med332 rap authenticity commerce capitalism

#med332 Rap, authen0city, commerce, capitalism 1

“They say rap’s changed” Dr Dre – ‘S0ll D.R.E.’ (1999)

2

3 themes all focused around capitalist enterprise: 1.  Rap’s success and commercial dominance 2.  Commodity fe0shism and conspicuous consump0on 3.  Authen0city and selling out

3

Tim Dogg – ‘Fuck Compton’ (1991) 6

Dr Dre – ‘Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebra0n’)’ (1992) Dr Dre – ‘The $20 Sack Pyramid’ (1992) 7

Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs

9

The Notorious B.I.G. – ‘Juicy’ (1994) 11

Junior M.A.F.I.A feat The Notorious B.I.G. – ‘Get Money’ (1995) 12

Tupac Shakur

13

Quad Recording Studios , NYC 14

First ar0st to have a #1 album while in prison

16

Suge Knight

17

“Any ar0st out there that want to be an ar0st and stay a star, and don’t have to worry about the execu0ve producer trying to be all in

the videos ... All on the records ... dancing, come to Death Row!” 1995 Source Awards 19

Tupac Shakur – ‘Hit ‘em Up’ (1996) 21

Puff Daddy & The Family 22

23

‘I sold kilos of coke, I'm guessin' I can sell CDs I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!’ -‐ Jay-‐Z on ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone’ (Remix)

Sold for $4 billion to Coca-‐Cola 24

Hip-‐hop’s recent focus on entrepreneurship and marke0ng has created a culture where hip-‐hop is experienced primarily through consump0on rather than produc0on -‐ Hunter, 2011: 15-‐6 26

27 Rags to riches

This “lifestyle product” is created through the countless commodi0es now associated with hip-‐hop. Consumers can buy PimpJuice energy drink (Nelly), Roc-‐a-‐Wear sunglasses (Jay-‐Z), Sean John jeans (Diddy), or Conjure Cognac (Ludacris) to emulate the rap lifestyle whose image is built on the founda0on of cars, women, drugs, and strip clubs. This lifestyle product is reinforced through lyrics, music video, online fan gossip, and constant marke0ng. The consumer-‐driven lifestyle product is epitomized in 50 Cent’s newest product in his G-‐Unit line: the interac0ve pornography video -‐ Hunter, 2011: 16

28

Nelly – ‘Air Force Ones’ (2002) 29

In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence -‐ Veblen, 1899/1934: p36

30

‘it is important to note that hip-‐hop serves doubly as an interven0on of American capitalism and of black agency. Hip-‐hop's arrac0on abroad remains arached to its roots as a voice for oppressed groups … In the same breadth, hip-‐hop is also a vehicle for under-‐ standing (American) blackness as a hyper-‐commodity’ -‐ Bradley, 2014: 97-‐8

31

Kanye West -‐ ‘We Don’t Care’ (2004) The College Dropout

Drug dealin’ jus to get by Stack ya money 0ll it gets sky high We wasn’t supposed to make it past 25 But the jokes on you we s0ll alive Throw your hands up in the sky and say “We don't care what people say” If this is your first 0me hearing this You are about to experience something cold man We never had nothing handed took nothing for granted Took nothing from no man, man I'm my own man But as a shorty I looked up to the dopeman Only adult man I knew that wasn’t a broke man Flickin’ starter coats man, Man you don’t know man We don't care what people say This is for my niggas outside all winter Cuz this summer they ain’t finna to say “next summer I’m finna” Siun’ in the hood like community colleges This dope money here is Lil Trey’s scholarship Cause ain’t no to tui0on for havin’ no ambi0on And ain’t no loans for siun’ your ass at home So we forced to sell crack rap and get a job You gora do something man your ass is grown

[…] The second verse is for my dogs working 9 to 5 That s0ll hustle cause a nigga can't shine off $6.55 And everybody selling make-‐up, Jacobs And bootleg tapes just to get they cake up We put shit on layaway then come back We claim other people kids on our income tax We take that money cop work than push packs to get paid And we don't care what people say Momma say she wanna move south Scratchin’ lorery 0ckets Eyes on a new house Around the same 0me, Doe ran up in dude house Couldn’t get a job, So since he couldn’t get work He figured he’d take work The drug game bolemic its hard to get weight So niggas money is homo its hard to get straight So we gon keep baking to the day we get cake. And we don’t care what people say 32

No rapper has embodied hip-‐hop’s oxen contradictory impulses of narcissism and social good quite as he has, and no producer has celebrated the lush and the ornate quite as he has. He has spent most of his career in addi0ve mode, figuring out how to make music that’s majes0c and thought-‐provoking and grand-‐scaled. And he’s also widened the genre’s gates, whether for middle-‐class values or high-‐fashion and high-‐art dreams. -‐ Caramonica, 2013

33

34

‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’ ‘I have a hard 0me believing George Bush cares about anyone’

Kanye West – ‘Flashing Lights’ (2007) 35

She don’t believe in shoo0n’ stars, But she believe in shoes and cars Wood floors in the new apartment, Couture from the store’s department You more like L’eau de Stardee shit, I’m more of the, trips to Florida Order the hors d’oeuvres, Views of the water.

Peter Rosenberg 36

He’s the only motherfucker on the motherfuckin’ megahertz frequency that’s s0ll trying to implement that filthy-‐under-‐the-‐nail, holy, sacred and pure, unmixed, undiluted, un-‐tampered-‐with, real hip-‐hop shit. -‐ Busta Rhymes in Marantz, 2014

37

Nicki Minaj – ‘Starships’ (2012) 38

I am a hip-‐hop head, and, to be frank, this song right here, ‘Starships,’ is literally one of the most sellout songs in hip-‐hop history … Pop and rap are separate things. It’s one thing for J. Lo to make a dance record, but Nicki was supposed to be one of ours. I didn’t want young kids looking at this dance-‐pop song, going, ‘This is what rappers do.’ Rosenberg in Marantz (2014)

39

40 Rosenberg Summer Jam 2012 Nicki Minaj diss

41

“Fuck Peter ROSENBERG, U RACIST WANNA BE BLACK FAGGOT JEW BITCH”

42 Rosenberg’s apology

43

Minaj: “I get it. That’s what you do. I guess, to me—I just don’t know your résumé, you know what I’m saying? So I never found you funny. . . . I was just, like, ‘Who are you?’”

44

Ebro Darden (the sta0on’s program director): “And you’re white.”

Pierre Bourdieu

"   1930-‐2002

" École Normale Supérieure (Paris)

"   1964: University of Paris Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études

"   1968: took over the Centre de Sociologie Européenne

"   1981: Chair of Sociology at the Collège de France

45

Research: 1963-‐1968 1200 quantitative surveys, interviews and photographs. Cross-‐referenced with national trends and government data The things you prefer correspond tightly to defining measures of social class: your profession, your highest degree and your father’s profession.

47

"Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish

themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is

expressed or betrayed." -‐ Bourdieu, 1984: 6

48

Art?

49

‘The very title Distinction serves as a reminder that what is commonly called distinction, that is, a certain quality of bearing and manners, most often considered innate

[…], is nothing other than difference, a gap, a distinctive feature, in short, a relational property existing only in

and through its relation with other properties’ -‐ Bourdieu, 1994/1998: 20

50

51 Hip hop is universal?

52

In the search for authen0city it has become fairly commonplace to acknowledge that authen0city is a sham. Indeed, the more sophis0cated poses available […] in the popular music scene hold that the conscious recogni0on of the staged character of "authen0c" performance does not compromise, but can in effect enhance, authen0city. -‐ Hutnyk, 2000: 90

images •  Chris Porer (2013) The Color of Money •  Tupac Amaru Shakur (2010) 2Pac •  Rodrigoferrari (2011) Kanye West 01 •  David (2005) Christmas Bling! •  Anna Fox (2009) Monopoly in the Park •  Steffi Reichert (2010) CAPITALISM

53

med332 rap authenticity commerce capitalism

Education