Are you suggesting that rapping is an assigned function, whose role is to
detract from, say, ongoing globalization? If so, then could you briefly
outline what might be the process by which this assignation is implemented and
by whom?
It seems to me that one could argue that the "role" of rappers is to condition
susceptible youth to challenge corporatist dogma, to view "generally accepted"
values as outmoded and exploitive, and thus to welcome the opportunity to
commit mayhem against the purveyors of those goods and services produced by
the back-breaking toil of the poor and powerless masses.
Of course, I may have the process backward - it may be that rappers and their
ilk (as artists sensitive to societal trends) are reacting to what they
perceive to be the kind of music that a significant segment of young people
crave to release their pent-up energies. They may indeed be following the
entrepreneurial creed : find a need, and fill it.
Bob
Christoph Reuss wrote:
> 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
--
http://publish.uwo.ca/~mcdaniel/
