Contributed by Amrita Singh on 2/18/08

“We have reached a point where our popular culture threatens to undermine our character as a nation.” - Bob Dole

The way in which Commercial Hip Hop is packaged today ensures it will be consumed by a mass audience. From magazines to films to music to fashion the industry has imprints on all aspects of American mass culture. For a young American to reject Hip Hop in some ways is almost to reject the American Dream, for the plight from the ’streets’ to fame are represented as the American Dream taking place before our very eyes - and for those who need it pointing out ‘P Diddy’ wears the professing t-shirt reading “I am the American Dream”. The globalisation of Hip Hop was indeed an inevitability in contemporary America - The disillusionment of these hip hop artists however, is no less tragic than the representation of the American Dream in an Arthur Miller play.

The position of power that the artists attempt to exemplify seems ironic as it is an executive decision as to what is included in their music and videos, they are marketed commodities and in effect as disposable and any blue collar worker in America. The differences from when an artist is released and when they become commercially successful are vast. As an artist becomes more successful it seems the less creative control they have over their art. Which results in corporate America representing a controlling Black art form and the representations within it.

The organisation of the commercial Hip Hop is very much embedded in cultural hegemony. For Gramsci’s Theory of Hegemony identifies that hegemony results in the dominant class’ values to become the norm and to be aspired to in the case of the working class. In Hip Hop this is very true, for the quest to commercial success results in adopting the bourgeois values and way of life - essentially the materialistic nature of the ruling class. These values are reflected in the very bold way that Hip Hop artists flaunt their money and success, commercially successful song ‘Pimp Juice’ by Nelly demonstrates these attitudes explicitly:

“I’m in that, seventy-four, Coupe DeVille
With the, power seats, leather, wood on my wheel
One-touch sunroof BUT leave it alone”

The imagery here is not only of material commodities but also iconography of the America and the bourgeois, the references to the Cadillac ‘Coupe Deville’ which being an symbol ‘Americaness’ almost, demonstrates the way that Hip Hop artists have adopted the values of the dominant class, and a movement once representing rebellion now seems to serve as a microcosm of American capitalist society and itís effects on the black community - the cause of Hip Hopís origin.

The repeated images of black males that emerge from American popular culture are very narrow, and for those whose knowledge is extracted from the media only - there seems to be one representation only. These affluent young black men, who exert their success in everyway with women, cars and cribs are a regurgitated image that are constantly thrown at consumers but at what cost? The Hip Hop star is an example, as mentioned before is an commodity, easily replaceable but with a vast impact on society. The Hip Hop star represents the American Dream, and is almost a fast track towards this as they become successful, so young. But the long term implications of ideal is that corporate America controls the images of black people in the media.

We see young rich black men who are seemingly retaining their ‘blackness’ by behaving and dressing in a certain way. But behind these images of strong black men is an ideal that in America anyone can be successful, giving an illusion of equality, and with a predominantly white audience - this is a strong message to be giving out. In fact a Gallup Poll in 2004 showed that 78 percent of white Americans believed that Black people are now treated very to somewhat fairly [including 9 out of 10 whom were under 30 years of age]. This was in comparison to only 38 percent of black people who agreed with them.

If these images give the illusion of equality to all in America then surely this is an example of hegemony in which only the ruling class can benefit. As the youth of America pay attention to these perpetuated images of success and money - they will take two messages from it; one being that if I work hard I will can emulate the success I see. The other being that America is a free market economy in which every man is equal and his success depends on his work ethic alone - thus upholding the current status quo. In a wider context of the non white entrepreneur Manning Marable comments:

“The non white businessperson is the personification of the legitimizing and rational character of capitalism. For white corporations, he/she serves to perpetuate the illusion that anyone can ‘make it’ within the existing socioeconomic order, if only he/she works sufficiently at it. For the state, the black entrepreneur represents the role model of proper civic behaviour that the unruly and ‘non-productive’ black masses should”

Marable’s comments here can be exactly applied to Hip Hop stars and their influence over youth, these effects clearly contain the social structure of America since the civil rights movement.

To further explore this adoption of hegemony in Hip Hop culture one need look no further than the biggest selling Hip Hop artist of recent years - 50 Cent. 50 Cent’s commercially successful song - “In Da Club” demonstrates his commitment to American values as a Hip Hop artist:

“And the plan is to put the rap game in a choke hold
I’m feelin’ focused man, my money on my mind
I got a mill out the deal and I’m still on the grind
Now shawty said she feeling my style, she feeling my flow”

Here 50 explains his preoccupation with money; how he earns a million from the record deal and yet heís still on the ‘grind’. The work ethic here, is essentially an American ideal. However, the bourgeois values of committing oneself to the ‘American Dream’ automatically makes these lyrics both rhetoric and ironic:

“My flow, my show brought me the doe
That bought me all my fancy things
My crib, my cars, my clothes, my jewels
Look nigga I done came up and I ain’t change”

50 Centís claim that he ‘ain’t changed’ is perhaps a defence mechanism against critiques of this corporate culture - by identifying his material possessions and money as his incentive, 50 alienates the ‘real’ Hip Hop world and almost the values of the black community - who will view the adoption of white middleclass values as crime against their ‘blackness’. Paul C. Taylor writing on his own detachment with Hip Hop as a black man, comments:

“Cultural communities are naturally occurring complex phenomena: they are the social equivalent of ecosystems. And we should fight to preserve them, they way we do with imperilled ecosystems. The peril in this case is that hip hop has grown estranged from the black communities that gave it it’s life, purpose, perspective and style. It has gone over to the corporate world, to a place where music and fashion are commodities rather than aspects of a community’s life-world. Consequently, it is in danger of dying out. It will only survive if black people, like you, reclaim it.”

Taylor’s opinion here highlights the detachment of commercial Hip Hop to black communities, perhaps this is due to Hip Hopís main consumer being white, therefore the reiteration of the American Dream is necessary albeit in the guise of being a rebellious ‘thug’.

To compare the lyrics of the aforementioned Hip Hop artists to older Hip Hop, which was also commercially successful [although not to the scales of success seen today] demonstrates how the industry and it’s audience has changed:

“Hard times can take you on a natural trip
So keep your balance, and don’t you slip
Hard times is nothing new on me
I’m gonna use my strong mentality
Like the cream of the crop, like the crop of the cream
B-b-beating hard times, that is my theme
Hard times in life, hard times in death
I’m gonna keep on fighting to my very last breath”

These lyrics are taken from RUN DMC’s first self titled album released in 1984, clearly the focus is no the same as contemporary artists, the ‘hard times’ suggest that the system is some way against the artist and target audience, whom at the time were a largely black and working class demographic, unlike now, few suburban kids were the target audience of Hip Hop. The song will not have been as popular as a commercial success now as it does not relate suburban audiences and lacks mass appeal.

For the Hip Hop audience to change, a shift takes place in which Subculture becomes mainstream. For Hip Hop listeners who are now [according to Simmons Lathan Media Group] 80 percent white and aged between 13 - 34. Therefore marketing, must be aimed at this demographic, an example of this type of marketing is an advert for Coca Cola Vitamin Water which 50 cent partly owns and endorses. The product, and the advertisement for that matter have little to do with Hip Hop. The advert is set in an orchestral hall, 50 Cent is the composer, with a 60 piece orchestra. As a white elderly gentleman commentate on the action, 50 Cent composes the orchestra to play his hit song “In Da Club”. With no reference to the water in the advert - 50 says at the end, “Vitamin Water, try it!” Here is a prime example of the commercialism of Hip Hop and it’s target audience. The advert places 50 Cent in a predominantly white bourgeois world, where even they know him and his songs as the commentators say. As the orchestra play his song, it denotes the power and success of 50 Cent, but also for impressionable viewers a sense of rebellion, acting ‘bad’ now becomes cool. However the connotations of this advert run much deeper - for 50, standing in a white upper class society seemingly in a position of power is conforming to the world of the upper classes, and not the other way around. Essentially, 50 Cent is the one to change his habits to inhabit this world, the orchestra and the commentator are just doing their normal jobs.

Hip Hop has become a symbol of corporate America, and with corporate ruling class controlling the media it is unlikely Hip Hop will have the free expression and voice it used to have. It is inevitable however that such measures are taken in an age that sees the resurgence of excessive homeland security, xenophobia and increasingly right winged political policies. Control by the state has become normalised in America and it seems an authoritarian state. Matt Silverstein comments:

“Mainstream rap is a perversion of the hip-hop culture. The socially and intellectually valuable elements of the culture have been suppressed, not necessarily because society fears hip-hop, but because the majority of Americans are simply not interested in a culture that questions their ways of life. Until major record labels and promoters learned how to package hip-hop, the culture only existed in the margins of society, with an audience composed almost exclusively of minorities.”

American culture seems to have suppressed expression within Hip Hop not only musically but by changing the perceptions of black people, or indeed just cementing stereotypes.

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