Within the music industry and hip-hop genre in particular, lucrative endorsement deals and fat royalty checks have long been commonplace. However very rarely does an artist smash through the demographic boundaries of rap to become a cross-cultural, multi-categorical, living brand, and consumer icon. That is exactly what Shawn Corey Carter, more commonly known by his alias “Jay-Z”, has done.
As a brand and a leading cultural intermediary, Jay-Z has accumulated an extensive portfolio of entrepreneurial interests and has been highly influential in mainstream culture. He is one of the few hip-hop artists whose lyrics regularly contain references outside the standard hip-hop vocabulary of sex, drugs, and violence. Instead he prefers to tactfully utilize his music as a platform to grow his empire of a personal brand and create a cult-like following. Jay-Z describes himself as a mogul and a business, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man” (Rice 2013). His consistent mentioning of brands and various collaborations with them indicate “his legitimacy as a self-made businessman” (Bereznak 2013). While its true Jay-Z came from relatively humble beginnings, growing up hustling and selling drugs on the streets of Brooklyn; his story remains more than one of rags to riches (Sanneh 2006). He had a vision that extended well beyond rapping and skillfully built his business by exemplifying his lifestyle as a conscious choice, “My brands are an extension of me” (Sonny 2013).
Jay-Z’s brand equity is clearly a derivative of his musical abilities and his overriding success as a hip-hop artist. Selling upwards of 75 million copies of his albums worldwide and being handed 17 Grammy Awards in the process, as well as numerous more nominations. Jay...
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Every hip-hop/rap generation a lot new fresh upcoming aspiring rappers who wishes to go down in hip-hop culture as one of the greatest. Some of them are merely one hit wonders; others go on to silicify their mark in the Hip-Hop culture becoming great artists. In the year 2006 the hip-hop world was introduced to a future superstar by the named of Lupe Fiasco. Lupe Fiasco has become one of hip-hop fastest rising superstar ever since releasing his first album. Although many listeners find some of his music very controversial, yet Fiasco is one of the few artists whose music teaches people about current events that the world has turned the blind eye to, and Lupe lyrical trickster, story teller.
Soon after doing this he began looking for a record deal as a solo artist. But Shawn just wasn’t getting lucky. It wasn't until a friend, Roc-A-Fella CEO Damon Dash, convinced him to form a record company with him that Jay-Z's career finally got off the ground. Jay-Z released his first single through Roc-A-Fella in 1995, "In My Lifetime." It was a hit in New York, and helped Dash secure a distribution deal for Jay-Z’s first album, “Reasonable Doubt.”
If there was one defining characteristic to hip hop in 1997, it was the jiggy factor- an aesthetic of unapologetic flash, fashion and glamour that ruled everything around us and made hip hop life nice and organized. Of course, for each movement there always exists a counter-movement; for each yin there is a yang; and for each designer-label clad champagne sipper, there must be an uncompromised figure lurking in the shadows, ready and willing to reclaim rap from the penthouse to the pavement. Embracing this return to the anarchy, enraged and raw, Def Jam Records presents 1998 as the Year of Pandemonium. The human embodiment of such exhilarating and unadulterated chaos exists in none other than Ruff Ryders/Def Jam's very latest lyrical sensation, DMX. "I love to write rhymes," says the Yonkers-born MC. "I love to express what real niggas feel, what street niggas feel. They need to be heard. They need to know there is a voice that speaks for them, and I am that voice." Within the tumultuous annals of hip hop's dog-eat-dog history, second chance opportunities are few and far between. However, every now and then the experienced and distinguished bark of a particularly cagey canine re-emerges from rap's chaotic kennels, representing the triumph and perseverance inherent in true greatness.
Those with access to traditional sources of power can affect society by utilizing their status to influence the perspective of a stereotype. Jay-Z, with his prestigious empire of wealth and international impact, is a perfect example of this sort of power brokering. Jay-Z has become a cultural icon to the black and minority masses, having seen him grow from a young hip hop rapper to a music and film producer, actor and extremely successful entrepreneur. Through lyrics, both his own and of other rappers he produces, he manipulates his massive fanbase to support his movement to stop the racist stereotypes put in place against blacks and other minorities by the (typically white) elitist leaders of business and politics. For example, Jay-Z blames his childhood experience on Ronald Reagan, who was President from 1981-1989, which was during the crack epidemic. Through the following lyrics from the rap Blue Magic, “Blame Reagan for makin’ me into a monster” (“Blue Magic”), Jay-Z highlights to his listeners the oppressive actions of the elitist leadership. His use of “...
As the hip-hop battle rages on in the background somewhere between the black literati, consumers and observers, I stand objectively nodding religiously to Lupe Fiasco as he creates a narrative surrounding personified life of a housing complex each component, the legs, the chest, a different facet of living in the hood. Some would pose Lupe as a Hip-Hop alternative, glorifying his intellectualism and political consciousness, at the expense of demonizing other less academically articulate rap artists. Maybe they deserve it. Maybe they are ill educated and uncultured. But does that delegitimize their message? Understanding the messages of many gangsta rap artists is a complex task for those whose lived experiences don’t relate. We need to find an alternative way to comprehend and critique the music that we dismiss as garbage. What are rappers really saying? Michal P. Jefferies’ work Thug Life, provides us with alternative tools to answer this question. I seek to further explore Jefferies “complex cool” and how it allows for a thug masculinity to include love and other emotional sentiments.
Hip hop has become one of the most commercially promoted and financially successful forms of media in recent years. But as its profits have risen it has become a scapegoat for the many of the public criticisms of young black people. These topic have been discussed in Tricia Rose’s novel “The Hip Hop Wars What We Talk About - And Why It Matters”. The state of hip hop has fallen because the trinity of commercial hip hop has become main topic and caused a lot of controversy. This book is appealing to a person who want to know how hip hop has changed in the past decade and it points out many different attitudes toward hip hop in the Unites States.
Hip-hop began in the undergrounds in Bronx New York in the early 1970s and has gradually grown to become mainstream music. According to Lori Selke a professional writer for Global post, “hip-hop is the term that refers to more than just a musical genre; it includes culture, dance, art, and even fashion” (Selke). Since it originated in the 1970’s, hip-hop has had profound influence on society, and has grown into the lives of listeners worldwide; hip-hop’s influential power is astonishing. Within the last decade, hip-hop artist like Jay-Z, Nas, and Young Jeezy helped to increase voting in the 2008 presidential campaign by informing a hip hop audience consisting of a majority of African Americans on soon to be 44th President of the United States, by using their voice and lyrics as their tool to encouraging people to stand up for a change by voting. According to Emmett Price in his book Hip Hop Culture (2006), “in the early years prior to the rise of recorded rap music via Sugar Hill Gang’s controversial “Rapper’s Delight” (1979) hip-hop was a growing culture driven by self-determination, a love for life, and a desire to have fun [through entertaining fans and expressing themself].” (Price) Although artists today accomplish the same things, the focus of the lyrics has changed consisting of “extolling violence, drug and alcohol use, and detailing sexual exploits” (Selke). If one were to observe the most popular music from artist in the 80’s until now, they would notice a definitive change in its overall message. If hip-hop continues on its current route it will become a musical genre known solely for its references to sex, drugs, and violence.
The rappers within my core group are all from these inner cities, who know first hand about what the members of these communities are dealing with. Similarly, the very same way Rap music was used as a tool to aid young African Americans in their times of social oppression in the 1970s, is the same way it is now being used to assist the African American youths today, during their difficult times of adversity. JayZ, J. Cole, and Kendrick all possess the aura and integrity to create what is considered “conscious” hip hop that provides messages of struggle and liberation. In general, the difference better conscious and commercial rap music is simple; Conscious rap or hiphop is a lifestyle inspired by culture, togetherness, and social change. Whereas, commercial rap is perceived as music produced for the sole purpose of financial profit that primarily consists of the demeaning of women and popular references to buying expensive cars and
As hip hop culture became prevalent in pop culture, so did black culture. Hip hop stems from black struggle. Their vernacular, songs, and spiritual ways were different from what whites were used to. Their different lifestyle of “living on the edge” was intriguing yet inaccessible for the whites living among them. Thus, this initiated America’s fascination with the culture. It became about what people assume and perceive about black people rather than what they actually are. In essence, an essential to cool is being on the outside, looking in. In the media and celebrities today,
Jeffries, M. P. (2011). Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-hop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
During this decade artist such as Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Shawn Carter (Jay-Z), Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog. Those are some of artist that revolutionized the rap industry, each artist made an impact to hip hop music. “Jay-Z has built a career on combining nimble, braggadocious and largely autobiographical rhymes with adventurous production that incorporates everything from snatches of classic R&B to Broadway show tunes and Eighties electropop.” (Rolling stone Magazine). Jay-Z has made himself a pioneer of the hip-hop world by show casing himself in his music. He created his own signature by using all kinds of musical influences in the production of his
Raised as an only child, Dwayne Micheal Carter Jr or more commonly referred to as Lil Wayne, was born September 27th, 1982, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Carter’s mother was only 19 years old when he was first born. He was being raised by both his mother and father until his father abandoned them while Dwayne Jr. was only two years old. After being abandoned by his biological father, his mother was forced to take care of him on her own and survive in the crime infested community of Holly grove, New Orleans. Even though he divorced his mother and remarried, his father forced the two live with his own mother and came by to abuse Lil Wayne’s mother on a consistent basis.This situation went on for three years until Lil Wayne’s mother eventually remarried and relocated to a different part of town. Growing up he did very well in school. He was actually enrolled in his school’s gifted program at a point and received top grades. He got into music at a very young age and wrote his first rap song at the age of eight. Lil Wayne had the drive to be the best and successful at his craft since he first began. At the age of nine he was challenging others twice his age and older at rapping. He would consistently go to neighborhood parties or events to rap and most of the time he was better then whatever adult he was going against. As a testament to this, at the age of nine he start receiving attention from one of the two co-founders of his future label, Slim Williams. From Slim, he then received other co-founder, Bryan Williams, phone number and what he did with it after that was truly caught the Bryan’s attention. He continuously called the number over and over leaving rap songs on the voicemail of Williams until he agreed to meet him in person...
Hip hop has permeated popular culture in an unprecedented fashion. Because of its crossover appeal, it is a great unifier of diverse populations. Although created by black youth on the streets, hip hop's influence has become well received by a number of different races in this country. A large number of the rap and hip hop audience is non-black. It has gone from the fringes, to the suburbs, and into the corporate boardrooms. Because it has become the fastest growing music genre in the U.S., companies and corporate giants have used its appeal to capitalize on it. Although critics of rap music and hip hop seem to be fixated on the messages of sex, violence, and harsh language, this genre offers a new paradigm of what can be (Lewis, 1998.) The potential of this art form to mend ethnic relations is substantial. Hip hop has challenged the system in ways that have unified individuals across a rich ethnic spectrum. This art form was once considered a fad has kept going strong for more than three decades. Generations consisting of Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians have grown up immersed in hip-hop. Hip hop represents a realignment of America?s cultural aesthetics. Rap songs deliver a message, again and again, to keep it real. It has influenced young people of all races to search for excitement, artistic fulfillment, and a sense of identity by exploring the black underclass (Foreman, 2002). Though it is music, many people do not realize that it is much more than that. Hip hop is a form of art and culture, style, and language, and extension of commerce, and for many, a natural means of living. The purpose of this paper is to examine hip hop and its effect on American culture. Different aspects of hip hop will also be examined to shed some light that helps readers to what hip hop actually is. In order to see hip hop as a cultural influence we need to take a look at its history.
In the past, rap music has been criticized for its obsession with the high life, with the wearing of the most expensive clothes, the driving of the fanciest of cars and the watching of the most absurdly oversized home-entertainment systems.But what if we were to tell you that such flights of fancy can actually have a positive,socially beneficial effect?
Hip- hop is a standout amongst the most compelling musical sorts on the globe. There are rappers everywhere that know what amount of an impact their music can have. Some entertainers attempt to utilize that force of impact to do great (Ruiz INT).