The Wall Street Journal wrote:
> This cultural archetype [the "Bad Nigger"] is at the center of rap or
> hip-hop culture. From "cop killer" Ice T, Tupac Shakur and, today most
> noticeably, Sean "Puffy" Combs and Eminem (who is white), we get versions
> of the BN in all his sneering and inflated masculinity.
...
> But the Puffys of the world cannot market to an indifferent youth. The
> important question is how the BN archetype -- the slave's projection of
> lawless power and revenge -- has become the MTV generation's metaphor for
> rebellion.
What this article ignores is the **political function** of rappers like
Eminem: To put juvenile rebellion into "acceptable" forms that are
harmless to the powers that be, and to *avoid* forms of rebellion
that oppose/weaken the system -- such as anti-capitalist movements,
social and global solidarity, civil disobedience, environmental protests.
CounterPunch writes about this in the article "The Politics of Eminem":
( http://www.counterpunch.org/eminem.html )
"Eminem's lyrics are a kind of premeditated infantilism, not a
healthy regression toward the polymorphous perverse, but a summons to
the thanatic impulse, a call for division, repression, an invocation
of the very forces that have divided the working class for decades. He
serves the interests of the State. The idea that Eminem might be
"censored" is a ruse, and a tired one, and an insult to those who have
truly been censored. Cross the powerful, question the System and you
risk censorship, lawsuits, SLAPP suits, beatings, harassment or worse.
As long as Eminem remains a whore for the corporations, he will
continue to accumulate wealth and be shielded from the censors of the
state. And he is a corporate mercenary, whether it's flacking for Nike
or for the music industry's trade association, the Recording Industry
Association of America."
That's the political function of the "diversion industry" in general,
of which the music business is an important part.
Chris
