid being in a higher socio-economic class than, say, Robert Johnson. Should no-one but destitute black musicians ever play the blues? And should those destitute black musicians who move up a tax bracket after sales of their first album thenceforth give up the blues and switch to jazz?

But it's an interesting point. Nobody'd think twice about a young street-corner rapper making rhymes about 24" wheels on his Escalade, buckets of bling, fistfuls of Franklins and a harem of high-priced women, but somebody born in Bel Air who tries to sing about doing hard time at Folsom or losing his wife to the foreman at the sawmill... well, that guy just comes off as a poseur and a dope.