Only then can you understand that there's a difference between, on one hand, Black Eyed Peas (woefully sincere song urging people to end war and with an entreaty asking: "where is the love?") and Pharrell and Jay-Z (Pharrell Williams being one half of the Neptunes, who are creating some of the freshest sounds in the hip hop universe right now, and have been doing so for the last few years).
Now, I don't want to seem like a hiphop fanboy, but my point is that you do need to know something about what you're talking about. Unless you actually stop to find out something about Prefuse 73, Anticon, Def Jux, Dizzee Rascal, all of whom are doing (or have done) something new and different in their chosen medium, then all your shots about machismo in hip hop fall a little bit short.
Writing about hip hop as if 50 Cent and The Neptunes are the same is as intellectually pointless and makes about as much sense to an informed reader as doing the same with Hildegard von Bingen and Xenakis or Louis Meliès and Kenneth Anger.
What a criticism of hip hop as a whole system of production ignores is that 'popular' music forms create difference internally. Hip hop replicates itself (just as Beethoven's early symphonies replicate Haydn), but produces subtle differences that create their 'meaning'. So it both differs and repeats itself. For example, Prefuse 73's 'Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives' is easily understood within a hip hop tradition, but all the vocals have been cut up; sliced and spliced so they can't be understood. We can understand it as both an illustration of the percussive category of the voice, but also as a critique that certain forms of hip hop have nothing to say.
Isn't it possible to maintain a critique of rap's quite obvious commodity fetishism and misogynistic images (Listen to Sarah Jones feat. DJ Vadim's Your Revolution for a comment on this) and still admit that you rather enjoy shaking your tailfeather to Missy Elliott or Beyoncé's 'Crazy in Love', or DJ Assault-type ass-shaking 'booty bass'? And we're not being ironic, or trying to copy 'black machismo' or anything of the sort when we do this. This is sincere love of the music (witness the number of loving mash-up/bootlegs of Missy's Get Ur Freak On and Beyoncé's 'Crazy in Love').
One of the things that is going on in my 'scene' at the moment is that white kids are rediscovering the funk and that dancing is really quite fun. It's quite a turnaround from 'disco sucks' to 'disco punk'. See: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/rapture/echoes.shtml
All I am trying to say here is that a critique of popular music certainly has its place. But it's counterproductive if people think that 'just because it's popular' they can afford to have an ill-informed critique.
Simon
----------------------- Wojtek wrote:
Worst in the sense of most blatant and obnoxious, not as the opposite of best.
In my view, (c)rap is to music what Schwarzenegger and Stallone are to film - both are cases of an art form in the service of machismo. And if I am to do some racial stereotyping of my own, both express the quintessential characteristic of white machismo and black machismo.
While most (in not all) forms of machismo are nothing more than in-your-face arrogance, that arrogance is manifested differently in the white macho and the black macho.
The white macho is mostly pumped up visual image - the square jaw, the steroid pumped muscles, the big chest. Those white machos without proper musculature and access to steroids use substitute images, such as big, imposing trucks or cars (the confederate flag sticker being an additional in-your-face arrogant accent), or do it vicariously by identifying with big muscular and conspicuously macho characters, such as Schwartz, Stallone, or John Wayne.
The black macho, otoh, is mostly loud and obnoxious noise - the ghetto blaster emitting the decibels of low frequency thumping, shouting obscenities at each other. Black machismo is a more of an equal opportunity machismo than its white counterpart because it does not require any particular physical predisposition - anyone can buy a noise blasting equipment and install it in his car.
With that in mind, its is clear that the only raison d'etre of certain genres of pop-culture, such as (c)rap music, flicks like Terminator or Rocky, or SUV is to cater to and serve as props for displaying machismo. Particularly disturbing about this trend is that it is the only aspect of the US life that shows remarkable racial integration. Most aspects of our daily lives remain hopelessly segregated: virtually no interracial dating, separate neighborhoods, separate schools, separate employment opportunities. However, white and black machos increasingly ape each other and cross-borrow their macho props. Many suburban white machos are increasingly aping black machismo by installing macho blasters in their cars and blasting (c)rap music. Black machos are increasingly aping white machos in their increasing reliance on images, especially big and imposing trucks. Very sad and pathetic, indeed.
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