Hip Hop: playing the game

Hip Hop 2: The Rap Game

“The sticker on the record is what makes 'em sell gold…

Yo, you gotta be high to believe that

You're gonna change the world by a sticker on a record sleeve”

Ice T “Freedom Of Speech” (1989)

• 1: The rap game: business as usual?- The corporate meets the cultural- Industry history

• 2: Street life: keeping it real?• 3: Major label headaches: expect the

unexpected• 4: State of independents

- Get it on the street: put it out there- The sound of the underground: bringing it up- Product endorsement

• 5: Conclusion

• ‘There is no way to truly comprehend the incredible success of Death Row Records – its estimated worth now tops $100 million – without first understanding the conditions that created the rap game in the first place: few legal economic paths in America’s inner cities, stunted educational opportunities, a pervasive sense of alienation among young black males, black folk’s age-old need to create music, and a typically American hunger for money and power. The Hip Hop Nation is no different than any other segment of this society in its desire to live the American Dream’– (Powell, 1996: 46)

• struggle against racism and economic and cultural marginalisation

• rap as a self-conscious business activity capable of embodying elements of the American Dream

• ‘the American Dream was subservient to codes of survival’ with ‘poverty and hardship’ being major motivators for the origins of rap – (Oog and Upshal, 1999, 23)

• Consumer magazines:– The Source– Vibe – Hip Hop Connection (HHC)

• Emphasised career planning and business management

• rap artists producing 5 year business plans and prospective budgets

• Throws ‘quite a different light on to the idea of rap spontaneously emerging from “the streets”’ (Negus, 1999: 84).

• US music business organised in terms of producing and managing musical genres

• portfolio management

• strategic business units – accountability

• still uncomfortable with rap music?

• portfolio management = black music in separate divisions

• changes to management of ‘rhythm and blues’ divisions during late 1960s and early 1970s

• Pressure from civil rights movements and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People

• (see Wade and Picardie, 1990)

• Great Depression (1930s)• ‘race music’ labels (Black Patti and Black Swan)

bought by majors and kept separate from main music catalogue due to financial vulnerability

• Harvard Business School report commissioned by CBS (1971) recommended formation of black music divisions …

• … they could be easily dropped when the economic climate was less favourable

• Advantage: music divisions being populated by black staff in an industry which may not otherwise have employed them

• Disadvantage: department can easily be cut back, closed down or restructured

– E.g., Capitol Records closed urban division in 1996, cancelling contracts and sacking staff, to concentrate on their stars, after pressure by owners, EMI.

• Instability >> barrier to success• Garofalo has noted that:

– ‘black personnel have been systematically excluded from positions of power within the industry’ (1994, 275)

• Majors: lack of skills and understanding re: ‘black experience’

• small companies have often been described as being in touch with ‘the streets’.

• ‘It became apparent that the independent labels had a much greater understanding of the cultural logic of hip hop and rap music, a logic that permeated decisions ranging from signing acts to promotional methods. Instead of competing with smaller, more street-savvy labels for new rap acts, the major labels developed a new strategy: buy the independent labels, allow them to function relatively autonomously, and provide them with the production resources and access to major retail distribution.’– (Tricia Rose, 1994: 7)

• Evidence:

• Tom Silverman at Tommy Boy

• Russell Simmons and David Harleston at Def Jam.

• The backgrounds and actions of Chuck D from Public Enemy, Run-DMC and De La Soul would corroborate this too.

• 75% of rap music purchased by white consumers

• Records/CDs may be bought as status symbols

• Black consumers may swap, lend or trade recordings in different ways, or even listen and relate to them differently.

1.Lack of sustained industrial organisation and partial investment.

2.It has been expressed through a discourse of the ‘street’ to deny its complexity.

• series of cliques, collectives and group identities

• The Wu-Tang Clan (pictured)

• Snoop Dogg’s Dogg Pound

• Puff Daddy and The Family.

• affiliations allow for more fluid working relationship which can cross mediums:

- Eminem in 8 Mile

- Ice Cube in Three Kings

• Harks back to the gang culture and neighbourhood allegiances

• industry uncomfortable with representation of ‘keeping it real’ or not being a ‘sell out’

- Easy-E of NWA was a drug dealer

- Ice-T used to sell illegal guns

- 50 Cent has been shot 9 times after dealing crack

• Criticism from moral campaigners

• limited shelf-life of tracks• very difficult to re-release, especially as a cover

version

• shorter catalogue shelf life due to inability to bring in long-term copyright revenue

• samples = royalties and less profit than conventional music

Andy Bennett (2000): rap music in Newcastle - associations of similar experience connected to

unemployment, rather than race.

• assumed that rap doesn’t travel well

• too black (!)• growing proliferation

of ‘white’ rap:- Eminem- The Streets- Goldie Looking Chain- The Beastie Boys

The music industry ‘seeks to contain rap within a narrow structure of expectations’ (Negus: 1999, 94-5):

• Confines it within a black division

• Often keeps artists on arms-length deals to avoid dealing with alliances and affiliates

• Judgements about long-term potential

• A lack of investment• Adoption of practises

which seek to keep investment down (production units rather than invest in staff and office space within company)

• Divide between people and practises that constitute Afro-American artists

• ‘Despite the influence of rap and hip hop on the aesthetics of music, video, television, film, sport, fashion, dancing and advertising, the potential of this broader cultural formation to make a contribution to music industry business practices is not encouraged.’

• (Keith Negus, 1999: 96)

• What about Jay-Z and Rock-A-Wear?

• major companies allow rap music to be produced at independent companies = less costly

• be wary of romanticising rap musicians as rebels ‘outside’ the corporate system and the ‘mainstream’

• small scale producers work in:– ‘fairly standard commercial relationships characteristic

of those between major and minor companies, a division of labour based on the production/distribution split’ (Negus, 1999: 96)

• metaphors of war• DJs who are ‘in the trenches’ on

‘reconnaissance missions’

• Influential word of mouth advertising• Loud Records did this with the promotion of the

Wu-Tang Clan, on the instruction of their owners, BMG.

• ‘Street teams’ expected to gather information and feedback to the record companies

• highly organised affair

• know their markets and know their customers

• Ice-T and Run DMC - Adidas• Coolio and Method Man - Tommy Hilfiger in

1996• Wu-Tang Clan own range of clothing (Wu-

Wear). • In 1997 Wu-Wear made $10 million and signed

a deal with the owners of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s (Negus, 1999: 100).

• rappers refining portfolio by pursuing corporate endorsements

• Does this have an impact upon their rebellious street / authentic image?

• Are they selling out? • Have they already unwittingly sold out due to

their weakened position in the ‘rap game’?

• rap is managed and maintained by the music industry (it’s a business)

• corporate strategies impact upon industry insiders, staff, artists, DJ’s, fans, etc to produce image of rap as being authentic

• discourses about ‘the street’ intersect with industry discourses to produce a musical terrain which is nebulous and contested

• turn our attention to issues concerning production and consumption of the rap industry

Sources:• Andy Bennett (2000) Popular Music and Youth Culture:

Music, Identity and Place, London: MacMillan• Reebee Garofalo (1994) ‘Culture Versus Commerce:

The Marketing of Black Popular Music’, Public Culture, Vol. 7, No.1, pp 275-88

• Paul Gilroy (1993), The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, London: Verso.

• Keith Negus (1999), Music Genres and Corporate Cultures, London: Routledge.

• Tricia Rose (1994), Black Noise, Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press

• David Samuels (1995), ‘The rap on rap: the “Black music” that isn’t either’ in A. Sexton (ed.), Rap on Rap: Straight-Up Talk on Hip-hop Culture, New York: Delta, pp. 241-52.

• D. Wade and J. Picardie (1990) Music Man, Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic Records and the triumph of Rock ‘n’ Roll, New York: W. W. Norton.