| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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a digital-media click away. Hip hop culture sold in the capitalist marketplace of America provides a prism through which white and nonwhite societies can see themselves, internalize and justify their actions, and secure their positions in society's hierarchical structure. How did this become so? How do rap and hip hop, which were born out of the experiences of black urban youth trying to “fight the power,” now serve as reinforcement to that power? How did hip hop become currency to white, suburban youth culture and, more importantly, how did it become central to certain aspects of accumulation and exploitation in contemporary capitalism? It is because hip hop, which was initially framed to confront many of the values that contribute to subordination in America, has become part of the mainstream, and as Nelson George argues, “It is essential to understand that the values that underpin so much hip hop—materialism, brand consciousness, gun iconography, anti-intellectualism—are very much by-products of the larger American culture” (1998, xiii). To more fully answer these questions, we therefore have to explore a number of issues, including the changing nature of contemporary capitalism/globalization, the movement of a subculture from the periphery to the center of the dominant culture/ideology, and the instruments available to dominant elites to perpetuate the dominant culture/ideology. The latter is achieved either by force or by co-opting the opposition in order to perpetuate inequality, a central feature of capitalist accumulation.
One of the first questions we ask our college students (who often embody that “everyday student”) in our rap and hip hop seminar is “Why do white people like rap music?” The question is much more than a first-day icebreaker to generate beginning discussions on our course topic. In fact, we have found the question is not as simplistic as it might sound. The responses and how students get to point B from point A became recurrent themes