Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Hip Hop Culture
I wrote my paper on hip hop culture as a form of resistance to hegemony and I also talked about the commercialization and commodification of hip hop in North America. Here is an excerpt from my paper:
. . .
Consumption has become such an integral part of hip hop culture that it is hard to separate the two. This is the irony pointed out by Fiske in that, “[p]opular culture is made by subordinated peoples in their own interests out of resources that also, contradictorily, serve the economic interests of the dominant.” (Fiske Reading the Popular, 2) In hip hop culture, resistance to hegemony is now incorporated into consumerism and we are ultimately supporting capitalism. So purchasing bourgeois commodities just brings us right back in the middle of hegemony.
I was also thinking about the question of other groups of hip hop culture and the Quebecois hip hop scene came to mind. They are a part of North American hip hop culture in a sense, but the fact that they rap and sing in french seems important here. Perhaps they are rebelling against the capitalist society, but they probably resist english speaking hip hop as well. I'm not too familiar with french rap, but maybe they are rapping against english-speaking Canadians. There may be underlying themes that have to do with referendums and a separatist Canada. Their struggle to form an individual nation. It would be interesting to find out what they are saying in their music.
# posted by L.Maggs @ 11:15 PM 
