Conspicuous Consumption, New-School Hip-Hop and "The New Rock & Roll"
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 6-21-2019 1:00 PM "I Need to Fight the Power, But I Need that New Ferrari": Conspicuous Consumption, New-School Hip-hop and "the New Rock & Roll" Emmett H. Robinson Smith The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Keightley, Keir The University of Western Ontario Coates, Norma The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Popular Music and Culture A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts ©Follow Emmett this andH. Robinson additional Smithworks at:2019 https:/ /ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the African American Studies Commons, American Material Culture Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, Art Practice Commons, Cultural History Commons, Music Performance Commons, Music Practice Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons, and the Social History Commons Recommended Citation Robinson Smith, Emmett H., ""I Need to Fight the Power, But I Need that New Ferrari": Conspicuous Consumption, New-School Hip-hop and "the New Rock & Roll"" (2019). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6322. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6322 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract 2017 marked the year in which hip-hop officially became the most listened-to genre in the United States. This thesis explores hip-hop music’s rise to its now-hegemonic position within the music industry, seeking to provide insight into the increasingly popular sentiment that hip-hop is “the new rock & roll”. The “new-school” hip-hop artists of the last six years or so have also been the subject of widespread critical disdain, especially for their heightened degree of emphasis on conspicuous consumption. This study will track hip-hop’s ascent from the mid-1980s through to its current position as both a political vehicle and a commercial product. This will result in a historically informed discussion of Migos’ 2013 hit “Versace,” a song that can be read as a signpost pointing towards many of new-school hip-hop’s most prominent characteristics. Analysis of “Versace” will then inform a broader examination of new-school hip-hop as “the new rock & roll”. This discussion will seek to better understand hip-hop’s new-school artists not necessarily as the harbingers of hip-hop’s death, as has been claimed by so many, but rather as agents of social reorganization, which, I argue, has always been one of hip-hop’s most valued characteristics. Keywords: Hip-hop, rock & roll, rock, pop, conspicuous consumption, hegemony, subculture, mainstream, production, consumption, capitalism, materialism, politics, conscious rap, civil- rights, bling, commercialism, authenticity, criticism, class, race, gender, trap, new-school, Migos, Golden Age, crunk, gangsta, swag rap. i Lay Summary This study examines hip-hop’s rise to popular music hegemony both as a political vessel and as a commercial product. It uses a chronology of hip-hop history in order to bring about a more nuanced understanding of new-school hip-hop’s position as both the current dominant industry force and as “the new rock & roll.” By following hip-hop’s gradual ascension to hegemony beginning in the mid- 1980s, a helpful context can be considered with the goal of answering several questions: How have the terms of what constitutes “real,” authentic hip hop changed as a result of hip-hop’s newfound hegemonic position? How can new-school “swag rap” be understood not as the “death” of hip-hop, as some critics claim, but rather as an indication of hip-hop’s implication in the larger historical trajectory of Western society? On one level, this thesis operates as a defense of new-school hip-hop. But, on a broader level: when do old models of criticism lose their utility in the discussion of new music? ii Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Keir Keightley, for providing his popular music expertise on what proved to be a challenging but rewarding thesis. Thank you for pointing me to insightful literature, for holding me to my arguments, and for pushing back when necessary. To my second reader, Dr. Norma Coates, thank you for your support and guidance on this project. Thank you to my peers, all of whom I can now call friends, for helping to make this experience memorable. Thank you for the invigorating conversations, for broadening my perspective, and for allowing me to share mine. To my friends out West: thank you for cultivating my love of hip-hop, for showing enthusiasm in my studies, and for encouraging me when I needed it. Thank you especially to my friends Gabriel Lunn and Corey Spetifore for their active interest in this project and for engaging me in thoughtful, rewarding discussion. From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank my parents, Jill and Steven. Thank you for nurturing my love of arts and culture from an early age. Thank you for putting my best interests first. Thank you for allowing me to pursue my passions and for encouraging me to always shoot high. Finally, thank you to the many people that scoffed when I told them I was writing my Master’s thesis on Migos. You provided the fuel. iii Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………….....i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………..…..iii Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………iv Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 A. Definitions……………………………………………………………………………..3 B. New-school hip-hop and streaming…………………………………………………...7 Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………...14 Methodology……………………………………………………………………………………..25 Chapter 1: Reading the political and commercial locations of hip-hop’s “Golden Age”…….….26 1.1 The “Golden Age”........................................................................................................27 1.2 Reaganomics and “Getting Paid”……………………………………………….…..35 1.3 Gangsta rap and black identity…………………………………………………….....43 1.4 Culture wars, sampling and the criminalization of hip-hop………………………….47 1.5 “They don’t regret getting a Coca-Cola deal. They brag about a Coca-Cola deal”: Hip- hop’s Early Celebratory Capitalism……………………………………………………………...52 Chapter 2: “Two warring ideals in one dark body”: moguls, duality, and the rise of Southern hip- hop………………………………………………………………………………………….…….54 2.1 Moguls and double-consciousnes……………….……………………………………56 2.2 Southern moguls…………………………………….………………..………………63 2.3 Lil Jon and the rise of Crunk………………………………………..………………...68 2.4 “Who doesn’t wanna sell dope forever?”: Trap music………………………………71 2.5 “Pleasure cooked down to a crystal”: Migos’ “Versace”………..……………………76 iii 2.6 “Versace” and new-school gender politics………………………….………………..81 2.7 Chapter 2 Summary……………………………..…………………….……………...86 Chapter 3: Takeover……………………………………………………………….……………..88 3.1 “All Falls Down”: criticism of conspicuous consumption and bling…….…………..89 3.2 Consumption and Status………………………………………………….…………..93 3.3 “Rockin’ handcuffs, that’s Ferragamo”: the politics of bling………….……………..95 3.4 “It’s not about the art form anymore”: new-school criticism…….…………………101 3.5 “We the rockstars!”: hip-hop as the new rock………………………………………107 3.6 New-school and the new pop……………………………………….……………….115 3.7 Takeover……………………………………………………….…...……………….119 3.8 Chapter 3 summary……………………………………………...….……………….123 Conclusion and further research…………………….......……………….…………...…………126 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………132 Selected Discography…………………………………………….……………………………..142 Curriculum Vitae…………………………………………….………………………………….143 iv Introduction In 2017, Nielsen SoundScan reported that hip-hop had officially become the most-listened-to genre in the United States.1 This project attempts to analyze hip-hop’s ascension to the status of, as Kanye West put it in 2013, “the new rock and roll,”2 i.e. the hegemonic genre in the current musical landscape. In addition to this change within the larger music industry, the last six years or so have seen a change in the sound of dominant hip-hop in the form of the “new-school.” One of the many shifts within hip-hop that the new-school has brought about is a heightened degree of emphasis on material wealth and conspicuous consumption in recent years. Capitalism and consumption have become increasingly prevalent as central themes within hip-hop lyrics themselves; new-school hip- hop in 2019 presents a profound importance on conspicuous consumption and capitalism by any means necessary.3 The prominence of this embrace of consumption in new-school hip-hop has been dubbed “swag rap” by some.4 This title will be used in further discussion. The new wave of conspicuous consumption in new-school hip-hop has been the subject of widespread criticism from both inside and outside the hip-hop community, as it has been labeled as mindless, “anti-conscious,”5 and ultimately detrimental to what are claimed to be the “core values” 1 Anonymous, “”2017 U.S. Music Year-End Report.” Nielsen. January 3, 2018. 2 Kanye West, “Kanye West. Zane Lowe. Part 1.” YouTube video. BBC Radio 1. September 23, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2T0fMkZoMo. 3 Geoff Harkness, “Thirty years of Rapsploitation: hip-hop culture in American Cinema” 178. 4 “Swag Rap.” TVTropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SwagRap 5 “Henry Adaso