Week 3: "It's all About Reality"

Hello Hip Hop Nation!

I am dropping my blog entry early because I will be gone Monday doing a visit for post-graduate studies at Eden Theological Seminary, and I wanted to give this my attention before I leave.

Well for this week, I had a whole lot of different thoughts, so I will tease a few ideas out here:

1. In the Toure reading, I really focused on looking for the idea that Dr. Schur was talking about in class: the idea that hip hop stars use a persona to create music and sell their identity, as much as their art. I thought Toure did his best work in sort of trying to separate people like Eminem, 50 Cent, DMX, and Biggie from their hip hop-identity and get at the actual person. The part where Biggie sort of explains that he is actually nervous as hell about getting killed was really moving for me. Nervousness and fear are not emotions that hip-hoppers usually express in their work, and it is re-humanizing to hear things like that. The story of Tupac weeping from Toure's assertion about the legitimacy of his shooting story had the same effect. In reading about Eminem's life philosophies and actions with his families, I kept asking myself the question: why aren't some of these values that he is imparting on the children he is raising (i.e. being there for family, respect towards women, personal responsibility) incorporated into his music more often? I guess these things are not entertaining to the community of music listeners...

2. On the same note, I wondered how much Toure's presentation of 50 Cent made me wonder how record executives and popular culture are narrowing the definition of "authentic" and choking the diversity of hip hop. I mean, it seems like record executives are actively seeking people with rough pasts to be their new talent because if an act is believable/verifiable, it will grab much more clout. These personas reflect values such as hyperviolence, ultra-materialism, illicit drug use, a lack of concern for the community, and the objectification of women. There are rare exceptions that are commercially viable and do not reflect these dominant trends... (Also, these personas conflate being "from the street" with all of these anti-social traits) Can a hip hop star be successful in the long-term without being "authentic"? How do artists like Talib Kweli and Common balance their autheticity with their message? Can people like this sell on a large-scale with major label benefits and distribution?

3. The Rux piece was really confusing. I did not understand his Dionysus metaphor, and his cultural historiography was full of language that was not very accessible. In spite of those things, I think I got something from it: So race and identity are not tangible things, but they have real impacts on our everyday lives in structuring hierarchies of power, as well as giving meaning and ownership of the self. But these racial identification are part of a broader construction of collective consciousness of meaning. Therefore, whiteness is not real, but it is defined by the group and membership is contingent on specific cultural requirements. So in walks Eminem [here is where Rux lost me]. Somehow there is a historical construction of a whiteness that is infatuated with the oppressed culture or the "Other" identity, a social outcast. Therefore, Eminem is simply constructing his own persona within the historical context of the tradition of the supremacist culture buying into the perks of the outsider culture. Why this is not truly authetnic adaptation of black culture is because Eminem has the ability to remove himself from the outsider stance and make himself fit into the dominant white culture; Eminem can move between these worlds, unlike Black artists, who are confined to the anxiouness of being a social outcast...

So I think I got most of it, but I know I'm missing pieces too, and I'm still not sure if Rux is affirming, dissing, or neutral on the art of Eminem... I think the article was interesting and if I was in class I would like to expand on it, but I think I wrote enough here.... Well, enjoy class! See you in two weeks.