Urban Culture

MODERN URBAN CULTURE What is urban culture? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1), urban culture is any of the behavioral patterns of the various types of cities and urban areas, both past and present. Urban culture is basically the culture of cities. Cities around the world, past and present, have behaviors that differ from the rural areas. In today’s modern world, urban culture refers to a city’s sense of fashion, music, and way of life. Types of modern urban culture are skateboarding, hip hop, and tattoo culture. As Gastman said, “Street culture knows no boundaries the world over. As it crosses the borders of urbanized centers, it begins to look a whole lot less like a set of fads or trends—and more and more like what it is: the essence of being human.” (382)
SKATEBOARDING
Skateboarding is a popular form of modern urban culture that is recognized worldwide. It has its own sense of art, music, and fashion. Originally, the skateboard was first developed around the 1930’s from children who were bored and searched for a better use of their old roller skates. Skateboarding did not become more recognized until about the late 1950’s by Californian surfers. Surfers saw “the movement and balance needed to stay on one were similar to those required in surfing” (Davis 10), so possibly skating on land could be used as a kind of alternative surfing on days when the waves were too flat. This movement of surfers to skaters helped inspired a rapid production in the development of the skateboard. Presently, “modern skateboard riding and the mass production of ready-to-skate equipment has been around for over forty years in America. (Thrasher 12). The beginning of skateboarding with the help of the industrial revolution in America helped create cheaper mass-production of steel products for car parts, tools and toys. These developments helped develop the first commercial production of the skateboard at the end of the 1950’s. Much of skateboard art is shown through board graphics. The first board graphics started around the 1970’s and some people who pioneered this art were Wes Humpston and Craig Stecyk, who developed the first board graphics for Dogtown Skates around 1978 (Davis 70). Many of these people who started this industry were simply pro skaters who used their creative energy of the decks of the boards. Ed Templeton, a New Deal Rider around the 1990’s, is a model of pro skater to artist and graphic designer in the industry. Ed Templeton has “created the unique identity of Toy Machine in the late 1990’s, whilst successfully showing his artwork in world-renowned galleries” (Davis 70). Board graphics have grown to numerous companies with their own beliefs in how their products should be represented. According to Marc Johnson, “Design alone says the most about your particular company (Hoye 34). Board graphics are simply a representation of the company who made them and the skater themselves. Image is not everything; skateboard graphics are important since they are usually the first and last thing one will remember but ultimately the product quality, the team riders, the advertising investment, the distribution channels, the community integration, their complementary product line, the guarantee policy, etc., are factors also. As Jacob Hoye says, “Deck designers, like skaters, just don’t seem to give a fuck about what people think. And why should they when their work is just goin to wind up a smudge on some block of cement?” (4).
As well as skateboard art, skateboarding has influenced mass media, from clothing trends to video games. One of the first skating games was Atari Games’ 720 from 1986 that involved the player controlling a skater who would cruise around a town visiting four different skateparks, each representing a different discipline of the sport (Davis 104). This game established the general idea for skating games and has helped inspired other game companies to create games such as the Sega’s arcade game Top Skater or PlayStation’s Tony Hawk Pro Skater. The mid-1990’s explosion of the Web brought innumerable new sites dedicated to skateboarding. As Davis believes, “There is no doubt that the use of the Internet is set to increase in the skate industry.” (Davis 104) Presently, there are also many skate magazines. Some names of the most popular magazines would be Thrasher and Slap magazine. Thrasher is the oldest magazine in operation which began in 1981 and Slap began in 1992. (Davis 94-95) Both present well-informed information about skating as well as quality photography. Still, even though skateboarding has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, it’s still illegal in many streets and cities.
HIP HOP Hip hop is a culture that consists mainly of rapping, dj-ing, breakdancing and graffiti. In today’s society, it is unanimous with the gangsta rap of Immortal Technique and mainstream hip-hop Justin Timberlake. It started in the east coast of America from African rhythm and American soul music. In hip hop music, most artists try to send a message. Most lyrics are saturated with social commentary, double meanings, hidden messages, allusion, and both anger and humor. Other times, the lyrics express images of oppression and crime in Amercan and other countires, criticizing in ways that call for black empowerment and the need for change. For example, in an interview with Chuck D of the music group Public Enemy and Spin magazine, Chuck D’s reply to Spin magazine’s question of considering himself a prophet was:
“I guess so. We’re bringing a message that’s the same shit that all the other guys that I mentioned in the song have either been killed for or deported: Marcus Garvey, Nat Turner, all the way up to Farrakhan and Malcolm X. What is a prophet? One that comes with a message from God to try to free people. My people are enslaved within their own minds. Rap serves as the communication that they don’t get for themselves to make them feel good about themselves. Rap is black America’s TV station. It gives a whole perspective of what exists and what black life is about. And black life doesn’t get the total spectrum of information throught anything else. They don’t get it through print because kids won’t pick up no magazines or no books, really, unless it got pictures of rap stars. They don’t see themselves on TV. Number two, black radio stations have neglected giving out information.” (Cepeda 70) Yet, the lyrics are not always so violent; as Tricia Rose notes, “Frequently, the lyrics express the pleasure of black urban life” (Haskins 5). Other times, many people believe hip hop is a fad. Believing that hip hop is another simple trend that comes and go, yet hip hop started around the late 1960’s and it does not look like it will stop anytime soon. In fact, it has grown into its own industry as well as the skateboard industry. As Guru said, “Yo, hip hop is a way of life. It ain’t a fad. It ain’t a trend. Not for those of us who are tru to it… It’s our way to relese tension, to let out the frustration that young people face in the world today. Over the years hip hop has evolved to represent what is happening now—the reality of street life. Rap is the oral expression of this. The tool, the literature… it will still remain for some of us the raw essence of life. Peace” (Ayazi-Hashjin 11)

As Robert Christgau noted, “Hip-hop speaks so loudly to rebellious kids from Greenland to New Zealand not because they identify with young American blacks, although they may, but because it’s custom-made to combat the anomie that preys on adolescents wherever nobody knows their name.” (Cepeda 300)