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

House of Louis Roederer Cristal champagne—serve to mask the ability of the majority white population to perceive the reality of most minorities in American society.

This form of hip hop culture also serves to promote color-blind ideology, which argues that race is no longer an important factor in society. Further, it posits that all racial groups are essentially equal. The media popularize the extravagant lifestyles of the hip hop artists through shows such as MTV's Cribs and various entertainment magazines, which send a message to white America that black America has made it. The fabulous lifestyles of Jay-Z and Beyoncé are ample evidence for white America to believe that there is no need for race-based programs in society. From that perspective, the historical injustices have been eliminated. Analyzing the Slim Shady Remix is an exploration of the adaptive capacity of modern capitalism. Marginalized groups are used to perpetuate the system of inequality, thus providing an ideological justification for the system. Capitalism's ability to make profits by incorporating some elements of the marginal groups is important to this remix. Hip hop moguls, or Black Hip Hopreneurs, as Yvonne Bynoe (2004) refers to them, are key players in this process, as we shall see.

The epilogue seeks to give a somewhat broad analysis of the future of hip hop, both outside of and within new groups that appear in the United States. We see that in some instances, the revolutionary tradition of hip hop emerges given the local conditions, and other times, it serves to reinforce the status quo in the respective countries.