Alexis De Tocqueville's Hip-Hip Hop As A Commodity
Hip-Hop as a Commodity
As Alexis de Tocqueville stated in a description about Americans, “the recollection of the shortness of life is a constant spur to him. Besides the good things that he possesses, he every instantly fancies a thousand others that death will prevent him from trying if he does not try them soon.” In a country that promoted commodification and mass production, American society thrived on its quest for new and exciting things. Nearly two centuries after his report, what was then this American oddity has transformed into a global phenomenon. With the increasing interdependence on one another for trade, multilateral organizations like the World Bank and the IMF were established in order to facilitate trade. Naturally, …show more content…
Re-affirming Tocqueville’s analysis, a part of rap and hip hop’s success can be attributed to its radical departure from everything that came before it. Because consumers are in a constant search for new products, music with any semblance of ‘exoticism’ becomes appealing. After all, “a search for novelty, boredom with familiar paradigms, and traditional European and American practices of fascination with (but not respect for) the “exotic” also accounts for recent “emergence of post-colonial art in Western consciousness (Lipsitz, 184). The emergence of Hip-hop, however, differs from the development of Blues and Jazz. Because the messages in rap and Hip-hop are such blatant criticisms of society, they cannot help but be political. The frustration and anger felt by these young African Americans was manifested into re-producible …show more content…
By producing mix-tapes in protest of the American system, these teens were ironically adopting and utilizing the system. In doing so, they were able to enter a realm of society controlled mainly by supply and demand. Thus, “the relentlessness of capital in seeking new areas for investments has also led to the unexpected emergence and convergences in the field of culture (Lipsitz, 186). As Hip-hop became more and more popular, African American youth gained a level of control of their portrayals.
Hip-hop’s scope of impact, however, lay beyond its importance to African American culture. Because these expressions of frustration were rooted in a system shared by many, “the reach and scope of commercial mass media [has] unite[d] populations that had previously been divided” (Lipsitz, 186). Hip-hop was instrumental in bridging the divisions with both members of the African diaspora and with other minorities with similar
As Alexis de Tocqueville stated in a description about Americans, “the recollection of the shortness of life is a constant spur to him. Besides the good things that he possesses, he every instantly fancies a thousand others that death will prevent him from trying if he does not try them soon.” In a country that promoted commodification and mass production, American society thrived on its quest for new and exciting things. Nearly two centuries after his report, what was then this American oddity has transformed into a global phenomenon. With the increasing interdependence on one another for trade, multilateral organizations like the World Bank and the IMF were established in order to facilitate trade. Naturally, …show more content…
Re-affirming Tocqueville’s analysis, a part of rap and hip hop’s success can be attributed to its radical departure from everything that came before it. Because consumers are in a constant search for new products, music with any semblance of ‘exoticism’ becomes appealing. After all, “a search for novelty, boredom with familiar paradigms, and traditional European and American practices of fascination with (but not respect for) the “exotic” also accounts for recent “emergence of post-colonial art in Western consciousness (Lipsitz, 184). The emergence of Hip-hop, however, differs from the development of Blues and Jazz. Because the messages in rap and Hip-hop are such blatant criticisms of society, they cannot help but be political. The frustration and anger felt by these young African Americans was manifested into re-producible …show more content…
By producing mix-tapes in protest of the American system, these teens were ironically adopting and utilizing the system. In doing so, they were able to enter a realm of society controlled mainly by supply and demand. Thus, “the relentlessness of capital in seeking new areas for investments has also led to the unexpected emergence and convergences in the field of culture (Lipsitz, 186). As Hip-hop became more and more popular, African American youth gained a level of control of their portrayals.
Hip-hop’s scope of impact, however, lay beyond its importance to African American culture. Because these expressions of frustration were rooted in a system shared by many, “the reach and scope of commercial mass media [has] unite[d] populations that had previously been divided” (Lipsitz, 186). Hip-hop was instrumental in bridging the divisions with both members of the African diaspora and with other minorities with similar