| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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female, and that's powerful. They [rappers] are acknowledging, in a way, that sex is powerful, and that's what scares my parents.” That sums up rather succinctly why some white students like rap and hip hop: because it (and here “it” refers to highly sexualized roles and sexual relations produced and almost deified within rap and hip hop) can be used as a mechanism to revolt against their parents. The social and cultural components of teenage sexuality are complicated, yet there are some characteristics of adolescent development that remain eternal.
Hip hop, then, in many ways represents the rebelliousness of youth. How did the rebelliousness of Black, urban youth become the voice of white, suburban youth? The answer can be found in exploring how hip hop attained crossover appeal and how it was and is marketed by white entrepreneurs. Indeed, without white entrepreneurship, hip hop would not have the broad appeal that it has today. George argues that “without white entrepreneurial involvement hip hop culture wouldn’t have survived its first half decade on vinyl” (1998, 57). The question becomes, however, were these white stepfathers whom George refers to in it for the love of the art or for the potential to earn profits, a cornerstone of capitalism? We would argue that rap and hip hop do appeal to the rebelliousness of youth, even the white youth that have become the main consumers of the music produced by hip hop artists; however, that youth crossover appeal was necessary for hip hop's survival in a capitalistic system.
Bakari Kitwana, author of Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, sees a key component of the evolution of hip hop as hip hop's explosion from urban centers to the suburbs. Kitwana comments,