Going Global

My final post will be more theory based as I narrow down my research topic in the Hip Hop subculture.  I want to discuss the globalisation and appropriation of Hip Hop music.  I will apply James Lull’s cultural territory framework to plot the journey of Hip Hop culture.

 

Some people may site breakthrough artist like Azdad (Germany), Rhymester (Japan), Lil Rob (Mexico) and Scribe (New Zealand) as evidence of the globalisation of Hip Hop.  However, the spread of Hip Hop culture goes well beyond a group of commercially successful performers.  What started on the streets of New York in the 1970s is today a worldwide youth culture.  Over the past twenty-five years the Hip Hop movement has spread far and wide, becoming a truly global phenomenon.  As a result, local Hip Hop music, performed in native dialect, can be found in most countries around the world. The global adoption of Hip Hop music has led to it being used in new social and linguistic environments.

 

The appropriation of rap music occurs when a community of people not only listen and support imported work, but begin performing the genre themselves.  In a more general sense, it is the productive use of an originally imported cultural pattern.  The spread of Hip Hop in Europe and Asia was mostly a phenomenon of the 1990s.  Aspects of the original Hip Hop culture in the USA were combined with local musical idioms and vernaculars to produce new and distinctive styles of Hip Hop music.  Similar to the US, Hip Hop scenes were mainly set in urban settings, such as Berlin in Germany, Paris in France, Tokyo in Japan and Auckland in New Zealand.  In many of these cases, Hip Hop culture has become a vehicle for youth protest.  It has been used in different local contexts to voice the causes of ethnic minorities and to make statements about local political, racial, sexual and class issues.

 

As it gains audiences around the world, the risk is that Hip Hop culture will be appropriated in such a way that its original purpose and message will be lost.  However, a key to the success of the global spread of Hip Hop music is that it is “firmly rooted in the local and the temporal”.  The music is about “where I’M from” and as such proposes a new kind of universality (Mitchell 5). 

                       

The appropriation of Hip Hop culture can be viewed as an emergence of a new cultural territory.  By applying James Lull’s framework for cultural territory, the adoption of Hip Hop culture can be broken into three distinct stages.

 

Deterritorialization: the extraction of a cultural pattern from its original social context

 

Cultural melding and mediation: transculturation, hybridisation and indigenisation

 

Reterritorialization: the integration of this cultural pattern into a new society

           

(Lull 145-64)

 

It is the middle phase of cultural melding and mediation that is critical to the appropriation of Hip Hop culture worldwide.              Transculturation occurred in the early 1990s in Europe, when the public was flooded with records, films, video clips, magazines and all other types of media that delivered the Hip Hop formula.  Popular American artists like Public Enemy and N.W.A were the catalyst for the spread of Hip Hop through Europe.  Soon, artefacts of Hip Hop culture such as clothing and speech infiltrated youth culture.  The second phase, hybridisation, is the mixture of new and familiar cultural forms.  This included the blending of traditional rap music with local sounds and native vernaculars, as well as references to local geography, people and social problems.  The final phase is the indigenisation of imported cultural patterns.  Although similar to hybridisation, indigenisation is about creating your own cultural territory. The indigenised cultural pattern no longer feels alien and is engrained into local culture.

 

Using Lull’s framework, the interplay between global and local Hip Hop culture becomes evident.  Hip Hop culture can no longer be seen as an expression for just African American people.  It has become a voice for youth protest and a tool for reworking local identity all over the world.

 

References

 

Lull, James. Media, Communications, Culture.  A Global Approach. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.

 

Mitchell, Tony. Global noise: rap and hip-hop outside the USA. Wesleyan University Press, 2001

Responsibility?

A subculture, by definition, is a group of people with a culture that differentiates them from the larger culture or the ‘mainstream’.  As a result, subcultures will inevitably offend people and be criticized by the mass.  Hip Hop is no exception.  Hip Hop culture has long been associated with sex, drugs, violence, gang mentality and other illegal behaviour.  In this post I do not plan to debate whether Hip Hop is a bad influence because there is a case for both arguments.  Hip Hop music can vary from the intelligent, socially aware music, like the work of Common or Dead Prez, to the more vulgar gangsta rap which glorifies ‘thugery’ and violence.  Instead, I will question who is responsible for the content and themes of Hip Hop music.

 

The Hip Hop movement is no longer just a subculture existing in the streets of New York.  It has evolved into a multi-million dollar global industry.  As discussed in the attached episode of Hip Hop in Review, “People have to understand it’s a business, and it’s treated like a business, but it didn’t originate as a business.  Hip Hop originated as an expression, a way to get out from under the oppression, and be able to express what people were really feeling during certain periods of time in our history” (Mahdi Fard Muhummad).  As such, the intentions of many parties in the Hip Hop industry have changed from creating art to making money.  This poses a critical question: Should artists, producers and record labels take more responsibility for the content and themes of Hip Hop music?

 

In a perfect world the answer would be yes.  However, Hip Hop music is not set in the perfect world.  Quite the opposite.  A major theme of Hip Hop music is either overcoming personal battles (like poverty or drug addictions) or the plight of an oppressed population (like ‘blacks’ in America).  If Hip Hop music is to be a true form of expression, artists should be able to tell their stories uncensored.  As T.I. states in the attached video, “The things that I say come from the life that I used to live.  And this is the harsh reality that most of you were fortunate enough to have not dealt with”.  Listeners need to take this into consideration when comprehending Hip Hop music.  They also need to understand that the lifestyle portrayed in many Hip Hop songs and film clips is merely a fantasy. 

 

Critics of Hip Hop would argue that not everyone has the cognitive ability to separate reality and fantasy.  Particularly children, who are most vulnerable to the influence of popular media.  As discussed in both videos featured in this post, it becomes the role of parents and mentors to educate children.  Creating greater awareness of the subculture and dispelling myths about the genre will minimize misinterpretations of Hip Hop music.

 

The second point made by Mahdi Fard Muhummad is that Hip Hop is a business.  However, many of the players in the Hip Hop industry have not had any experience or training in business.  As a result, they do whatever they can to get ahead of the game.  As D. Solo puts it, “They do business like they deal dope”.  Many Hip Hop artists are not concerned with long-term consequences of their music.  At the end of the day, they just want to sell records.  And at the moment, there is a demand for ‘snap’ music, which fuels the Hip Hop fantasy – money, bling, drugs, women etc. 

 

There are artist in the Hip Hop community who produce responsible music.  However, the darker side of Hip Hop is a reality and will always be intertwined with the genre.  Ideally, artist, producers and record labels should take more accountability for their actions and think how Hip Hop is being portrayed to the public.  But the key is to educate the public so that clear distinctions are made between real Hip Hop culture and the Hip Hop fantasy.

What is Hip-Hop?

The definition of Hip-Hop is a question that has been debated for some time. Particularly as the gap between its origins in New York City in the early 1970’s and modern Hip-Hop culture widens. Critics question the authenticity of new Hip-Hop artist. During the week, I was reading through a Hip-Hop forum called Davey D’s Hip-Hop Corner, and came across a particular letter to the editor. The author of this letter questioned the credibility of current Hip-Hop artists. He wrote

“...WHY do you give up so much space in the newsletters and on the website,
for bullshit-MC's like C-Bo, Ice Cube and Spice1 on the regular???
Their shit ain't real!!!”

“They just some entertainers that make hella money off the stupidity that
rap-consumers posess. Underground don't even check for that!!”

This cynical view of Hip-Hop culture is not unique to this particular genre. The Mainstream vs. Underground battle is evident in subcultures all over the world. What was more interesting in this case, was the response from others on the forum. The first point raised was the true definition of Hip-Hop, and what classified artist as being Hip-Hop. As one respondent questions, “Is it subject matter? Is it choice of beats? Is it based upon the reasons for them doing their music?” To say artist like Ice Cube are not Hip-Hop is completely unfounded. Just because you may not like or understand their style of music does not rule them out from being Hip-Hop. As Grandmaster Flash states, “For anybody to say 'this is not hip hop' or 'that is not hip hop' is wrong. That is not the way the formula was laid down.. It was for the people who were going to continue this to take anything...by all means necessary and string it along...”. The second point has to do with profiting off art. Artist are often labeled sell-outs when they sign record deals or venture into other forms of entertainment. However, Hip-Hop artist have always seeked the approval of their peers, whether that be “props” from the crowd or selling records. In the early 1970s, the same opportunities did not exist for Hip-Hop artists. Artist do not necessarily strive to ‘make-it-big’ in the mainstream, however, it is a side effect of popularity within the subculture. As the hype around a performer grows, the mainstream will eventually join in for the ride.

I will leave you with a definition of Hip-Hop from Afrika Bambaataa, a pioneer in the early Hip-Hop movement. “Hip Hop means the whole culture of the movement… when you talk about rap...Rap is part of the hip hop culture…The emceeing... The djaying is part of the hip-hop culture. The dressing the languages are all part of the hip hop culture. The break dancing the b-boys, b-girls… how you act, walk, look, talk are all part of hip hop culture… and the music is colorless.. Hip Hop music is made from Black, brown, yellow, red, white… whatever music that gives you the grunt.. that funk.. that groove or that beat.. It's all part of hip hop....”