Definition and Differentiation in Hip-Hop

Chuck D once said, and others have repeated, that rap is "Black CNN". This is an important statement on hip-hop as a medium for broadcasting black culture and expressing specific local experiences. As Tricia Rose said, rap music is "Black American TV, a public and highly accessible place, where black meanings and perspectives-- even as they are manipulated by corporate concerns-- can be shared and validated among black people. Rap is dependent on technology and mass reproduction and distribution" (1994: 17). So although it is rooted in specific and significant spaces, the fact that it is situated within a broadcast market means that these different voices and perspectives can be shared across local boundaries. And yet, there is more to this process than rap's regional reports because as the media spreads hip-hop's images, its audiences do their own mediating. Hence, we need to understand the images being transmitted, but also how they are being shared, what they are sharing space with, and how audiences negotiate these images by distinguishing and defining their meanings. We can see this process of audience differentiation in words like "authenticity" and "front" which run through almost every aspect of their appropriation. Thus, in this section, I will explore hip-hop's precise images and how appropriators receive and relate to them. This will involve an examination of the larger popular musical territory, sub-cultural elitism, and peoples' definitions of not only particular cultural images, but of the culture itself.

Hip-hop is seen by many as a prototype of a "popular" culture. It's recycling of others' compositions dismantles conventional "high" premises of authorship and the rappers' voice of and for a specific neighborhood values communal expression. Indeed, hip-hop seems to thrive off of its "popular" roots.

The role of "popular" in popular culture is to fix the authenticity of popular forms, rooting them in the experiences of popular communities from which they draw their strength, allowing us to see them as expressive of a particular subordinate social life that resists its being made constantly made over as low and outside (Hall, 1992: 469).

Hall agrees with this counter-hegemonic resistance of the "high" distinction, but his comment on their resistance of the "low and outside" label makes another important point. Although a culture may reject the traditional legitimacy in "high" culture, it does not mean that it does not suggest its own elite. In today's cultural territory, by fixing an authenticity in a "particular subordinate social life," a subculture is not only resisting its "low and outside" status, but also asserting its own high and inside ideology. This is most clearly seen in hip-hop's propagation of an authenticity in cultural capital, the black body, and street space. We have seen that this authenticity hierarchy can be a source of conflict to those "outside", but as I hope to show, it is also hardly settled territory for those within its "authentic" embodied context.

Many of hip-hop's lyrics focus on material goods, gender relations or physical threats, but the majority of the references and metaphors serve to prove or prop one's rapping skill. These boasts are built on not only praising oneself and his/her crew as "real", but by dissing and dismissing others as "wack" or "fronts". In other words, the majority of rap lyrics focus on distinguishing and defining one's crew from anothers'. As Juan Flores wrote, part of the "underlying ethos" of hip-hop is "that it shows how to draw boundaries, mark off terrain, face up differences and call them by their name" (Flores, 1994: 93) This is probably true of most subcultures, but the sheer number of words in a rap song allow rappers to make these territorial distinctions with a specificity and detail impossible in most cultural mediums. Other rappers, other areas and other genres are repeatedly discussed and dismissed by name to boast or diss the skill and/or authenticity of the speaker.

And yet, for all of the differentiations, there is also a considerable force that argues against these same boundaries. The division between East Coast rap and more gangsta-influenced West Coast rap has been one of the most pronounced divisions within hip-hop dynamics and there has been a considerable movement to end it. BET's Rap City program, always ends with its host, Joe Clair, saying, "East Coast, West Coast, unity for the Hip-Hop Nation" and there have been a number of songs released by East-West coalitions that argue that coastal rivalries hurt hip-hop's unified counter-hegemonic force. Album covers and songs also continuously send "shout-outs" to artists across the musical spectrum. Yet still, even these calls for unity make distinctions based on an authentic elitism. For example, though A Tribe Called Quest song with a chorus of "We got to do our do, not Separate, Together", it also has the lyrics:

MC'S, you're walking a thin line. 
Get in your ranks and tighten up as we walk through mines; 
And plus vipers, phony rhymers and biters, Money-grubbers, beat-dubbers, 
amongst a whole host of others who be fakin', fradulatin', waitin' for the bacon 

The same songs that criticize coastal or racial divisions will propagate other common enemies like commercialism or fronts, and thus although they may argue for the dissolution of some constructed boundaries, they still evoke others divisions.

Part of the problem with this "unity" is that, like any social group or coalition, the group must have an agreement on what their common culture is in the first place. It is easy to say what one is against but it is much more difficult to say what one is for, and hip-hop is no exception. There are numerous contradictions in the numerous definitions of hip-hop culture: from the four pillars of graffiti, breakdancing, MCing and rapping, to a lifestyle, to a musical style, to a street philosophy, to an individualistic expression, to a propagated and pimped commercial industry. The ideologies are endless and consensus is rare. Yet, for all of these divisions, there tends to be an agreement that hip-hop should not be oversimplified nor definitely labeled. Definitions are always relative to another and always situated within a specific context. Artists are continuously producing new perspectives and so hip-hop's particular reference points are constantly in flux. Thus, rather than struggling to find the "correct" answers, we must focus on understanding the processes and movements within hip-hop's changing dynamics.

Stuart Hall, Cornel West and others have written extensively on the problems and motivations behind the kind of labels and definitions seen in much of hip-hop. Whether it is the essentialism used in the term 'black' or the authenticity which is continuously being claimed, there is a constant battle between hip-hop's counter-hegemony and its tendency to assert a new dominant ideology. Because although these terms may be a source of strength for those dealing with a racist and classist society, they can also be confining in how it defines those within its essentialistic umbrella. Rappers and the larger media both tend to perpetrate rappers' bodies as sources of authentic rage and power, which though potentially socially and politically empowering, is also reductionalist and leads to racial stereotyping.

This becomes particularly true when we move from the cultural fluidity of re-production to the static medium of images and the "outsiders" that depend on them. All of the evasive definitions and differentiations of "hip-hop" take on specific and more traceable visual and phonic media. New meanings and differentiations are still constructed, but since some of its contextual depth is flattened by radio and TV, the "original" hip-hop becomes more of a reductionist image than a dynamic process. This can become problematic when these distant or out-of-context rap fans differentiate rap because the way they define hip-hop usually means endorsement of one of two equally dangerous mindsets. As an "outsider", if one thinks hip-hop is an open medium for everyone, he or she ends up redefining the medium to permit his or her own inclusion and strips it of much of its real racial and class-based power. On the other side, if one defines it as an exclusively black inner-city medium which he or she is merely and guiltily eavesdropping on, one endangers exoticizing rappers as the primitive "Other."

I will now move away from these equally reductionist "outsider" relationships and take a closer look at what and how Nairobi youth and newsgroup members are receiving hip-hop, how they define it, and how they differentiate between its many images. I will examine how these appropriators' territorial markings and definitions of hip-hop culture shape or are shaped by their larger popular cultural environment. Altogether, I believe this will prove another means of understanding the relationship between appropriators and hip hop's presumed authenticity and contextual ideology.

Definition and Differentiation in Nairobi

If rap music is Black CNN, then Nairobi's matatus are its wide screen TV's. Painted with loud colors and emblazed with names like, "Shawn Kemp", "TuPac" and "Snoop Doggy Dogg", these privately owned buses or minivans are equipped with shoddy speakers that blast rap's bass on their routes through Nairobi. Matatus with good music have gained reputations and if they are full (which usually means 60 people to a 20-person capacity bus), discriminating Nairobi youth will wait for a particular matatu to go through its entire route in order to get on the one with the best music. As the names of some of these matatus imply, the hippest matatus tend to play mostly gangsta rap. This, combined with the fact that the other public musical mediums-- clubs, the radio and Jimi Gathu's video show-- favor gangsta rap, indicates that the variety of hip-hop publicly played in Kenya is small. This seems to be gradually changing as different forms of hip-hop are popularized in the States and spread through Jimi Gathus video show, but as of June 1996, this had yet to make a major impact in Nairobi's hip-hop scene.

I explained earlier how gangsta rap's predominance in Nairobi affects youth's relationship to capital, but I think the disproportional representation of American hip-hop also influences other appropriation dynamics of differentiation and definition. One can see a relatively limited impression of hip-hop culture in the way Nairobi youth define it. There is no definitive answer in the States for the difference between rap and hip-hop, but usually rap is thought of as either the musical component of hip-hop or the commercialized industry of the larger musical culture. When I asked my interviewees on their impression of the difference between the two, most responded that rap was "hard" where hip-hop was "softer" or had more singing. When I asked about what they thought of the phrase "hip-hop culture", almost none ventured a guess. I even had one informant tell me thought it meant "the 60's and free love"(Josh, 6/17). It makes one wonder how hip-hop's pioneers would respond if they to knew their cultural creation was being confused with the white middle-class hippie movement.

I believe one reason behind this lack of knowledge of the larger ideological hip-hop culture is the lack of historical context behind the musical culture. Most of my interviewees did not know pioneering hip-hop groups, and old school hip-hop terms elicited unconventional responses. One informant told me he thought "b-boy" meant bad-boy and the term "old-school" was thought by many to be anything before 1992 (Jimmy, 7/5). DJ Pinja also told me that if he does play old school songs, people often think he is playing new artists that are sampling 90's gangsta rappers instead of the other way around (6/28). And just as the lack of American musical history obscures Nairobi's view of hip-hop's reproductive logic, so does the lack of hip-hop's cultural history limit their perspective on hip-hop's larger cultural expression. This can be better explained by looking at another possible source of Nairobi youth's limited perception of hip-hop culture: limited access to hip-hop's diversity. When looking in music stores in Nairobi, not only did I find the vast majority of CDs and tapes were gangsta rappers, but I found many other forms of hip-hop placed in different sections than the rap music. At one store I found Guru's Jazzmatazz album placed in the Jazz section and Arrested Development in the country section. Granted, Guru's album is a jazz-rap fusion and Arrested Development is more rural-based, but the fact that these albums were completely separate from the rap section indicates that they are not being related to a larger hip-hop continuum. A youth interested in hearing different kinds of hip-hop will not likely see these different adaptations of hip-hop music which thus hinders not only their view of rap but also of black experiences in the States.

This is important because by the sheer number of American flag adorned clothing, NBA paraphernalia and American TV programs, one can see that US hegemonic influence is strong in Kenya. Our popular images seem to be thought of as the most cool and are thus the most powerful. This makes the representatives of American black popular culture very influential and since rappers are prominent symbols of this culture, they carry a disproportionate weight in Nairobi's popular scene. The fact that these rappers are limited to a narrow spectrum of gangsta rappers makes for Nairobi youth's similarly narrow impression of hegemonic black American culture. It limits the musical and expressive flexibility in hip-hop culture to a surface image with less room for American diversity. What is more, the lack of musical variety also hinders their own contextual reproduction of the hip-hop medium because it does not show others' creative appropriations.

At this point, it is necessary to pull the focus off of rap and take a larger pan out at what it shares space with. For as many matatus there are that are named after American gangsta rappers, there are also matatus named "Bombastic" or "Shabba Ranks." Hip-hop shares its space in Nairobi's popular culture with many African and Afro-diasporic music like reggae and raggamuffin. What's more, the distance between these different musical expressions is not sharply defined. Raggamuffin, rap and R&B are all played on a given night at a club and even matatus adorned with an artist of one genre will play music of another. In one hour of radio play, a listener can hear a Bob Marley song, a gangsta rapper, an R&B group, and any number of fusions between these different musical genres. Perhaps most telling is that the so-called "hip-hop competitions" have as many dancers, raggamuffin toasters, and singers as they do rappers. Rarely will a performer mix a rapping style with a ragga track or the other way around, but the fact that they share the same space is indicative of a less divided musical environment.

Youth and DJ's repeatedly confirmed my observations on the lack of separation between musical cultures by saying that people do not differentiate and label music as much as Americans. There are clubs and youth who will prefer one style over another, but there is not the exclusivity seen in the United States. This seems to facilitate more flexibility between the images and the cultures they represent. As my friend Josh said, "As long as there is a black person singing, we don't care" (6/24). So although there are not many diverse images of hip-hop culture, there are a variety of black popular images to participate in. Josh's comments leads us to another important aspect of this less-differentiated musical environment: there are many models of different, equally authentic, black cultures. There are different contexts behind reggae, raggamuffin, rap and R&B, each of which support different black cultures that African youth can relate to. Rap still has a western hegemonic influence; DJ's at the hip-hop competitions would occasionally test audience members on names and singers of songs, and they could only get winners if they limited it to "just hip-hop." Yet since rap is not alone, there are other visible black images and because rap is not separate, one does not necessarily have to choose it over others.

Having explained hip-hop's media image and its role in the larger popular culture, it is important to examine Nairobi's appropriation of differentiation within the hip-hop medium. The main way in which I investigated Nairobi youth's divisions within hip-hop was by asking interviewees impressions of different artists. Mainly, I noticed they had much less aversion to commercially popular artists than hip-hop fans in the States. Artists like Coolio and MC Hammer which many Americans dis(miss) were either called okay or praised. There were some who said they were "old", but this seemed more based on their date of release than on their commercial play. Comparing this to hip-hop's continuous criticisms of fakes and fronts, there seems to be little of this kind of categorization in Kenya. Youth did criticize others for not being good rappers, but it was rarely on the grounds of being fake. There were also regional criticisms of richer youth having "airs" and being "snobs", but this was based on class and was not related to rapping. And though I did sense some elitism by those who claimed to know more artists or lyrics than others, there was nowhere near the cultish fixation on "underground" artists like there is in the States

All of this leads back to the relative unimportance of hip-hop's ideological authenticity in Kenya and the appropriation of hip-hop as more of an image then a contextual culture. Although having a limited variety of rap music would seem to create a narrow perspective of hip-hop, it's non-separated position in a larger musical environment facilitates less divided and more diverse images of black popular culture. Nairobi youth tend to be less interested in dividing artists into categories and thus less fixated on one popular image of authentic black experience.

Definition and Differentiation on the Internet

Variety seems to be one thing that we do not have a shortage of in America. With at least three cable channels (MTV, BET, and The BOX) that play rap videos, numerous megamusic stores, and thousands of independent recording companies, there is a plethora of different aspiring artists and musical styles. But whether it is a section in a 3-floored music store or a hyphenated title to place under a group in a club listing, we also seem determined to fit each of these artists and styles with a categorizing label. The Internet is no exception to this kind of defining. Although rap is built from samples of other music, other black musical forms like R&B, soul or funk are rarely brought up on the newsgroup. East and West Coast rivalries are a constantly debated and people are repeatedly categorized by their favorite artists. There was even talk of splitting up rec.music.hip-hop into several different groups:

I would support two groups. One group could be good hip-hop and the other bad. I think that was the idea when rec.music.hip-hop was created, but some suckas seeped through the threads. Much love alt.rap, but we know where the true heads are. If we could have a group that would require a quiz before entering it would be cool... (Shane, 8/23/95).

No way-- I don't think we should split up the newsgroup. I love all hip-hop. East/West/South/Timbuktu. If it's dope I like it. No bias... We need unity in hip-hop. Just ignore the clowns that dis you because of where you live; they don't know what real hip-hop is. As for the special group for more "advanced" hip-hop heads, I'm all for it. That's a cool idea taking a quiz and all. Sounds like fun. But keep rec.music.hip-hop together. It's corny to split up (Fadanuf, 8/23/96).

The idea of rec.music.hip-hop.gangsta is a good idea. Better yet, we could have soc.culture.hip-hop, soc.culture.rap, soc.culture.hip-hop.graffiti, soc.culture.hip-hop.bboy, but that's not an option. For now, I think we should segregate the Wu, gangsta rap, and "good hip-hop" discussions (I'm torn on certain groups) into seperate arenas cause my kill-file is 4 screens long right about now (aaron, 8/23/95).

This idea was eventually renounced, but the fact that these divisions were suggested is telling of a divisive and discriminating group. The underlying logic evident in these posts is that by separating different kinds of hip-hop, one could somehow weed out the "fronts" and get a group of "real" heads. Even the poster who thought splitting the groups was "corny" supported a quiz for "advanced" heads. These efforts at separating the authentic from the "fronts" runs through almost every aspect of the Internet's appropriation, but their dividing and dismissal of popular groups is an area where it is most evident. As I mentioned before, commercially successful artists are rarely discussed, and for this same reason rap and R&B fusions are regularly criticized. Fusions are seen as commercial crossover attempts because they tend to be played on the radio more, and are thus less "real", less authentic. By privileging less-known groups, they support a more exclusive elitism that assures their authenticity by others' commercialism:

I think this list proves that no one should pay him any attention. I will say this again: If you think all east coast is Nas and Wu-Tang, or that all West Coast is Snoop and E-40, then you can't talk shit about either coast because you're judging by mainstream, the exact opposite of what real hip-hop is all about, which is staying true to the real fans. I'm not saying the groups I mentioned are wack, but they are apparently the most thought of when people diss or prop up one coast. there is a lot more on both coasts than people who have this kid's taste (Da Brat??? Dogg Pound?? I feel for you) know about, so unless you've heard all styles from the west and all styles from the east, quit talking about shit you don't even know about. It makes people like me who look beyond stupid ass stereotypes and respect all styles and originality in hip-hop think you're a punk. Yeah, "keep it real" huh? Typical weak-ass cliche by someone who thinks commercial radio is hip-hop (Brian, 1/19/96)

One can see the constant construction of outsiders, for even this poster who "looks beyond stupid-ass stereotypes" criticizes this "punk" on the grounds that he is "mainstream." He supports a hierarchy of knowledge where authenticity is proportional to how much one knows about various hip-hop artists. In establishing his extensive knowledge of less established groups, this poster claims a closer connection to "real hip-hop" while simultaneously dissing the previous poster's phrase "keep it real." This points out the dilemma that for all of the newsgroups members' attempts to separate the real from the "fronts", no one seems able to define exactly what "real" hip-hop is. Being non-commercial, being yourself and being involved in any of the 4 pillars are often invoked as being "true", but these leave so much room for interpretation and does little to solve members' struggles with differentiation. If one says hip-hop is a black musical medium, others will cite Puerto Rican influence or white inner city b-boys, but if someone says it is for everyone, the same people will say it is irrefutably black. If one says hip-hop is based on the street, others will cite more affluent rappers who are staying true by expressing their black experience, but if someone says it is an adaptable form of expression, they will say hip-hop is necessarily connected to inner-city poverty. People who say it should be political are contested on the grounds that rap music is entertainment but those who say it is merely entertainment are refuted because hip-hop also has real social and cultural resistive messages. This is also true for those who dismiss commercial rap because people will argue that they are trying to make the system work for them, but if one says it is merely an economic industry, others' will come back and say one must be true to the underlying culture.

Some have tried to work around these contradictions by saying hip-hop is for everyone and is whatever one wants it to be. They argue that hip-hop is suffering from people claiming and defining it, and that hip-hop needs unity. Yet similar to lyrical contradictions within hip-hop, this becomes more of a catch phrase and does not work in the Internet's daily dynamics. Calls for unity create more conflicting backlash because it is only in defining what hip-hop is not that people struggle to find out what hip-hop is. I believe some of these ideas and contradictions can be teased out with a recent post by one of the more authoritative members on the Internet, kari orr:

But i don't think you really understand what the problem is. you want something cut and dried, just like your hip hop, you want it easy, hip hop isn't and it shouldn't be. a lot of people think hip hop, in theory and practiceshould be peaceful, it should be all accepting and all encompassing. sorry it can't be. what surrounds hip hop and what makes hip hop doesn't lend itself to being peaceful and open arms to outsiders. i'm not trying to make hip hop accessible.... why does mass marketing and popularity kill hip hop? cause people get it, and don't know what to do with it, and don't develop their own. that's the whole point in weeding out .people that don't care about hip hop. some people let coolio or biggie weed them out, i don't care about mainstream fans, i'm after the heads. i'm talking about hip hop folks who are on some holier than thou flavor. you yourself think that gangsta rap isn't hip hop, and you somehow know what the real deal is.you have no idea what hip hop is. to have the gall to dis gangsta rappers, for what you perceive as inferior music. whatever more elitism. i'm not going to hide mine. hip hop has always been elite, because life is about the struggle to belong and the struggle to not belong. and i know that hip hop was meant to be elite. if it wasn't mc's/writers/dj's/b-boys would not have battles. when you battle you are trying to prove that you are the best. i'm screaming but no one sees the parallels of hip-hop culture which is mainly black, with latino influence. they don't see how heads are made a mockery of on a daily basis. so many heads have given up on the mainstream of hip-hop music when they used to love it. that is perversion of culture right there. rakim wasn't hard to find back in the day, epmd wasn't. pe wasn't... and known - these rules of hip hop ain't confining me, i'm redefining hip hop. cause it's not all good.straight up hip hop elitist... if you want hip hop to be nice and safe, you are killing hip hop. it's not supposed to be... here are the rules 1. know what it is 2. respect it if you don't follow 1 and 2, you shouldn't listen if you want more information on how to do 1 and 2 then you are on your way... (kari orr, 11/19/96)

Kari orr's post asserts not only definitions of hip-hop, but also ideological statements on the relationship between elitism and the meanings behind these struggles to divide. The first major point he makes is that hip-hop is meant to be an elitist medium. Although it is a popular culture, it thrives off of battles and hierarchies and thus suggests that efforts to unify are misdirected and ill-fated. What is more, though he agrees that those who are only interested in commercial artists are excluded, he thinks that outright dismissal of commercial artists creates an artificial and detrimental dividing line. He also criticizes those that differentiate others by genres of music, but while still arguing that divisions and exclusions are necessary and natural. Another important aspect of his post is that his references to hip-hop's black and Latino roots and his rules that people make efforts to understand and respect the context behind the culture return his post to the issue of authenticity so prevalent on the Internet. He may think hip-hop should not be simple, but he also thinks its roots in an embodied contextual culture should not be compromised. Perhaps the strongest argument kari can make is that hip-hop is neither nice or safe. For although he ends by saying that heads must know what it is, he can offer no definition apart form what it is not. He likens hip-hop to a constant struggle and thus although he can not offer us a definition or solution, he can confirm its contradictions.

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