Hip Hop

In response to the comment about patronizing the listeners of hip-hop, I don’t think we should judge but we shouldn't look the other way. We should question what they’re saying and why they’re saying it because most of the stuff they are saying is problematic and it should be discussed to understand the subculture.

Though it was shown in a crude way, the message in the video shown at the beginning of the class was absolutely correct. Because most of the big labels are owned by white men, the artists are controlled and their songs are too. I think that the labels want a certain type of stereotype portrayed about black people. In the documentary, one of the aspiring rappers confesses that no one wants to pick up “conscious rap” anymore; no one wants to listen to it. I don’t think it’s because of tastes changing, I think it is a purposeful act to suppress thoughts opposing the “white mainstream. It’s hard to discuss something when you’re an outsider so please excuse me and my speculative analysis.

The Power of Subculture as Explained by Seth Godin

When reading Chapter 4 of Goths, Gamers, & Grrls I came across this line:

"Still, the financial rewards of sexist mainstream hip hop will likely confine much of conscious hip hop to the underground." (Haenfler, P. 52)


All validity aside, this statement raises an important question.  How can subcultures with noble aims gain the necessary traction to reach their targets?


This weekend I watched the following TED talk by Seth Godin

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html

This clip is 17 minutes and I highly recommend watching it.  I highly recommend watching TED talks in general.  Oftentimes I feel like I learn more watching TED than I do in my classes.

Anyway, in this talk, Seth Godin talks about the tribes we lead.  He points to tribes as a very powerful instigator of change.  We do not need to have power over millions.  We just need to take the lead for a small section of people.  Our own tribe will then be able to link up with another tribe who exists for an entirely different reason but still shares our common vision.  The tribe of Parkour enthusiasts from the east coast and the tribe of men who like brewing their own beer might each be passionate about climate change.  Separately, these tribes are pretty insignificant, but with the power of the internet, small groups  such as these can link up to take a stance on major issues.

This concept makes me think of these subcultures who have ideas about certain issues.  I believe as Seth Godin does that these groups have the power to make real change.  Just because the mainstream money makers favor sexist hip hop doesn't mean the "consious hip hop"groups cannot use the power of tribes to make a change.

Obviously I cannot make any specific claims about how this would happen, but the concept still intrigues me and I thought some or all of you would find it interesting.

At the very least, you should check out TED if you haven't already.

Hip Hop Evolving? Other Sub Cultures As Well?

I found it interesting throughout my research for the upcoming presentation that hip-hop has really changed from what it was ten or even twenty years ago. In my opinion, thought his may sound somewhat strange, hip-hop takes form of the current mainstream culture. Take a look at the Rapper's Delight "music video" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6gD_CwF5YM). Never would you see any artists today (Unless doing so provocatively) dress or dance like the people in the video. Why? Because hip hop today takes on a different form. However, what's interesting is the question: What form does it really take today? We can classify each time period through a certain number of mainstream and subcultures before (e.g. Hippies in the 60's), but today almost every subculture and mainstream culture thrives, whether it be skateboarders, hippies, etc, which leads to hip-hop having many forms. Here are some examples:

1) Artists like Lil Wayne are involving themselves in the skateboarding culture (http://www.sohh.com/img/lil-wayne-skateboard-2011-10-22-300x300.jpg), and though horrible, Lil Wayne has even involved himself with the electric guitar
2) Artists like B.O.B and Drake have integrated different types of music before unknown to the hip-hop culture, whether it be electric disco, featuring pop stars (e.g. Rihanna, Taylor Swift, etc.), or both singing and rapping.
3) Hip-Hop has used shoes as one of its main trending styles; what's interesting is that while going through my closet, I found this pair of shoes: http://5.kicksonfire.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/nike-dunk-high-pro-sb-de-la-soul-baroque-brown-altitude-green-1.jpg. I will bring these on Tuesday during the presentation, but the fact that a hip-hop artist group designed a skateboarding pair of shoes was really intriguing to me, as if they purposely did that to reel in more audience from different backgrounds.

Follow Up Questions From Thursday's Class

Follow up notes from Thursday's Hip Hop/Race and Gender Discussions

These are the main topics we focused on in class- important things to keep in mind and maybe good prompts for blog posts!

• Do hip hop artists have to assert their status through more pop culture relevant lyrics before making conscious rap?
  
• Systematic racism as more damaging to the culture than sexism
  
• Female rappers/ females in general have to "do it better than men" in order to be successful/ recognized
  
• Can violence be attributed to the glorification in rap/hip hop at all?
  
• Who is the "mainstream" that we are talking about?- we classified it as suburban youth/ all youth/ top 40 esque radio
  
• Is the image of the rapper as "hard" or hyper masculine declining as hip hop merges with other genres?
  
• What is the importance of honesty/"street cred" in hip hop- ie rapper from suburbia rapping about "the hood"?
  
• Is the music/culture of hip hop damaging to the African American race/ those involved- Is it patronizing/useless to discuss this from an outside perspective?

Lil' Wayne Documentary

So recently a video came out on the internet featuring Lil' Wayne during his deposition. As some of you may know, a relatively well-known documentary came out in 2009 called 'The Carter', created by Quincy Jones III, in which Lil' Wayne was followed by a camera for some period of time. This film might provide some insight into the life of a moden-day hip hop artist that could perhaps familiarize those of us who don't know much about the hip hop culture in general. Anyway Lil' Wayne objected against the documentary claiming it was a "scandalous portrayal" of him and has since been trying to sue Quincy Jones. The reason I felt this related to our class discussion today was simply Lil' Wayne's attitude in this video. He manages to portray many of the things we associate with hip hop culture such as violence and a rise-to-the-top attitude all in a single 5 minute clip. He appears disrespectful, ignorant, and blatantly aggressive at various parts of the video and it seemed like an interesting glance at the person that has the ability to influence millions of people through his music. The video itself is almost comical and I'm not quite sure how anyone can respect someone like that.  As I was trying to find out more about this whole debacle, I started to notice some of the titles and comments on youtube that seemed to glorify Lil' Wayne's performance by people, i'm assuming, to be his fans. This goes back to what we were talking about in class how these hip hop artists not only include violence in their music, they seem to encourage it in their audience by glorifying this type of behavior. Anyway it was just something that caught my eye, feel free to watch the video itself or I have the link to the documentary below as well if you would like.

'The Carter' Documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbKpdsLspwo

9/20 discussion follow up: American Hardcore

We (or at least I thought so) had a good discussion today on punk. We discussed media's influence on punk, the aspects of punk like "self indulgence" that leads to assumptions of "childishness", the expansion of DIY over the years, punk band camaraderie, and the "non-death" of punk.

We answered most of my questions, but one: In what ways did punk culture revive (if it did at all)? Would you consider the punk bands today as "hardcore punk bands?" How are the issues, attitudes, and overall image of punk different now than in the hardcore punk era in the 80's? How are they the same?

You guys can discuss that in the comments or this:

The only outside video that I wanted to show you in class but had no time for was a clip from a documentary called the Decline of Western Civilization. It's about the punk scene and it was filmed from December 1979-May 1980. I thought it was interesting and I would recommend you guys check it out. So the clip starts at the 5:45 mark. The publisher of Slash magazine, Robert Biggs, is talking about the different letters the magazine gets world wide.

What do you guys think about punk being "the only form of revolution" worldwide?

So that's basically it. Thanks everyone for the discussion today. I was nervous being an outsider of punk leading a discussion on it, but you all made it easy for me. 

SHOCK

I was interested in a point that was brought up in class today about shock. One thing that has become clear from punk and hardcore, is it's overt love affair with all that is shocking. Torn clothing, dyed hair, tattoos, piercings, and then of course the loud sound and violent behavior are all seemingly intent on throwing order into disarray. What I'm a little more skeptical of, is that this shock culture is born out of adolescents. This past week the New York Times ran an article about "The Rite of Spring" a now celebrated ballet, that at it's time was considered absurd, and even shocking. I would like to use this article to make the case that punk isn't shocking because adolescents did it, it's shocking because it's art.

Lets consider the seminole salon des refuses of 1863. It was here that Manet first unveiled his painting "Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe", and despite it's current recognition as one of the most important works of art in the world, the piece was received as an offensive mockery of art, truly shocking. I should also point out that manet was 31 years old at the time of the Salon, hardly a brooding adolescent.  More recently, as the NYT article points out, artists from Karen Finley to Thomas Hirschhorn have used the power of shock to call attention to the atrocities of both war and sexism. Certainly, Punk was shocking, and to much of this country it still is. I just don't believe the shock is born simply from youth, but rather from newness or calculated artistic choices.

Here's the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/arts/shock-me-if-you-can.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1348164178-z0zvi3/9juhgc2M3t+776g