How does hip hop represent black people, with specific reference to the
track 'Plug' by Rich the Kid?
“They ain’t ‘bout it if they don’t listen to
it”. [1]
Hip
Hop’s popularity over the years has significantly been booming with a variety
of audiences being incentivised to be a part of it. It is and has always been
heavily affiliated with black culture which is why it’s important to identify
how the genre represents the ethnic group and how/whether the media has decided
to capitalise off of this confusion by attempting to demonise them. An artist
like Rich the Kid has been on the rise in the American
sub-genre of hip hop ‘trap’ which audiences would argue contains similar
conventions of the main genre and this is where the representation of black
people is constructed. When considering the track he produced called ‘Plug’
with two other artists (Playboi Carti and Kodak Black)
we can see a negative portrayal of black people with the way they behave, their
appearance and the lyrics used in the song. Perhaps an audience who has been
influenced by large multinational news institutions (with hegemonic views)
would perceive black people as ‘criminals’ through mediated news reports they
consume of the ethnic minority which could potentially reinforce their views and
ideologies of the ethnic group. Or maybe it’s the subject of the matter
self-representing themselves through these types of songs which would make the
news institute’s exaggerations seem realistic. This could be the reason why
some audiences (white folks especially) don’t take black people’s cries
seriously when they are
protesting something controversial or political like
the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign.
The power of hip hop universally over the
years has been significant especially when considering its growth in its fan
base. It has evolved so much so that it no longer only caters for black people
but has been diversified to suit all people of all races because it has been
appropriated by white people which seems typical seen as ‘America loves appropriating
black culture’ [2]
and because most cultures are being Americanised the World learns to
appropriate the same behaviours in their countries (culture imperialism). The
main reason for this is the simple fact that hip hop’s image through the years
has been altered because of the changes in society through different
generations. For example, the primary text this essay depicts called ‘Plug’ by
Rich the Kid carries the key and generic conventions of modern rap music videos
which has been adopted through some of the appearances of these mainstream
public figures (i.e rappers). These specific public figures are in the eyes of
young people so it would make sense for multi-national corporations to utilise
this fact and target them through celebrity endorsements in music videos
because ‘there is no better way of marketing something to youth than to link it
to hip hop’[3]. Rich the Kid is seen wearing particular
clothing brand ‘BAPE’ which has recently been in the spotlight of many of the
young generation in the US, UK and Japan. It could be argued that the
popularity of the song and the artists included in the media content made the
‘multinational corporation’s product cool’ [4] which influenced audiences watching the music
video as they see Rich the Kid boast about his designer garments. This could
possibly have a knock on effect on young people as they would want to meet
social trends which BAPE is certainly associated with increasing their brand
image all because of hip hop’s influence. Therefore, people would then learn to
associate that particular brand with gang life and black people because we have
been taught to believe ‘hip hop culture influences styles of behaviour and
dress’ [5].
Despite the positive images the music
genre conveys, it has always been in controversy causing moral panics. Using a
typical rap song like Plug to identify key conventions of a hip hop music video
and what is being displayed suggests why moral panics of the genre and black
people is evolving/supported over the years. Some would say large news
institutions like Daily Mail mediate news stories which could be the reason
these groups of people are being portrayed this way because they are opinion
leaders (two step flow model) and audiences are thought to be gullible and consume
information provided by the news whilst agreeing with them. In addition to this,
audiences could argue that they don’t just accept what news tells them
(hypodermic needle model) but its the rappers themselves reinforcing
ideologies. For example, the use of drugs and suspicious amount of money is
what the audience would expect to witness in the video and it perfectly
reinforces the ideologies of the ethnic minority which could be the reason the
moral panics of black people being criminals for example still exists. Using
Tesa Perkins’ theory we could infer that
hip hop is representing black people through stereotypes which are actually
true because the music videos would certainly have some type of impact on an
audience because ‘...you can’t listen to all that language and film without it
affecting you’ [6].
This negative self representation constructed by the young black rappers could
answer the question of ‘how hip hop culture maps out these real and imagined
relations between people and the tools used to bring people together’ [7] because people
amongst the culture feel as if they must follow trends to be accepted. Therefore, the ‘constant pressure to perform
and behave the right way – based on hip hop’ [8] could be the reason why black folks are constantly
in the news as they want to execute copy cat crimes of their favourite hip hop
artists. Hence the reason people of the middle and upper classes disagree with
the black lives matter movement as ‘no one has the right to be upset at a
brutal sex crime or mindless thuggery if he is not prepared to drive sadistic
videos out of our high streets’ [9]. This is particularly relevant with hip hop artists trying
to promote the campaign where a specific rapper (ASAP Rocky) believes ‘we must
eliminate
black on black crime first’ [10]
suggesting police brutality isn’t as much of an issue.
When considering a hip hop song from the
nineties from Public Enemy called ‘Fight the Power’ we see the artists
expressing their emotions as ‘victims of this American system’ [11] rather than ‘an
American dream’ [12]
that the media constantly displays through media content to audience’s
universally. This song is an accurate example of where hip hop has given ‘black
and Latino hope and recognition’ [13] as it highlights the issues ethnic minority groups are
facing in society and acts as a protest. Therefore, the genre has given people
without power a voice through music and Public enemy capitalised on this and
created a song that would challenge these ideologies of people and large news
institutions who are the opinion leaders. This could be a potential explanation
as of why hip hop as a whole has significantly grown because people with right
wing, conservative, hegemonic views have listened to songs like fight the Power
allowing them to view different groups of people from a variety of perspectives.
This subverts the hypodermic needle model because it shows audiences are using
critical autonomy to form opinions on issues surrounding the representations of
black people through hip hop rather than just accepting what the news informs
them.
However, in today’s society especially
considering a song like plug it seems hip hop culture has slightly changed
where ‘the days of making powerful, thought provoking and entertaining music
videos’ [14] are
now a thing of the past which means folks of middle and upper classes will have
less resources available to them attempting to challenge their views.
Therefore, dominant ideologies and representations of black people remains the
same or could get worse if ethnic minorities don’t decide to ‘fight the power’.
Hip hop in the past was used to show the mistreatment of black people by those
in power and taking white privilege into consideration it is evident that their
opportunities are different for black folks. With Fight the power it brings
togetherness of an ‘African American inner city neighbourhood, who are shouting
the words “fight the power”’ [15]
which shows the rap group cared for the black community as they had many extras
in the video walking down a street protesting with them. So at times there
isn’t really a central image because the purpose was to display large numbers
of people rather than only highlighting the artists which would certainly
reinforce their movement as they work together with ordinary people to
challenge the Government and major institutions negatively representing black
people. Therefore, Public Enemy used their power to influence audience’s
ideologies because ‘hip hop gives voices to the urban culture’ [16] and Andy Medhurst’s
theory of shorthand stereotypes can be used to suggest they used them to tell a
story in their music video. In contrast with ‘Plug’ we can see the black
rappers care more about their success and struggle in escaping the ‘ghetto’.
There isn’t any encouragement shown to younger audiences to avoid the criminal
life but it’s the complete opposite and doesn’t maintain an audience in the way
Public Enemy did with a ‘strong and demanding visual presence’ [17]. Consequently, rap
A serious matter that has been going on
for decades now is police brutality and their emphasis on murdering black
people. It has got worse over the years and just last year in America there
were ‘seven hundred and eight deaths’ [18] caused by police and ‘one hundred and seventy
three’ [19] were of
black people. It could definitely be argued that police brutality as whole in
America is a concern not only for black people but the citizens that the
authority is supposed to protect and serve. However, the black community have
rebel against the discrimination and decided to build the ‘Black Lives Matter’
campaign as there was a significant increase in the number of black people
being killed in the summer of last year by police. Hip hop artists who share
similar conventions of the old generation of rap like Kendrick Lamar and J.
Cole were prompted to create songs focusing on the issues society are facing.
These conventions would be similar to ‘Fight the Power’ and there are ‘only a
handful of artists today who consistently sought to bring awareness to
socioeconomic issues’ [20]
affecting the African American community. For example, J Cole perfectly
describes the actions of police and how black people ‘are out here dyin from
police that flash the siren then pull up and jus start firin’ [21] which could have an
impact on the audience. This is because the lyrics used are showing the ‘American
nightmare’ [22]
black people are going through and it represent black people as victims who are
being targeted by the police who are being portrayed as the predators which
could lead to other racial groups having sympathy for black people as they
build a personal relationship (considering uses and gratification theory) with
J. Cole. Therefore, the representation of black people could change for the
better as audiences would be able to perceive the deaths of them caused by
police differently to the ways the news presents them. Despite the efforts of
these types of rappers, it hasn’t been as successful as the ‘trap’ side of hip
hop and Michael Eric Dyson’s theory suggests that political rap didn’t get the
support it deserved in the eighties and nineties. This is why it has reverted
to the flashy, sexualised, criminal rap which we know today and through
displaying this it became more prominent and more mainstream.
Another issue that has evolved through hip
hop is the objectification of women by the artists themselves. In a typical rap
music video an audience would expect to witness women dancing half nakedly
trying to seduce the artists while they are performing the song which has a
negative and unrealistic reflection of females. More specifically, the women
are usually black which means the representation is of black females being sex
freaks so they would be viewed as inappropriate to society. This could
certainly influence young black children from the ‘ghetto’ as ‘cheap fiction
for working class juveniles encouraged and even instigated delinquency’ [23]so would be
incentivised to have sex at early ages or possibly commit rape. Tesa Perkins’ theory can be applied to suggest
young black children are reinforcing the stereotype by having sex ‘aged twelve
to eighteen and the rates of sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases
are highest among African Americans’ [24]. However, it could be argued that news institutions are
trying to ‘distract us from the real causes of crime like child abuse or parental
neglect’ [25] by
branding hip hop and the culture as the main culprits for crime or ‘is it the
media producers simply constructing a reflection of society?’ [26]. With reference to the primary text something that is unique about this
song is that women aren't being objectified by the artists physically like
other hip hop music videos do. This is probably because there aren’t any women
in the music video. So Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze wouldn’t be
appropriate in this song because there aren’t any females to look at. It immediately
would infer the song will be about something more serious or about the artist's
lives because they don't want the audience's attention to be distracted by the
women. It also subverts the stereotype of women being portrayed as sex freaks
which was formed decades ago with the introduction of rappers from groups like
N.W.A and Mobb deep. But with an artist like J.Cole ‘those videos didn’t need
to depend on obligatory scantily clad females’ [27] to create an iconographic music video to gain
audience’s attention.
Rich the Kid has definitely created a hip
hop song that is typical of the genre now where audiences listen to it not for
the lyrics or emotion or socioeconomic issues but for fictional fantasies. Audiences
care more to ‘bop their heads like chickens in a farm without understanding the
lyrics’ [28] when
listening to trap music and this is where the reflection of certain groups evolves.
The media teaches people (two step flow model) to associate hip hop with black
culture and crime and its evident with things like ‘The Hip Hop Cop Shop’ [29]. This was where
police in the UK opened up a shop selling rap songs with a studio to capture
and arrest criminals and gangs which they were successful in doing jailing ’thirty
seven criminals for a total of more than four hundred years’ [30]. So maybe there is a
reason hip hop is heavily affiliated with crime but this is probably because of
issues like culture competence where black folks aren’t given the same
opportunities of white people. Therefore, have to find ways of becoming successful
or escaping deprived areas which would lead them into the life of crime just
like the hip hop artists they listen to representing them negatively in
society.
Bibliography
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Press of Mississippi.
Spence, J. (2009). Partners in porn. No.5, October,
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Journals
Clay, A. (2003). Keepin’ it real. Keepin’
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Aidoo, D. (2013). Reading Rap: how do people
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https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/16933
Davis, R.
(2016). J.Cole speaks out on police brutality in new song ‘Jermaine’s Interlude’ [Internet]. Rachaell
Davis, Essence. http://www.essence.com/2016/07/29/j-cole-new-song-jermaines-interlude
Finley, T. (2015). 10 times black culture was
appropriated in 2015 [Internet]. Taryn Finley, huffpost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/10-times-black-culture-was-appropriated-in-2015_us_566ee11de4b011b83a6bd660
Johnson, L. (2016). Representation in Rap - 50 Cent
[Internet]. Lucy Johnson, English Media Centre.
https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/16057
Margolis, L (2000). Hip Hop gives voice to urban
culture [Internet]. Lynne Margolis, The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0211/p15s1.html
Mossberg, D. (2012) Malcolm X – The ballot or the bullet [Internet]. Donnie Mossberg, YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oVW3HfzXkg
Parish, N. (2016). Female rappers take a stand
in Mexico’s capital of violence against women[Internet]. Nathaniel Parish,
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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/22/female-rappers-mexico-city-violence-against-women
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(feat. J Cole) [Internet]. Jcolevideovault, YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw59IoGUesY
Footnotes:
[1] Clay, A
[2] Finley, T
[3] Wall, J
[4] Wall, J
[5] Carol, M
[6] Springhall, J
[7] Clay, A
[8] Clay, A
[9] Springhall, J
[10] Akademiks D.J
[11] Mossberg, D
[12] Mossberg, D
[13] Clay, A
[14] Spence, J
[15] Spence, J
[16] Margolis, L
[17] Spence, J
[18] Williams, J
[19] Williams, J
[20] Davis, R
[21] VideoVault, J
[22] Mossberg, D
[23] Springhall, J
[24] Dionne, P
[25] Blanchard, B.
[26] Aidoo, D
[27] Spence, J
[28] Aidoo, D
[29] Edwards, A
[30] Edwards, A
