Hip Hop and the Media in the USA

by

Dana Kabbani

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
HS Transnational American Culture Studies

Contents:

1. Introduction  3

2. Function of the Media  4

3. The Development of Hip Hop in the Media  5

4. Categories of Rap   12

5. Authenticity in Hip Hop  16

6. Violence, Drugs, and Misogyny in Hip Hop 19

7. Against the Law – A Call for Censorship 24

8. Conclusion  30

References  31

1. Introduction:

In the following study the relationship and interaction between “Hip Hop and the Media in the USA” will be discussed. The aim of this paper is to put hip hop into a wider framework of media and culture.

Hip hop has triumphantly emerged from the underground to take its place in the mainstream of popular culture. It is clear that the pervasive influence of hip hop extends to television, film, advertising, fashion, the print media, and language itself. Although it has taken almost twenty years to reach this level of mass exposure, the movement now stands as a multimillion-dollar enterprise and a dominant cultural force that continues to grow. To put it quite bluntly, hip hop cannot be considered as an independent entity on its own; it has to be explained in a broader context – a creation out of a reaction with and against existing conventions. Hip hop must be reinvented from moment to moment, centered around the impossibility of closure – the moment it becomes identifiable, its modes reducible, it dies – but hip hop’s ability is to reinvent itself continually. Hip hop is, as Potter puts it, “a cultural recycling center, a social heterolect, a field of contest, even a form of psychological warfare” (109).

This paper tries to shed light on the following questions: What is the media’s influence on the history and development of hip hop culture? How are the different rap categories treated by the media? Why is authenticity especially appealing to a white audience and consequently to the major spending power? In how far are violence, drugs and misogyny important for the development of hip hop culture, how is the media coping with these issues? The latter question leads to the next one: Why is rap, as a part of hip hop, the subject of a permanent call for censorship? To answer this question some examples will be illustrated.

2. Function of the Media

To understand the relationship between hip hop and the media, it is necessary to explain these two constituents. Since hip hop, its elements, form, and development will be discussed in separate chapters, it is appropriate to include a short definition of “the media” at this point. As stated by McQuail “the mass media institution is a distinct set of activities (sending and receiving messages), carried out by persons occupying certain roles (regulators, producers, distributors, audience members), according to certain rules and understanding (laws, professional codes and practices, audience expectations and habits)” (33). Thus, the key activity of the mass media is production and distribution of knowledge. The direct product of the media is not knowledge itself but messages with a potential for knowledge-forming messages. This knowledge, again, enables people to shape their perception of the world. In addition, most people agree that the media influences American culture and the complex monument of beliefs, ideals, opinions, and ideologies that make up its values, but disagreement ranges wide and deep over the degree of influence the media exerts on American society (Dyson, Reflecting Black, 75). This apprehension of the role of the media in shaping cultural values is pivotal to understand the interaction between hip hop and the media. The media’s elements which will be dealt with in this paper are the following: the news media, radio, the film industry, the music industry, the fashion industry, and advertising. Without these industries there would not be hip hop as we know it – it would have remained in the underground. However, as part of popular culture it is subject to monetary, ideological, and cultural exploitation through the media. Hip hop is filtered through the corporate pipeline and, thus, market forces play a decisive role in shaping and propagating the message itself. On the other hand, hip hoppers regard the media as a medium for their messages and concerns, as a platform to encourage discussion about the inner-ghettos, deindustrialization, the public school system, family structure, poverty, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, crack cocaine, or alcoholism. Consequently, the media needs hip hop, and hip hop needs the media.

3. The Development of Hip Hop in the Media

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