[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.H I P H O P M AT T E R S.Throughout its early history, hip hop amassed most of its appeal bymaintaining an aura and edge that placed it in opposition to the cultural mainstream.But hip hop’s status as a lucrative industry, andfixture in the mainstream establishment it once stood in direct con-trast to, put its creative class of artists, entrepreneurs, and executives in an odd position: defending the movement’s success.Many of hiphop’s notable figures and staunchest proponents understood thatthe journey from the margins to the mainstream contradicted someof the prominent truisms in hip hop about street cred and authentic-ity.Seeking to explain and even justify hip hop’s obsession withmainstream success, a new claim emerged.“Hip hop,” the assertion declares, “did not cross over to the main-stream but rather the mainstream crossed over to hip hop.” Theclaim is carefully designed to insulate hip hop’s entrepreneurial elite from charges that it “sold out” the movement for the accoutrementsof the mainstream—money, celebrity, and pop prestige.But even asthe movers and shakers within the hip-hop industry exclaim they are“staying true to the streets” they do so from well-appointed corpo-rate suites.In the end, the claim is as deceptive as it is preemptive.More than anything, the assertion that hip hop did not cross overto the mainstream fails to appreciate the complex genius of themovement’s creative class.It implies that they had no sense of hiphop’s cultural and economic potential nor the changing worldaround them.Just as the cultural mainstream actively pursued hiphop, many of the movers and shakers within hip hop sought out themainstream.In the end, hip hop did not simply join the mainstream;in eƒect, it redefined the very meaning and experience of the main-stream.Hip hop’s entrepreneurial elite as much as any other com-munity of pop culture producers, executives, and artists understoodthe mainstream marketplace—its impulses, its desires, its habits ofthe heart—and how to manipulate it for commercial gain.The man-126 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]