When Culture Went Commercial (cont.)

Words by RIP NICHOLSONImages courtesy of Joe Conzo.

For MUSC2000 Wk 9.

Emmett Price zeroes down on the period where the MC took prominence in hip-hop. 

Price, Emmett G. (2006). Hip Hop Culture. Retrieved from http://www.eblib.com

When the recording industry took a strong interest in developing radio-friendly rap songs to cut a new characteristic sound for hip-hop, MCs were instantly recognised and consumed as part of the overall culture. Price’s under the bonnet research shares the mechanics that went into this transition and develops groundwork on the who, what, where, when and how of this transformation before arguing for or against this culture shift. Becky Blanchard’s 1999 study for EDGE concurs with Price stating that from the moment the MC caught the attention of fans their rhymes would go from between tracks to the main focus during the performance and were soon recognised in their own right as artists. Price remarks that record contracts trumped out from Tommy Boy, Def Jam and Paul Winley’s doo-wop imprint quickly assumed the MC into top spot in hip-hop, providing them the maximum exposure and earning potential far greater than the DJ, or the b-boy.

The Ism Complex versus the Prism Complex illustrates how a multi-dimensional youth culture fell prey to a commoditised rap iconography. 

MCabe, Shannon. Aesthetic Alternative: Hip-hop as Living Art. UMI: Michigan (2011).

Where “prism” refers to the spectrum of all that encompasses the arts and culture of hip-hop in McCabe’s theory, “ism” is in reference to images and ideologies that are evident in rap music, an art of hip-hop which homogenizes culturally, projecting binary opposition such as; black/white, rich/poor, hope/despair etc. as popular discourse in rap as opposed to promoting the diversity so prevalent in its own culture. McCabe’s “ism” paradigm aligns with Baba Israel’s research which states, “in the marketing of hip-hop (Rap music) Blackness is played out in exaggerations of ignorance, hyper sexuality and violence”. Rip Nicholson will draw from McCabe’s theory to establish how the incongruent toll of commoditised rap has decayed hip hop from its original context. Where early, seminal hip hop recordings ‘Rappers’ Delight’ and ‘The Message’ started, a culture was remoulded and misguided onto vinyl.