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

The discussion of hip hop and rap in contemporary society takes us into the heart of the debate over culture/ideology, hegemony, countercultures, and representation. It forces us to ask the question, how do subcultures become part of a confirmed hegemonic culture? Cultures/ideologies can be arranged into a hierarchy from dominant to subordinate. These cultures/ideologies develop over time, based on unique historical experiences circumscribed by structural arrangements. Economic, political, cultural/ideological, and social dimensions of society interact with each other and influence each other in a dialectical relationship. The dominant culture/ideology will only incorporate dimensions of a subculture into the mainstream insofar as the dominant groups can gain direct, tangible benefits by incorporating elements of the subculture. The extent to which they reinforce habits of thinking, mental models, linguistic paradigms, shared meanings, and root metaphors is the extent to which they become fused with the hegemonic culture/ideology.

An artist's relationship with a subculture and the dominant culture is, as we contend, a dialectical one, where the artist reflects some values of the dominant culture and, in many instances, helps to reinforce the dominant value system. However, with the agility of a seasoned break-dancer and the anticipatory deliberation of a graffiti scribe patrolling virgin territory, the hip hop artist can adeptly challenge the values of the dominant culture. The extent to which the subculture becomes part of the hegemonic culture is facilitated by the amount of control dominant groups in society, who benefit from the hegemonic culture, have over the instruments of cultural communication.

Hip hop and rap, which are sold to the public for mass consumption and have become part of the mainstream culture, reinforce many dimensions of the hegemonic American value system with respect to race, class, gender, and sexuality. The predominant