book Review 3 - The Vinyl Ain't Final

Greer Grenley
Book Review 3
11/10/08
“The Vinyl Ain’t Final”
Prof. Delmont

“The Vinyl Ain’t Final”, edited by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, is a series of essays about hip-hop music and culture and its place in our society. The essays range in topics, but all mostly focus on black culture within hip-hop, how black culture and hip-hop culture often go hand-in-hand, and the stereotypes African American hip-hop artists face in the media.
Basu’s essay “Hip Hop: Cultural Clout, Corporate Control, and the ‘Carceral Cast’” discusses two hip-hop moguls, Lil’ Slim and T-Bone, and the racial double standards they faced while trying to make it in the hip-hop business; these two represent the many other black entrepreneurs within the hip-hop community. They came from working class and poor neighborhoods, and their past lives in the ghettos helped them gain popularity in the hip-hop world. “Against the upsurge of West Coast rap’s popularity in the late 1980’s and early 90s their ‘ghetto pass’ authenticated with one or two strips (Black/felonious) is not just a ride to the pen or road to the ruinous informal economy. It is a ticket into the rap music industry” (28). The essay argues that the number of African Americans who are incarcerated has increased, and in turn, hip-hop as a music genre has gained in popularity. It also discusses the fact that the majority of hip-hop consumers are “approximately 45 million people aged between 13 and 34, of which 80 percent is White” (28). There seems to be, then, a white fascination with black culture, and hip-hop music serves as a catalyst for whites to learn about the black culture that they idolize. “As more African-American youth are condemned to states of confinement and detention, the market increasingly appropriates their cultural production” (28). Lil’ Slim and T-Bone as well as other black hip-hop moguls became successful entrepreneurs in the hip-hop community, yet the essay argues that African Americans still face more hardships financially because “they are systematically ‘steered’ to Black middle-class enclaves in the opposite direction of economic growth…it costs more for Blacks to buy homes. Having a home in the Black belt means it is worth less than a similar property in a White neighborhood…” (31). Thus, there are racial injustices when it comes to financial security, even for the African Americans who have gained popularity with blacks as well as whites within hip-hop society.
One of the essays also discusses women’s role in hip-hop culture. Basu and Laura Harris analyze the 1999 documentary “Nobody Knows My Name”, about some of the prominent women in the hip-hop community. The essay argues that this documentary breaks the barriers of the hip-hop gender stereotypes. “Its representation of and dialogue on hip hop culture seductively, but not sexually, disrupts the gendered and raced assumptions that hip hop is mainly about Black men, mics and mainstream markets” (56). The same year that this movie was released, Lauryn Hill, a woman hip-hop artist, won five Grammies, and Eminem, a white rapper, topped the charts, thus also proving that the identities of hip-hop artists were changing to include not just black males. This essay briefly touches on those who are breaking the gender stereotypes in the hip-hop community, yet it would have been nice to read more essays in this book about gender roles, as the rest of the essays focus mainly just on racial roles in hip-hop.
This book also includes essays on hip-hop in the Bay Area and Hawaiian communities, as well as hip-hop culture on an international level – they discuss hip-hop in African, Asian, and European countries. The editors have successfully found a broad range of scholars to comment on the globalization of hip-hop culture, calling together journalists, rappers, poets, and others to discuss their views. It is interesting how hip-hop has become a powerful commodity within our culture, and this book is successful in discussing the positive and negative effects this type of commodity, so prominent in the media, can have in a society.