Hip Hop and Inequality: Searching for the
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Hip Hop and Inequality: Searching for the "Real" Slim Shady By S ...

Chapter 1:  Introduction
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economic” (2002, 30). Thus, our work here is an exercise in listening with “the third ear,” examining with a critical lens the underpinnings of contemporary culture/ideology and its links with contemporary social stratification. Our use of the “third ear” needs some explanation. It is informed by the works of Frantz Fanon (1967) and it begins from the premise that not every aspect of communication has a single meaning or consequence. Ian Baucom, commenting on some passages from Fanon, notes,

In our reading of these passages, we cannot, of course, overlook the words themselves or fail to examine the way in which they facilitate Fanon's investigation of the optic economics of imperial discourse. But to read Fanon exclusively as the visual anatomist of imperialism is to render a very partial reading of his work. Postcolonial criticism is indebted to Fanon for revealing that imperialism works in large part by policing, regulating and interpreting the visible. It needs now to consider what Fanon has to teach us about the audible. (2001, 16)

Listening and analyzing the aural and visual involves understanding both the manifest and latent meanings of any form of communication. Understanding manifest meaning is to explore the depths of surface meaning of communication. Latent understanding is more difficult because it involves comprehending the underlying meanings and functions of communication. It involves taking into consideration the history, the structural variables, the individuals/groups doing the communicating, the instruments of communication, the groups/individuals who are controlling the communication, the audience, and the intended and unintended impacts on the audience. It involves linking the communication with the uncontested values, beliefs, and norms of the dominant ideology.