Hou het echt! Authenticity in the Dutch hip-hop scene from the point of view of A&R-personnel Tim van Meurs Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication Erasmus University Rotterdam 362905 [email protected] Supervisor: Dr. Laura Braden Second reader: Prof.dr. Koen van Eijck June 8th, 2015 Foreword “You are trying to apply science to something that isn’t!” With those words, interviewee and godfather of Nederhop Kees de Koning summarized quite well what I have been doing for the last couple of months. Ambitious as I was at the start of the master thesis process, I figured I could interview some key behind-the-scenes figures of the Dutch hip-hop scene without too much trouble. At times, I wished I had listened to those who told me to pick another topic because people from the music industry are generally too busy to conduct a, for them, uninteresting interview. But this thesis now lies in front of you, finished and well, and ready to be read. But it did not become what it is now without any problems. Problems that I did not solve by myself. So for that, I would like to thank the people who guided me through my breakdowns, helped me get further in the process, and supplied me with all sorts of resources to go on; from encouragement, to food, to the opportunity for interviews. First I want to thank my interviewees, for without them I literally would not have been able to make this thesis. So thanks Farid, for being my first interviewee and referring me to others, and thanks Angelo, Jimmy, Pim, Gaétan, Tim, Amier, Jaap, Casper, Vincent and Kees for giving me some of your precious time. Of course I would also like to thank Laura Braden, who guided me through the entire thesis process, answering my many questions within a heartbeat so I could proceed without any stress. To stay in hip-hop terms, thanks for being the Dr. Dre to my Eminem. Thanks as well for all of my colleagues; for they have dragged me through the thesis with the countless coffees I ordered to stay focused. But most of all I would like to thank Lizzy. Without you this end product would not be here. You have dragged me out of breakdowns, helped me get interviews and generally supported me from day one. I owe this thesis to you. Table of Contents FOREWORD 1 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. RESEARCH SUBJECT 1 1.2. RELEVANCE 4 1.3. THESIS ORGANIZATION 4 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 6 2.1 HIP-HOP MUSIC 6 2.2 AUTHENTICITY 9 2.3 HIP-HOP AND THE LOCAL 16 2.4 DUTCH HIP-HOP 18 2.4.1 AUTHENTICITY IN DUTCH HIP-HOP MUSIC 20 2.5. HIP-HOP AND THE MUSIC INDUSTRY 21 2.5.1, THE MUSIC INDUSTRY 21 2.5.2. HIP-HOP IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY 24 2.5.3. HIP-HOP IN THE DUTCH MUSIC INDUSTRY 25 2.6. RESEARCH QUESTION AND EXPECTATIONS 27 3. METHODS AND DATA 32 3.1 RESEARCH METHOD 32 3.2 RESEARCH UNITS 33 3.2.1. INTERVIEWEES 35 3.3. INTERVIEWS 38 3.4. DATA ANALYSIS 39 4. RESULTS 41 4.1. KEEPIN’ IT REAL 41 4.1.1. FIRST PERSON AUTHENTICITY AND NEW ARTISTS 41 4.1.2. FIRST PERSON AUTHENTICITY AND ARTIST GUIDING 46 4.2. FOLLOW THE CROWD 51 4.2.1. SECOND PERSON AUTHENTICITY AND NEW ARTISTS 51 4.2.2. SECOND PERSON AUTHENTICITY AND ARTIST GUIDING 55 4.3. RESPECTING THE GAME 62 4.3.1. STAYING TRUE TO HIP-HOP’S ROOTS 63 4.3.2. STAYING TRUE TO HIP-HOP’S CONVENTIONS 67 5. CONCLUSION 72 6. DISCUSSIONS 75 REFERENCES 76 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW GUIDE 83 APPENDIX B – INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS (DIGITAL FILE ONLY) 84 1. Introduction “This is just fake!” is not an uncommon accusation to find in Internet comments on various expressions of music. Especially regarding musical genres in which artists traditionally have a very distinct profile to which they must adhere, it is easy to call out those four words, or a comparable accusation. However, among all the musical genres, there is not likely to be any one in which member get called out for being ‘fake’ as much as in rap music. Only recently the white and middle-class raised hip-hop artist Iggy Azalea got called out by other hip-hop artists, both black and white, for not being true to the genre, and more specifically, the blackness of it. Some years before that, Canadian rapper Drake was the subject of some critique after releasing his hit single Started From The Bottom, since many claimed that Drake did not, in fact, start from the bottom. Yet another rapper, Rick Ross, met with much controversy when it was revealed that rather than living the drug- and crime-infested life he addresses in his lyrics, Ross had a past as a correctional officer. These examples, however different they are, are just a small selection of the many times a rap artist was deemed inauthentic. As these examples also show, there are many different ways in which inauthenticity can be claimed. 1.1. Research subject The authenticity debate in hip-hop music and hip-hop culture in general has not limited itself to artists dissing each other, or consumers calling an artist fake. Many scholars who have written about hip-hop, both as a culture and as a genre of music, have also focused on authenticity within the genre, on a variety of levels. Prior subtopics have been authenticity versus commodification (Flores, 2012; Hess, 2012; Judy, 2012; McLeod, 1999; Watts, 2012), authenticity and the hood (Gilroy, 2012), authenticity, locales and race (Bennett, 1999a, 1999b; Kahf, 2012; Rodman, 2012; Wang, 2012), and authenticity and gender (Keyes, 2012). Most of these studies are based on what it means to be authentic within the hip- hop culture, rather than how authenticity is used by different actors in the music industry. This thesis will look at one of these actors: Artist & Repertoire (A&R) 1 managers. More specifically, it will look at how A&R managers use the concept of authenticity in their main activities: artist acquisition and artist guiding. As hip-hop has started out and grown to be seen as a primarily black genre (Armstrong, 2004; Cheyne & Binder, 2010; Hodgram, 2013; McLeod, 1999; Rose, 1994; Wermuth, 2002), rap artists are in a way obliged to adhere to these ‘black roots’ of the genre, or should ready themselves for accusations and beefs. The genre is, in its core, a genre for oppressed communities, and hip-hop artists are therefore expected to be a spokesperson for the community, acting in a way that can be compared to Gramsci’s organic individuals (Abrams, 1995; Stapleton, 1998). But to form a credible spokesperson for the black community, the artist himself must be credible as well. As is evident from the countless accusations of rappers calling others fake in hip-hop songs, on social networks, or in interviews, and from the countless Internet comments on rappers’ fakeness, this authenticity in the hip-hop community is a big issue. Especially since hip-hop has turned into a global genre, rather than a street culture in The Bronx, New York (Androutsopoulos & Scholz, 2003; Bennett, 1999a; Bennett, 1999b; Kahf, 2012; Wermuth, 2002), the roots are very far from the surface. Just like there are many ways to claim inauthenticity, as shown earlier, the concept authenticity has many points of view as well. Moore (2002) divides three different kinds of authenticity, being first person authenticity, second person authenticity, and third person authenticity, meaning, respectively, being true to yourself, to your audience, and to your genre. There are many ways in which an artist can claim any of these forms of authenticity (Peterson, 2005), but these claims are meaningless as long as a group of gatekeepers does not agree with them. The most obvious gatekeepers that can debunk or support these authenticity claims are music critics and consumers, as well as other artists (Armstrong, 2010). Largely overlooked is the role music labels play; most of the music that is out there and gains sufficient attention is released via music labels. It is therefore interesting to see how hip-hop record labels, and more specifically their Artist & Repertoire managers, define and use authenticity in their decision to sign certain hip-hop artists. In this master thesis, I shall look to answer this question based on the Dutch hip-hop industry. The conclusion of the research will therefore not be 2 generalizable to hip-hop culture in other countries. I have chosen the Dutch hip- hop industry as a case study, because of a couple of reasons. Firstly, it forms a reterritorialized culture (Lull, 1995), meaning that hip-hop in the Netherlands has adopted many of the characteristics of the original hip-hop culture in the USA, and complemented it with characteristics of Dutch (street) culture. This would mean that authenticity, if important at all, has a different meaning, as it is further removed from the actual hip-hop roots. Secondly, the Netherlands is a highly multicultural country, in which the foreign population is still met with some racism and oppression. Dutch hip-hop artists have jumped into these issues more than once, with examples like Raymster’s song ‘Kutmarrokanen??!’ as an answer to a remark by politician Rob Oudkerk, and Mr. Polska’s answer to right-wing politician Geert Wilders’ Polish immigrant hotline. Even though nowhere near every Dutch hip-hop song involves political themes, it shows that hip-hop is at least sometimes used as it was in the early days in America.