In light of the Presidential debates, I have decided to post an essay I wrote involving one of hip-hop's biggest debates, the mainstream vs. the underground. This essay shows how the two were distinctly separated, and explains why. Please read on, bloggers. Feel free to express your thoughts.
The idea of the “mainstream” has been dominant in popular culture since the early 1990s; however, this idea was non-existent to Hip Hop prior to those times. This essay will discuss how the mainstream emerged from a division in Hip Hop between a conscious and gangster rap, as well as what the market demanded, and the origins of the mainstream/underground dichotomy.
The mainstream was created out of a demanding market for what is known as “gangster rap.” This is to say, people, a white majority to be specific, wanted to hear more hard-hitting material that artists like N.W.A. brought to the table. 1987-1994 was known as a “golden age” of Hip Hop, before mainstream. But once N.W.A. hit the top of the charts, and Dr. Dre released The Chronic, the demand for gangster rap was clearly relevant. White people bought the concept of the gangster, and corporations took advantage of this, creating what we know as the mainstream.
Gangster rap is often categorized as something separate from socially conscious rap, however I must stress it is only a different style of saying the same thing. The “mainstream” of the 1990s was no different than it’s counterpart of the “underground.” Imani Perry defines gangster rap in his essay, "The Glorious Outlaw: Hip Hop Narratives, American Law and the Court of Public Opinion" in terms of the character known as “the outlaw,” stating, “Hip Hop embraces the outlaw. Outlaw status is conferred only metaphorically through lawbreaking, but on a deeper, more symbolic level, it is achieved through a position of resistance to the confines of status quo existence.” This is seen greatly in Black Nationalist or socially conscious Hip Hop,as well as gangster rap. As Perry suggests while talking about Biggie, rap is about storytelling. The gangster, or the outlaw, is a character expressed through the artist that embodies the problems and struggles with African American life. All is about rejection, such as the drug-dealing gangster, “an alternative power in the face of white supremacy”. Even the mainstream challenges these ideas.
The mainstream and underground date as far back to slavery, as the Hip Hop movement does as well if you think in broader terms. Historically, the mainstream/underground dichotomy, in the plainest of its definitions, existed as the House Negro and the Field Negro. The Field Negro got scraps for food, wished the master's death, was the embodiment of “the underground,” whereas the House Negro was fed nicely, took care of the master, and embodied the “mainstream.” Think of the "master" today as white supremacy(no, not The KKK, but the ideology behind an uneven power structure where whiteness is not only at the top, but the norm). The House Negro was what we would come to think of as a sellout, yet as Perry states, Hip Hop disrupts this idea and allows it to evolve. While instead of selling out to the “master,” they sell out to a stereotype of themselves, or what Perry calls “Thug Mimicry.” This idea “dislocates the authority for defining the black underworld and [manipulates] the negative images of black America in order to serve the interests of white America.” Black men embrace the stereotype in order to reclaim the stereotype. This challenges the idea of selling out, and creates a more post-1990 idea of buying in. Rap artists buy into this mimicry in order to get a profit; which is technically what Hip Hop is all about; rising up. As Ice Cube stated so perfectly, "I never talk about gettin' down/it's all about comin' up." This notion is shown well in the songs “Dope Man” by Jay-Z, “Black Republican” by Nas and Jay-Z, and “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu Tang Clan, all of which embrace the thug in order to show how the mainstream functions in society today. In “Dope Man” Jay assumes the form of a drug dealer, yet the drug he is pushing is his music, and he is put on trial for it. Much like Kanye West's "Crack Music," where the music itself acts as the drug for White America, a play on the crack "epidemic" that took place during President Reagan's term. In “Black Republican” Nas and Jay claim how they can make money, now, too…yet could just as easily go back to the ghetto; mimicking the gangster still, while also realizing they can become rich in the game of Hip Hop, in the redefinition of their own stereotype. “C.R.E.A.M.” is very similar, talking about the “come up” in the ghetto, stressing how cash rules everything.
The mainstream is about cash flow and the come up. Through thug mimicry and the persona of the outlaw, we begin to see how gangster rap and the mainstream do not stray from the original ideas of Hip Hop that people think only the underground expresses. The point I'm trying to make here is just that: the idea that there is nothing "conscious" about gangster rap is simply a concept bestowed upon the listener by the larger white "suits" looking to make a buck and not disrupt the normative white power structure. They do this by continual labeling, for example the very genre "gangsta' rap." When in fact, as Perry points out, these so called "gangstas" assume the character in order to make it work for them. That is to say, they come up, get out of the ghetto that has imprisoned them for so many years, and make money. This is the essence of Hip Hop, the true core of not only its creation, but the culture that came out of it. The mainstream and the underground are far more closely linked than the music industry leads one to believe. But it is easier to put a "thug" at the top of a Billboard than an underground artist who speaks his conscience with a little less subtlety than a mainstream artist would like. This is not to downplay the underground Hip Hop artist in anyway, or the mainstream, but only to draw a comparison of the two, showing how the white power structure has done all it can to twist Hip Hop into labels and racist stereotypes in order to keep this said power structure intact, taking away parts of the true meaning and culture of Hip Hop.
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