The Vinyl Ain’t Final

In "The Vinyl Ain’t Final", hip hop is discussed as an artistic, social and capitalist phenomenon that reflects and influences the social realities of both America and the global community. Because the book deals with globalization, issues of appropriation and authenticity are at the heart of many of the essays. Some of the articles view appropriation as a deeply problematic trend which perpetuates social inequalities and decontextualizes the social messages embedded in the work. Other authors laud the global use of hip hop as a tool of resistance and as a forum for the retelling of historic and contemporary experiences. Many of the articles try to bring attention to figures who have been largely erased from the popular conception of hip hop. Each article, in one way or another, tried to explain why hip hop has become a national and global phenomenon. Some pointed to the genre’s ability to capture the essence of struggle and protest, and its ability to bring respect to communities that are systematically denied it. Because of this, even those who have no aesthetic appreciation for hip hop can appreciate its social power. Others authors discussed hip hop’s power to unify people and communicate universal ideas. Hip hop’s “flexibility” (90) was also praised for allowing the expression of a huge variety of messages and experiences. Though the book applauds hip hop’s artistic and social power, it does not neglect the darker side of the industry; discussing, in depth, how “the global media system is better understood as one that advances corporate and commercial interests and values and denigrates or ignores that which cannot be incorporated into its mission” (222).

Dipannita Basu deals directly with issues of appropriation and systematic oppression in her article “Hip Hop: Cultural Clout, Corporate Control, and the Carceral Cast.” She investigates how hip hop is connected to the continuation of African Americans’ “colonized status” (37) within America. Though she draws connections between hip hop and many forms of systematic oppression, her article focuses on ways that hip hop has been used to fuel the prison industrial complex. She demonstrates how hip hop (though it has great potential as a creative and oppositional art form) is widely used to contain African Americans’ expressive abilities and uphold systematic racism. Basu demonstrates how White Americans almost entirely control the upper levels of the industry which often focuses on “profiteering, policing and fetishism of Black culture, communities and bodies” (27), “essentially [orienting] Black artistry and talent . . . towards White consumption and pleasure” (33). Though “ghetto fabulous mythology” (27) makes it seem as if ample opportunities are open to every Black man with enough “natural” talent to make it in the industry (hard work is routinely dismissed), African Americans in the industry are consistently denied positions of power, and have little mobility beyond the “Black” departments and positions which capitalize on their “street” status. Because rich White men (who have no positive investment in the educational and political messages of hip hop artists) control the marketing, image, and content of hip hop records, the “public’s imagination and perception of Black youth” (27) is often built upon the stereotypes that the industry creates. Images of African Americans as “hyper-sexual, bodacious, gang-banging, hummer-riding, gun-toting, strip-club going, rapacious and ‘patriotic’ consumers of brands and big ‘booties’” (41) are used to justify and explain the perpetuation of gross social inequalities. Basu explains how these images affect every facet of African Americans’ lives, so that they are “systematically treated as if they are deserving only of detention centers, jails, holding cells, and prisons – even in schools” (36). This mentality assures that funds will continue to be allocated to prisons while social programs (which would treat the root problems of crime) are ignored. Basu’s fear is that “surveying, monitoring, neutralizing, imprisoning, and depoliticizing Black populations” (46) will finally render black protests and issues invisible within the public eye.

While Basu presents a grim view of the authenticity and future of hip hop within American consumer culture, Rhiannon Fink’s study of hip hop in Japan is more optimistic. “Negotiating Ethnicity and Authenticity in Tokyo’s Club Harlem” tries to discern whether Club Harlem is an authentic expression of hip hop culture. Because of language barriers and the perceived lack of a shared experience (often connected to race), Japanese hip hop has been “plagued with contentions of hollow imitation and inauthenticity” (200). Fink’s article, however, discusses how “Japan has identified with particular elements of U.S. hip hop and fashioned those elements into something that is unequivocally Japanese” (201). In many ways, hip hop is not simply being imported into Japan, but is being recreated within in ways that challenge the dominant social ideology; clubbing is itself a “transgressive social statement” in Japan (202). Fink argues that we should not discredit the “cultural, economic, and linguistic differences that serve to emphasize the visual in the Japanese scene (fashion, b-boying, graf writing) over the text of the lyrics” (203), and does not seem to find this trend particularly problematic. In fact, Fink believes that some aspects of Japanese hip hop culture might be more authentic than the American counterpart. He cites the intensity of Japanese clubs as leading to a unity which is missing in many American venues, and points to an encouraging “lack of misogyny and violence” (205) in Japanese hip hop. He find hope in the “acknowledgement of racial tension in Japan’s hip hop scene,” seeing it as “a progressive departure from Japan’s long history of ignoring social difference” (205). Finally, Fink argues that the conflict over authenticity opens productive dialogues between diverse groups of people over the objectives, roles and future not only of hip hop, but of intercultural relations around the world.