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Underground > Switchboard >

Subversive Bling?

  
 
Leidan
09:49 / 28.11.05
I'm watching MTV with my brother, who is very into hip-hop. On the screen is snoop-dog, showing the camera crew how he lives and hangs out and relaxes at home. He is sitting with some friends, chatting and joking in a low voice. He casually sips wine from an enormous, gold-plated chalice-like cup, encrusted with jewels and precious stones. I am thinking, oh my god - he looks absolutely ridiculous. Later on my brother is telling me about the chain that a rapper - I think maybe 'The Game' - is wearing; it hangs down heavily over his chest ending in a solid gold rectangle, in which the rapper's name is spelt with various of the most expensive diamonds. I think it looks pretty bad, but my brother talks about it with a definite note of admiration - especially when he mentions it cost however many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the face of examples like this, and the whole rest of the hip-hop consumer culture, my automatic reaction is discomfort and a critical attitude. 'You're enslaving yourself to capitalism' would be a popular response from an activist viewpoint - in fact, the whole black working class is an absolute disaster according to the opinions of white middle class activist culture - these millions of youth who have such power and should be so angry against the system end up as the ones most dedicated to it. Barbelith is no exception to holding this view - from what I've read, even when contributors like Flyboy defend hip-hop, they do so while condemning the sections of it that are all about making money. Meanwhile, 'mainstream' members of the white middle class simply react in seeming disgust at the vulgarity of the consumption - it's not that they buy, it's what they buy, and in what quantity and quality. Remember that disgust, because it may be quite important.

So, is this critical view justified? The question has often been vaguely troubling to me, but I couldn't really come across a counter-view besides the 'being real to myself' thing until I came across this article by Guy Debord. The article is primarily about the Watts riots of 1965 (and contains some very interesting stuff that could be related to the LA riots of 1992 and also to New Orleans), but the essential section regarding this topic is:

"By wanting to participate really and immediately in the affluence that is the official value of every American, they are really demanding the egalitarian actualization of the American spectacle of everyday life — they are demanding that the half-heavenly, half-earthly values of the spectacle be put to the test. But it is in the nature of the spectacle that it cannot be actualized either immediately or equally, not even for the whites. (The blacks in fact function as a perfect spectacular object-lesson: the threat of falling into such wretchedness spurs others on in the rat-race.) In taking the capitalist spectacle at its face value, the blacks are already rejecting the spectacle itself. The spectacle is a drug for slaves. It is designed not to be taken literally, but to be followed from just out of reach; when this separation is eliminated, the hoax is revealed. In the United States today the whites are enslaved to the commodity while the blacks are negating it. The blacks are asking for more than the whites — this is the core of a problem that has no solution except the dissolution of the white social system. This is why those whites who want to escape their own slavery must first of all rally to the black revolt — not, obviously, in racial solidarity, but in a joint global rejection of the commodity and of the state. The economic and psychological distance between blacks and whites enables blacks to see white consumers for what they are, and their justified contempt for whites develops into a contempt for passive consumers in general. The whites who reject this role have no chance unless they link their struggle more and more to that of the blacks, uncovering its most fundamental implications and supporting them all the way."

So, by taking literally the 'get as much as you can then flaunt it' ethic of capitalism, hip-hop culture reveals its essential ridiculousness for all to see. Of course Snoop-Dog's hundred thousand dollar cup is ridiculous - it's meant to be - perhaps not consciously, but the meaning is there. An additional effect of this reading of hip-hop culture is that it also forces the white middle-class to complain about this example of capitalism taken to the extreme - remember the mainstream disgust at the vulgarity of the consumption I mentioned - this disgust is actually nothing less than a disgust against capitalism, forcing perfectly normal, non-critical members of the middle class to dissent against the capitalist system.

So, what do we think of this re-reading? Is it nonsense; is hip-hop culture a supporter of the regime - should they revolt in a different way? Are both views questionable; are they both in fact full of pretty insulting racial stereotypes? Or has Guy Debord hit upon a hidden truth in this text?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:52 / 28.11.05
even when contributors like Flyboy defend hip-hop, they do so while condemning the sections of it that are all about making money

I'm not aware that I've ever done this (condemn the "sections" of hip hop that are "all about making money").

I think the problem with your analysis is that early on you acknowledge that the white middle classes' supposed disgust at excesses of materialist consumption in fact has nothing to do with an objection to capitalism or materialism at all - "it's not that they buy, it's what they buy" - and that it is in fact purely another form of class-based sneering - that's what calling something "vulgar" means, right? - however you then take the view that the middle classes are in fact being "forced" into "nothing less than a disgust against capitalism", that somehow they are being radicalised and that this in turn makes this form of hip hop culture radical. I think it's telling that you start out by drawing a distinction between "middle class activist culture" and "'mainstream' members of the white middle class", which seems to have become confused by the end of your post. Is "vulgar consumption" radicalising the 'mainstream' middle class into becoming part of an 'activist' middle class, and if so how does this work, given that the 'activist' middle class think that "the whole black working class is an absolute disaster", "dedicated" to "the system"?

In truth I don't think we can draw a clear distinction between the 'mainstream' and 'activist' middle classes, especially when the pose of disliking capitalism is so often used to mask the real reasons a member of the middle classes might have for disgust at "vulgar consumption". That is to say, it's the other way around from the way you put it. Moving into the general for a moment, it is now common practice for those with privilege to adopt a small amount of 'activism' which in fact has nothing to do with opposing to capitalism and everything to do with preserving certain social power structures within it - think of those who will never eat in Macdonalds but would never boycott anything they actually wanted - their laudable refusal to eat food they do not actually want, and instead eat food that costs more, because they can afford it, is very noble, is it not? As is their subsequent sneering at those "vulgar" enough to do so.

As for the more committed activists, far from all of whom are middle class - they are not a monolith of opinion, and so not all of them hold such an uncomplicated and un-self-critical view as thinking that "the whole black working class is an absolute disaster".

If the visible materialistic excesses of hip hop are subversive, then it's for two reasons: firstly, as you identify, because hip hop has a tendency to hold up a mirror and make explicit what was implicit elsewhere - such as the violence, sexism and materialistic excess that are inherent in 'mainstream' middle class life - and secondly because part of the point of The Game flauting his wealth is that someone like him is still not meant to have it. And this is revealed when the (predominantly white) middle classes show their disgust - the real drivers of that disgust are very familiar.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:47 / 28.11.05
I would agree that it's a stretch to assume that the disgust engendered is disgust against capitalism - in part, I would go so far as to say that the analysis of capitalism here is off - there's nothing intrinsically capitalist in making as much money as you can and then flaunting it. What we're dealing with here is taste, which like pretty much everything else can be coopted both by a Debordian reading of spectacle and a more traditional reading of economic Marxism. Taste is possibly a survival, but is a means of maintaining social structures in the face of imbalances in what had previously been the accepted status of wealth. So, in the natural order of things a Snopp Dogg should not be wealthy. If he becomes wealthy, he can still be excluded from the discourse of acceptable society because what he does with that wealth is unacceptable, and also because how he came by that wealth is unacceptable. Simply put, he's a nouv.

Whether this is a critique on Capitalism I'm uncertain. Given recent events, it might be wiser to sink a hundred thousand dollars into a jewel-encrusted gold cup than a 401K plan.
 
 
Leidan
23:31 / 28.11.05
Hmm.. Haus, if the matter is wholly one of taste, then the items in question have no other affirming / discomfort-inducing values than aesthetic ones (although this aesthetic judgement is tied up with a class-affirming motive)... I think there is a level of meaning which further either increases their authenticity for adherents to this particular culture and induces discomfort in the middle class (I use this term for simplicity's sake) when they view them, although I accept the analysis that you've both made that a large portion of the situation is to do with a last attempt at cultural exclusion.

I highlight the following segment specifically: "In taking the capitalist spectacle at its face value, the blacks are already rejecting the spectacle itself. The spectacle is a drug for slaves. It is designed not to be taken literally, but to be followed from just out of reach; when this separation is eliminated, the hoax is revealed."

My reading of this equates this instance of 'taking literally' with 'conspicuous consumption'; making hugely expensive purchases of, to many viewpoints, petty things. i.e, instead of following through consumption societal phantoms of higher social worth, the star acts as if he/she is already at the pinnacle of society, showing this attainment by buying pretty ridiculous, showy things.

The fact that this term (conspicuous consumption) was, as you mention, previously applied to the nouveau rich is problematic, as if you equate the two then this invalidates a subversive reading of hip-hop conspicuous consumption much faster than it would imply a radical nouveau rich. Perhaps this can be solved by the fact that there is a whole cultural authenticity around hip-hop conspicuous consumption; it is a seperate culture which exists in often an antagonistic stance in relation to what could tentatively be described as a mainstream culture, whereas the nouveau rich were arguably simply trying to attach themselves to an already existing culture.

If this reading is faulty, how would you interpret the quoted few sentences? What does Debord mean by 'taking literally the capitalist spectacle'?

And apologies for misrepresenting your views flyboy, I can't find the thread I was thinking about. Do you ultimately have a positive or negative (or mixed) view of hip-hop materialistic excess, and why?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:34 / 28.11.05
Wasn't this the main reason Fun-Da-Mental split, having been to (I think) India to film a video, where half the band felt it was in poor taste for the other half to be wearing so much jewellery while travelling through areas of extreme poverty? (I could easily be remembering this all wrong, mind...)
 
 
diz
05:17 / 29.11.05
I think it's worth mentioning that a sizeable portion of the bling aesthetic revolves around marketable fantasies. Many people fantasize about being rich, and so it makes good business sense to tap into those fantasies when crafting a public persona, because music and videos that successfully tap into people's fantasies sell better than the ones who don't.

See also: 80s hair band videos, which successfully sold the fantasy of living the rock star lifestyle in LA, where hot girls in bikinis posed on cars and the party never stopped, largely to pimply-faced teenagers in Boring Town, Middle America, where the party never really got started, which brings me to my next point.

Typically, of course, the tendency to fantasize about being wealthy tends to vary inversely with actual wealth, just like the tendency to fantasize about being a Rock Star In Los Angeles Where The Action Is is strongest in people farthest from The Action. Affluent kids with sheltered suburban lifestyles, of course, are drawn to things like grunge or emo which allow them to fantasize about having the sort of credibility that comes from having something to legitimately bitch about, which is accomplished by dealing with ordinary teenage angst as epic drama, often combined with the Poor But Noble angle, which allows them to express their discomfort at living privileged lives in a supposedly egalitarian society.

That discomfort, of course, takes us back to the topic at hand. I will submit that many of the people uncomfortable with the role of bling in hip-hop are relatively affluent, well-educated white people, who are smart enough to know they are the beneficiaries of race and class privilege and well-meaning enough to feel guilty about it. They themselves tend to fantasize about a "simple" and "authentic" lifestyle, and the existence of large numbers of "authentic" poor people who would much rather have money than live a "simple" lifestyle tends to complicate their moral system.

In a nutshell, they would much rather that poor black people were articulate anti-materialists - that is to say, Poor But Noble. Part of bemoaning the fact that 50 Cent outsells Talib Kweili is essentially resentment of the fact that poor black people don't have "worthier" fantasies more in keeping with the morality of their own fantasy lives.
 
 
Char Aina
06:39 / 29.11.05
that may be true.
i do suspect you are speaking for yourself.

speaking for myself, while i can appreciate the intent to be paid in full, i think that spending all or most of your money on jewellery is kinda foolish.

i dont see that it is necessarily any more foolish than some of the dumb shit people gather, however.

what makes a three hundred thousand dollar watch any less valid a purchase than a painting that costs the same?

neither will feed you unless you sell it, and neither will do anything other than look nice for you and those you allow to see it.

isnt it really just taste?

i'd argue that, to be fair, for a person to judge and publicly declaim a music star (or a vague sweep of them) for hir spending habits they should really judge everyone else simliarly.

is this like the 'chav' shit that flies around? is it based upon difference of taste and standards for discernment?


enslavement to or rebbelion against capitalism?
i call false dichotomy.

its stuff.
people buy it.
in my opinion it no more makes folks rebels or conformists than buying anything else does.
the action of purchase is where the capitalism happens.
 
 
Char Aina
06:42 / 29.11.05
Part of bemoaning the fact that 50 Cent outsells Talib Kweili is essentially resentment of the fact that poor black people don't have "worthier" fantasies more in keeping with the morality of their own fantasy lives.

...and that assumes that the larger sales are to black people.
i seem to recall the figures for the more thugged out hip hop showing white boys as the biggest market for it.

do you have a source thatsays otherwise?
other than you, obviously.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:23 / 29.11.05
Do you ultimately have a positive or negative (or mixed) view of hip-hop materialistic excess, and why?

I have no time for any analysis or critique of "hip-hop materialistic excess" that doesn't see it in the wider context of the materialistic excess of Western capitalism and the many forms that materialistic excess can take. I'd go out on a limb and say that 90% of attempts to critique mainstream hip hop culture fall down on this point.
 
 
Char Aina
08:01 / 29.11.05
what he said.
 
 
The Natural Way
08:31 / 29.11.05
Toksik, I really don't think Diz is saying anything that out-of-synch with yr own perspective. He's just trying to understand lay out the motivating factors behind white, middle class disgust @ bling culture. He's not condoning it or anything. You seem unnecessarily spikey.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:57 / 29.11.05
toksik, would it be possible for you to have a look at the difference in tone and content between your post and the posts above it and think about how the one might inform the other? See in particular:

that may be true.
i do suspect you are speaking for yourself.

and

other than you, obviously.

Ta.

diz:

In a nutshell, they would much rather that poor black people were articulate anti-materialists - that is to say, Poor But Noble.

I think my issue with this statement probably revolves around the use of "poor". and possibly "black". what you're talking about is Rex Harrison syndrome, right? So, everybody should be an articulate anti-materialist, poor and rich alike - at the top of the tree, the P Diddys are letting the side down by having these vast sums that they fritter away on gold jewellery and diamond-studded demijohn cozies, and at the bottom the people coveting that lifestyle, with commensurate expenditure. The star is a bad example, the fan a bad follower.

Leidan: Specifically regarding:

In taking the capitalist spectacle at its face value, the blacks are already rejecting the spectacle itself. The spectacle is a drug for slaves. It is designed not to be taken literally, but to be followed from just out of reach; when this separation is eliminated, the hoax is revealed.

Honestly, I think you're misreading this, or more precisely that you are quoting it out of the context of the entire article in which it was published. This isn't about the absurdity of capitalism - it's about the mechanism by which capitalism needs to engender desire, even when the person experiencing that desire has no chance of acquiring the object of desire throught the mechanisms of capitalism. The taking literally of the Spectacle that he is talking about is this: the rioters have taken on board that they should want things that they do not really want, but have also taken on board that there is no impediment to them having these things.

Like the young delinquents of all the advanced countries, but more radically because they are part of a class without a future, a sector of the proletariat unable to believe in any significant chance of integration or promotion, the Los Angeles blacks take modern capitalist propaganda, its publicity of abundance, literally. They want to possess now all the objects shown and abstractly accessible, because they want to use them. In this way they are challenging their exchange-value, the commodity reality which molds them and marshals them to its own ends, and which has preselected everything. Through theft and gift they rediscover a use that immediately refutes the oppressive rationality of the commodity, revealing its relations and even its production to be arbitrary and unnecessary. The looting of the Watts district was the most direct realization of the distorted principle: “To each according to their false needs” — needs determined and produced by the economic system which the very act of looting rejects.

So, they are using a method outside the capitalist system (walking into stores and taking things) in order to satisfy desires inculcated by the capitalist system. This becomes a satire on the spectacle because it makes the statement these objects have been created by people exchanging their labour at an unequal exchange for money, and is being bought by people exchanging money they have received as an unequal exchange for their labour at an unequal exchange for the parts and labour put into them, and that is the only way it can work untrue.

No such statement is being made with bling. Snoop Dogg's cup is a piece of conspicuous consumption, yes, but it has been paid for through capital exchange - it is a symbol not of the short-circuiting of capitalism but merely of one person's ability to raise the bar of how much of the money they have earned by contributing their labour they can spend on the product of somebody else's labour. That's just capitalism. You can see it as so grotesque as to force a reevaluation of capitalism, but that's where taste comes in. So, it is not obvious that Snoop's cup is ridiculous - it is only obvious to you. Would you, by contrast, find the death mask of Agamemnon ridiculous? It's made of gold, and it is intended to mark the status of an individual..

Speaking of which - toksik says "just taste" above, and Leidan seems similarly not to credit taste with much importance, but here it seems absolutely key. As toksik and I both say, expenditure on item (1) may not have a lot more significance than expenditure on item (2) - a painting might be as edible as a watch, a golden goblet as good an investment plan as an investment scheme. So, taste becomes absolutely vital, not just as a way of organising social exclusion but also as a way of ensuring that people want different things, or rather different variations on the same process of exchange. I'm reminded of the discussion in Film, TV and Theatre, where Kaiser John decried people who wore fake designer clothes when they could instead for the same amount of money buy the sort of non-fake, non-desgner clothes which he himself wears. Taste is allowing hm to assert the rightness of his own actions, and thus to continue to see buying those clothes as the right thing for him and the right thing in absolute terms - a uniformity he has no power to enforce, but which validates and upholds his own consumption. See, then, the golden cup. You can look at the golden cup and think that it is hideously tacky, but unless your next thought is "better to have spent the time he spent earning the money to buy it working to overthrow capitalism, as I am now inspired to do by this sign of the vacuity of consumption" rather than, say, "that money would have paid Junior's college fees", I don't think it's subversive in the way that Debord is saying the Watts riots were subversive. It is instead using taste as a way to distinguish between good expenditure - which I have been told is good fort me, but which more broadly I have to believe is good in absolute terms - and bad expenditure.
 
 
Char Aina
08:58 / 29.11.05
i wasnt intending to be spiky.
my apologies.

on rereading, it does seem that i may have misunderstood the point slightly.

diz, are you saying the fantasies of fiddy or those of his percieved audience?
i'm pretty sure my first reading was right, but i am happy to be corrected.


(
the last line of my post may as well not be there, as all it seems to be doing is making me sound more confrontational.
i havent slept aslong as is healthy...
forgive me if i expressed myself in a manner unclear.
)
 
 
Char Aina
09:15 / 29.11.05
haus.
i have apologised for my tone in the second post, something our posting times will have caused you to miss.
i dont see a problem with the first quote.

as i have mentioned, my discernment may be off due to lack of sleep. please feel free to explain your point in more depth, if you feel the need.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:59 / 29.11.05
I think this may help to clarify, while dizfactor slumbers:

diz, are you saying the fantasies of fiddy or those of his percieved audience?
i'm pretty sure my first reading was right, but i am happy to be corrected.

If I understand this aright, the correct answer is "neither". To parse out diz' statement:

In a nutshell, they (our hypothetical well-off but somewhat socially aware members of the middle classes) would much rather that poor black people were articulate anti-materialists - that is to say, Poor But Noble. Part of bemoaning the fact that 50 Cent outsells Talib Kweili is essentially resentment of the fact that poor black people don't have "worthier" fantasies more in keeping with the morality of their (our hypothetical well-off but somewhat socially aware members of the middle classes) own fantasy lives.
 
 
Char Aina
10:44 / 29.11.05
i'm looking here;

the fact that poor black people don't have "worthier" fantasies

fiddy, or his audience?
 
 
The Natural Way
11:59 / 29.11.05
It doesn't matter which. Could be the Fiddy or his perceived audience. Toksik, you really are getting hung up on a non-point here.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:18 / 29.11.05
Well, I think Fiddy isn't poor, right? So, Fiddy probbaly does not fall into the set of poor black people. Diz has created three sets:

1) The set containing many of the people who express concen about bling in hip-hop, identified as:

well-educated white people, who are smart enough to know they are the beneficiaries of race and class privilege and well-meaning enough to feel guilty about it

2) The set of hip-hop purveyors, which contains (2i) Fifty Cent and (2ii) Talib Kweli.

3) The set of poor black people as imagined by set (1).

There are also two essential sets of fantasies - (a) fantasies of wealth, and (b) "poor-but-noble" fantasies, in which the poor disdain the pursuit of wealth.

Set (1) would like set (3) to behave as if their aspirations were commensurate with those of poor people in fantasy (b), which would be evinced by them admiring and thus buying the records of artist (2ii). Set (1) perceives the greater popularity of artist (2i) among set (3) as a sign that set (3) actually indulges fantasy (a) rather than fantasy (b). This sign that the members of set (3) are not happy belonging to the set of poor black people - set (3) - makes set (1) uncomfortably aware of the disparity in wealth between set (1) and set (3), and unable to claim that set (3) want to have more money, which set (1) possesses and is not giving to them. Set (1) therefore is uncomfortable with the popularity of artist (2i) because it throws the differences in prosperity between set (1) and set (3) into sharp relief, whereas if set (3) was buying the music of artist (2ii), it would allow the members of set (1) to believe that the members of set (3) were focused on higher things than the accumulation of cash.

OK so far?

Now, you introduce a fourth set, the set of the more thugged out hip hop showing white boys. You state that the reason why artist (2i) outsells artist (2ii) is in fact down largely to the actions of the members of set (4). Now, dizfactor's mistake here from the point of view of logic was probably not to assert that his system was closed - that is, that he was talking about the outselling of artist (2ii) by artist (2i) only among the members of set (3) - he was not discussing set (4) because set (4) was not relevant to his system.

However, your position - that the existence of set (4) and its role in record sales of artists (2i) and (2ii) disqualifies diz's conclusion that:

Part of bemoaning the fact that 50 Cent outsells Talib Kweili is essentially resentment of the fact that poor black people don't have "worthier" fantasies more in keeping with the morality of their own fantasy lives.

Is unsound. Set (1) is not concerned with set (4), but with set (3). it might be easier to make this clear is we make set (3) the set of poor people generally (black and white) and set (4) the set of non-poor hip-hop enthusiasts, who do not interfere with the enjoyment of fantasy (b) by set (1), because they have no poverty to accept or reject. Since this thread started with Debord talking about the Watts riots, and with citation of two black rappers, we have focused in on colour, as the members of set (1) could be expected to do also, as the distinction between their status (well-off) and colour (white) is more pronounced with the members of our current set (3) rather than a racially mixed set (3). However, Martin Luther King said at the timer of the Watts riots that they were not a race issue but a class issue (and we can expect Leidan and his brother to share at least some racial identification), and Debord notes that the looters neither went out of their way to persecute white bystanders or preserve the property of black shopowners.

Now, one can say that dizfactor's assertion, that:

Part of bemoaning the fact that 50 Cent outsells Talib Kweili is essentially resentment of the fact that poor black people don't have "worthier" fantasies more in keeping with the morality of their own fantasy lives.

is untrue - that is, that this resentment is not a part of any process of bemoaning the greater sales figures of artist (2i). If he had said that this was the only element in this process of bemoaning, then one could accept that it was a part, but not the whole, and therefore that his statement was incomplete. However, he has taken into account this possibility already, and represents this as only a part of the process of bemoaning.

That is my understanding of dizfactor's statement. I remain unenlightened as to what exactly:

that may be true.
i do suspect you are speaking for yourself.

Does in response to this. Context suggests that the "that" which may be true is the statement:

Part of bemoaning the fact that 50 Cent outsells Talib Kweili is essentially resentment of the fact that poor black people don't have "worthier" fantasies more in keeping with the morality of their own fantasy lives.

but there is no sense of what "speaking for yourself" means here. When you then speak for _yourself_, the term seems to mean "express an opinion that I have reached". However, since it is obvious that dizfactor is expressing an opinion that he has reached, it seems odd to identify this as a suspicion, or indeed to identify it at all, meaning as it would nothing more than "I suspect that you are expressing an opinion". Hence the spikey. Possibly Boboss has some thoughts on whether this struck him as spikey and if so why.

Other than you, obviously

Also seems spiked, communicating as it does the sense that dizfactor himself is not a sufficiently reliable source to conclude that the majority purchasers of hip-hop are poor and black (although in fact I would suggest that d's contention does not rest on this belief, that in fact he did not state that it was the case and that your contention is not therefore fatal to his premise - see above). This is perfectly reasonable in itself, except that you are not holding yourself to the same standard of evidence. You seem to recallthe figures for the more thugged out hip hop showing white boys as the biggest market for it, but do not actually recall them.

Of course, both of these otiose constructions can be explained by lack of sleep, but hopefully this will help to provide an explanation of what is going on in D's construction.
 
 
Leidan
13:53 / 29.11.05
I guess you're probably right regarding my (mis)reading of Debord in that section Haus - it does on second thoughts seem unlikely that he would jump to a generalised comment on the whole of black culture from talking about a specific instance, however much I'd like it to - it makes the article alot less interesting for me, as it seems pretty obvious that the Watts riots were subversive.

One other thing that was bothering me was that the taste thing explained the discomfort viewpoint, but the other side was still not explained - the authenticity, the justification of the materialism in question in hip-hop culture - i.e, it made me uncomfortable that my brother and so forth felt genuinely attracted to this materialism without anything 'deeper' behind it driving him. However, having thought about it in light of the posts here, it does seem pretty clear that this discomfort is just another version of the middle-class taste thing; there's no real reason why people being slavishly dedicated to hip hop culture (including materialism) is any worse than someone being slavishly dedicated to any other form of youth culture; even from an 'anti-capitalist' viewpoint.
 
 
ibis the being
22:46 / 29.11.05
the white middle classes' supposed disgust at excesses of materialist consumption in fact has nothing to do with an objection to capitalism or materialism at all - "it's not that they buy, it's what they buy" - and that it is in fact purely another form of class-based sneering

Absolutely.

Leidan, if you're convinced that rich white people don't spend their money on utterly useless luxuries, I challenge you to pore through a Neiman Marcus catalog.

I really don't see how this is not a value judgment based on aesthetics. Celebrities of all colors and genres make public appearances dripping in diamonds, though admittedly I've never seen Russell Crowe sporting a gigantic medallion. And not many white celebrities have rap videos flaunting their pointlessly expensive possessions - but that doesn't mean they don't have any.

I'm sorry, but critiquing the spending habits of "the blacks" (and I know you were just quoting Debord, but still, the premise of this thread smacks of viewing black people as Other) and trying to cloak your critique in social analysis strikes me as plain ridiculous.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
06:56 / 30.11.05
In Leidan's defence I think this thread was intended to be about the assumption that elements of what might be called mainstream hip hop culture represent and "enslavement" to capitalism. Which is, sadly, all too frequent an assumption.
 
 
modern maenad
09:33 / 30.11.05
Reading through the thread couldn't help thinking of all the challenges to conspicious consumerism that are coming from within the hip hop world: Ms Dynamites' It Takes More sprung to mind first:

Now who gives a damn
About the ice on your hands?
If its not too complex
Tell me how many African's died
For the baguettes on your Rolex?

Then artists such as Coup, Paris, Azeem etc. Events such as the National Hip Hop Convention are also a part of this critique. I'm not saying that there hasn't been a cutlural standoff between Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and Jewel Encrusted Rap Central, more that the parameters of the debate are wider than these particular players.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:21 / 30.11.05
Ah, well, that's artist 2(ii) - what is often called the "conscious' artist, yes? Still operates within the capitalist structure, but provides a critique both implicit and explicit of the behaviour of other hip-hop artists.

Going on from Leidan's possible misreading - you could argue, however, that in Debordian terms black Americans spending money at all, whether it's on gold cups or first editions of Dorothy L Sayers - is subversive, because they are not meant to - black Americans are to a very great extent a byproduct of mechanisms of capital exchange (Debord's words, not mine) and the victims of industrial society - they get crappy jobs or no jobs because there are not enough jobs to go around. At the same time, they perform a necessary balancing function - the existence of poor people has a deflationary effect by keeping wages low and buying power limited. So, going back to the race/class thing, if your understanding of the society you live in is that there are poor people (whose role is necessary but unpleasant, and to be ameliorated where that amelioriation does not conflict with the broader goals of society - there's a point about the Watts riots and with looting more generally there, as well), and there are not-poor people, then seeing members of the urban poor cease to be poor, and indeed become very conspicuously wealthy, has the potential to destabilise that view and, in forcing the consideration of that possibility and the complimentary possibility of not-poor becoming poor, to make people examine whether the society of capital/Spectacle is actually operating in their long-term interest at all.

However, this brings into play the Horatio Alger response - that the existence of mobility between classes motivates both poor and not-poor to apply themselves harder to the accumulation of cash through the sale of their labour, either in the hope that they will be able to leave the set of the poor or out of fear that they may one day fall through the trapdoor into it.

(Incidentally, should this be in Head Shop, or Music and Radio?)
 
 
Atyeo
12:56 / 30.11.05
I see what you are saying, Haus, but I don't think it's that simple either.

I don't think that just because someone from the working classes becomes rich, that somehow destabilises the rest of societies world view.

For example, there are many working class people that become rich and flaunt their wealth openly. Good examples from the UK are David Beckham and Posh and Jordan and Peter Andre. However, there are many working class people how earn lots of money but don't parade it openly to the media. There are also lots of upper-class people who spend alot of money on Gucci, etc., and that is also seen by the public as in "bad taste".

Taste has alot to do with the perceived importance the individual places on exhibiting their wealth to others. Snoop Dogg/football players/the glitterati's decision to flaunt their wealth is seen as bad taste by many but I don't believe that is solely to do with the original place in society that they started in. I think that modesty and concealing one's wealth is seen as a virtue in a large section of the public.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:54 / 30.11.05
I see what you are saying, Haus

No offense intended, but I don't think you do - or at least, your post appears not to be based on that act of seeing. Could you tell me what you think I am saying, and we'll go from there?
 
 
Atyeo
15:35 / 30.11.05
I took from your posts a belief that non-poor have a negative reaction to the poor (rap-stars) becoming non-poor which as it destabilisies their view of the world and the capitalist system that they are living in.

I fell that this is a bit simplistic and that there may be other factors involved as I don't believe the non-poor always do have an adverse reaction to the poop becoming on of them. That was what I meant when I said "Taste has alot to do with the perceived importance the individual places on exhibiting their wealth to others."

However, it is entirely likely that I've missed the actual point of what you were saying, old bean. If that's the case then don't mind me.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:30 / 30.11.05
Ah well - I think that's interesting in itself.

Taste has alot to do with the perceived importance the individual places on exhibiting their wealth to others.

This seems pretty uncontentious. On the other hand, how do we identify this flaunting thing? Say I buy a six-bedroom house in Chelsea. That's a perfectly sensible investment, it's not showy like a gold-studded cup, it's not obtrusive. It is cocking expensive. So is the Anderson and Shephard suit, and so on. These things are, however, in good taste, even though the capital expenditure is just as obvious. Why is that?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:07 / 30.11.05
However, the Horatio Alger phenom works both ways - if you work hard and are suitably noble and unassuming, you do indeed get to move smoothly into financial security. However, those condtions are exacting, and the further away (culturally) your idea of what is desirable is the harder it's going to be. I think that's why Debord was interested, albeit in a rather dodgy way, by the idea of looters stealing electrical goods to put in houses without electricity - it's the recontextualisation of the desires instilled by bourgeois capitalism as fetish (hence a bit dubious, IMHO).

So, absolutely, there's a complex of associations feeding into the idea of wealth. One part is where it comes from, another is what you do with it - so if Talib Kweli buys a big-screen TV, that is probably different from the Game buying a big-screen TV.
 
 
Atyeo
12:27 / 02.12.05
Could it be - and bear with me one this one - that a house or watch, for example, are more traditional symbols of wealth. A gold goblet isn't, however, unless he was maybe rapping to Henry VIII at Hampton Court?

So this percieved immodesty and the untraditional way in which they are spend there money creates the 'vulgarity'.

This is only a vague 'theory' that I'm forming when the insomnia kicks in...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:25 / 02.12.05
I think that's very possibly true, although I don't see new/old as necessarily relevant so much as familiarity - things that the inhabitants of set (1) buy are familiar to the inhabitants of set (1), and therefore it does not cause any surprise or abreaction when they are bought - like property, like laptops, like hi-fis. So, if you don't have training in what very expensive things are OK to buy (homes in Chelsea, designer watches without diamonds on the face) and which things are not OK to buy (chunky gold jewellery, watches with diamonds on the face), if your intention is to appear in a favourable light to the inhabitants of set (1), then you're likely to appear in an unfavourable light to the inhabitants of set (1)...
 
  
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