hh-access.class.html

hh-access.class.html Access and Class Privilege

When one skims across the addresses of different posters on alt.rap and rec.music.hip-hop, one is struck by the reaccuring use of three letters: "edu". The vast majority of the internet members gain access to these newsgroups through their college, a fact that greatly alters the demographics of this hip-hop community. For not only does their status in post-secondary education pressume a level of privilege, but their ability to hook on and add to these conversations means they have a level of computer literacy that many hip-hop fans do not have. It follows that a higher proportion of internet headz come from higher socio-economic classes where there is the cultural capital associated with these privileges. This in turn means that most internet members are not from the ghetto that many of the original rappers came from. Granted, hip-hop has expanded these boundaries and is being produced by African-Americans from a large variety of backgrounds, but it is still rooted in the inner city- an area which most internetters have not been raised in.
Because of the large number of more privileged members, these newsgroups do not see wealth as disqualification for hip-hop, and class issues are relatively infrequent. However, when it does come up, there is definitely an oppositional element to money in the threads. Many admit that they do not share the lifestyle reflected by the rapper as if it were a personal fault, and then proceed to defend their role in hip-hop by pledging their loyalty to and knowledge of the medium. Many of these fans use their inborn cultural capital and the idea that if they work hard enough, they can get anything, to try to earn a belonging into a culture that most from the street are born into. They see their alienation from the ghetto as an inauthenticity and try to compensate for this deficiency by earning credibility through historical, cultural and musical knowledge. They use their own cultural logic to try to make sense of this inverted social hierarchy and though this might not make work in the street, it does in cyber space. This knowledge-based social structure reinverts a lot of the basis for judgment and de-emphasizes class and racial categories. They still factor in and serve a purpose of reminding members of their alienation from the rappers' environment, but relative to their role in the street, these identifying labels are secondary.
Another effect of this socio-economic difference is that it is common for outside fans to try to prove their authenticity in hip-hop by claiming a connection with poverty. I have noticed a definite stigma against mentioning wealth. Several conversations surrounding the advantages and disadvantages or records, CD's and tapes have stressed cost and that only suburban kids could afford CD's. And, similar to the use of race, flames often accuse people of being wealthy which insinuates that they do not have a "real" connection to hip-hop and are merely "fronting". There was also an interesting thread in which a member suggested flaming aol.users. Although college access assumes a level of privilege, this certain member figured that whoever could afford to pay for America On-line must be economically established and thus even more marginalized from hip-hop's roots.
These different relationships to class, though markedly different from street communities, once again shows the ways in which these hip-hop internet newsgroups resist the differences inherit in the cybernetic medium. The varying demographics due to to priviliged access must alter group dynamics, but the fact that members shun wealth and encourage connections to poverty still resonates of hip-hop's inverted social hierarchy.
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