I used to be just like all the haters, but at least I knew it:
The flow chart above was an attempt to understand why an upper middle class kid might simultaneously disdain popular hip hop for being "inauthentic" and "capitalist," fetishize popular music, and embrace underground hip hop or "backpacker rap." Starting from the foundations of rap as black counterculture, and moving down, I tracked an internal divide in hip hop music, and how both sects have been appropriated by white audiences. As the legend goes, mainstream hip hop's primary audience is white kids in the midwest. Think about all those Souljah Boy videos of girls in white tees and Clemson sweatpants. On the other hand, underground music has also been appropriated by a white audience, as a music that has some sort of power- in its perceived authenticity, and its anti-capitalist tendencies. Stop a random kid at an elite private college in the Northeast, ask him who his favorite rapper is, and you're as likely to hear the name Brother Ali as you are Biggie. The word "backpacker" has been thrown out in reference to this music, a term that resonates doubly, alluding to the purported "intellect" of underground music (backpacks), while also its appropriation into whiteness (backpacking, as in, rich kids hiking the Appalachian Trail). Listening to backpacker rap becomes a way for white kids to somehow gain a type of cultural "authenticity."
This is where I was at on 12/15/08.
I've moved in my position since then. For one thing, I have less criticism for mainstream hip hop as an entity. Simply put, Hot 97 made this summer for me. I've been all about Throw it in the Bag, Who's Real, and that Hurricane Chris song about Halle Berry. For me, mainstream music has become so fascinated with an American construction of materialism that this very philosophy is no longer its purported downfall. In fact, it's one of the most outstanding, self-aware critiques of capitalism I know. We've seen sculptor Damien Hirst's diamond skull, we know this Marxist critique of capitalism, it's old hat. Mainstream hip hop raises it one: critical acts from within capitalism's very framework. Fabolous bragging of his diamond-studded watch is an act of resistance, suggesting that the oppressive system isn't as far-reaching as it wants to be, and that some of the very people (young black males) who weren't suppose to acquire power, did. This is relevant in a way that a comfortable upper-middle class white guy calling out capitalism is not. It's also as powerful as any critique coming from backpack rap.
Thus, this post is dedicated to anyone who has off-handedly thrown out the terms "pop music" or "gangsta rap" or "popular rap" as an example of crappy music, or as a reference to the decline of American society. HI HATERS.
PS
There has been a rise of hybrid rappers lately, who question the boundary between mainstream and underground. This is a beautiful thing.
(More on that here, shamelessly)
I think Weezy is one of the most genuine artists out right now. I haven't been alive long enough to know if things were ever different but it seems to me we live in an age where people feel like they're entitled to judge each other. I've gone with it most my life, pop music has always been something thats sole purpose was to fuel the capitalist machine and therefore was not worth my time. But I've gradually come to realize that shit is twisted for so many reasons. Money may be one of the driving factors behind pop music, but then what drives the counterculture? Is it a true pure passion for music, and nothing more? Take one look at pitchfork and try to tell me all that scene cares about is trying to promote good music. You tell me who's worse, the asshole who does his best to fit in and be liked or the asshole who acts like he's too cool to fit in but really just wants to fit in somewhere else? The thing is that it doesn't matter, there's no real argument. They both have similar faults, they both have similar enjoyable qualities. Weezy chooses to ignore the faults of all types and instead of acting like there are some people who don't do shitty things he just takes everything as it is and gives what he has to every shitty song that comes his way. Weezy has always been the same from the beginning of his career till now. The only difference is as he's evolved as a person he's taken in so many more influences that he appeals to a much wider audience, which means more money. What would be faker, accepting the love that comes your way or trying to act like you're too good to be popular? Bottom line is he connects people, which is what music in America is all about. You can choose to enjoy it and use it as a way to connect to other people or you can choose to hate on it and use it as a way to disconnect from other people. CHOOSE OBAMA!
ReplyDelete-kgstarbury
Good lookin' out and thanks for the comment...
ReplyDeleteI like what you say about Weezy being always being the same, bringing it to every track, good or bad, that's come his way. I think he's one of the first artists to really be raised ON and THROUGH rap... he was virtually adopted by Birdman when he was what, 13? Rap is his language, platform, vector, whatever you want to call it. If you listen to, say, Mos Def talk about rap, he'll cite influences in its creation.For him, it's Mingus, Coltrane, etc... Music he was raised on. For Weezy, there is no external influences coming together to create rap. Instead, it's an internal language which appropriates outside influences like nu-metal, etc... It's like if your everyday speech picked up a few bits of slang here and there, you would never say, "Yeah, the way I talk comes from Coltrane or Wu-Tang." This is a little underdeveloped, but the point is, it's really interesting that the first true "born into this" rapper is finding so much success, as well as being accused of sell-out, too poppy, or whatever. That's a little like accusing someone's verbal dialect of being too mainstream.
ArmHead