W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2015 "We Made You": The Contrived and Contested Nature of Authenticity in American Folk and Hip Hop Subcultures Kathryn E. Plunkett The College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Cultural History Commons, Other Music Commons, Public History Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Social History Commons, Theatre and Performance Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Plunkett, Kathryn E., ""We Made You": The Contrived and Contested Nature of Authenticity in American Folk and Hip Hop Subcultures" (2015). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 141. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/141 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Table of Contents “Curtains Up”: Introduction 3 1. “For the times they are a-changin’”: Bob Dylan and Folk 16 2. “Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?”: Eminem and Hip Hop 40 3. “Bringing It All Back Home”: Aesthetics, Politics, Minstrelsy, and Authenticity 63 “Curtains Down”: Conclusion 78 Bibliography 81 !3 “Curtains Up”: Introduction The inspiration for this study comes from an unlikely comparison made by Ed Sheeran: You might look at Eminem and Bob Dylan and say they're two entirely different acts, but all you have to do with Eminem is put a guitar behind his words and it's a very similar thing….Folk music tells stories and hip hop tells stories….There’s just a beat that separates it.1 Indeed, both genres were a music by and for the people, with roots in strong communities and traditions.