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I've been thinking more about this issue of "authenticity" ~ we were saying above how there's maybe a demand or need on the part of hip-hop followers for an artist to be "authentic" and give a voice to identities and experiences that are marginalised from the mainstream media, so providing a kind of documentary, autobiographical truth.
I was put in mind of the final scene in 8 Mile, where Eminem/Rabbit's entire victory rests on this issue of authenticity ~ giving an autobiographical account of himself, however painful and embarrassing ("I am white, I am a fucking bum... I do live in a trailer with my mom") and then revealing that Papa Doc, his nemesis, is not authentic. "This guy's a gangster? His real name's Clarence! And Clarence lives at home with both parents. And Clarence parents have a real good marriage." Whatever, that having a mom and dad living happily together makes you inauthentic, but there is other stuff in there too revealing Papa Doc as privileged and non-gangster, and the response from Rabbit's audience is punishing laughter, stripping Clarence of all his credibility and losing him the battle.
OK, so it's just a movie made by an old white director (Curtis Hanson) but maybe there's some truth in that scene, about the importance of being real in rap.
(As a side-note and extension of thoughts above, I think Eminem is given some leeway by mainstream critics in terms of the authenticity of this semi-autobiographical film. It's acceptable that it's based on his life. Mainstream white journalism has now, I think, after a bit of a confused struggle, accepted Eminem as an "artist" who isn't necessarily reporting literally, but is able to use characters and tell stories. I don't know if the same leeway was given to Fifty Cent with the similarly semi-autobiographical movie Get Rich or Die Tryin.)
Conversely, think about rock ~ or, because as I noted above I don't know much about harder rock, consider pop in relation to rap.
My impression is that quite a big deal is made in the press about Fifty Cent's authenticity, specifically his survival after being shot nine times (on the same occasion). The shooting story is a big part of Fifty Cent's "realness" and serves as a kind of guarantor that he's come up hard, that he's genuinely had experience of a thug life. He's sold drugs, served in boot camp, boxed, been shot. I have to make an assumption here because I don't listen to him, but I'm assuming that kind of life is reflected and represented in his work.
Compare Morrissey. Again, effectively an assumed name, because "Morrissey" is the star is distinct from Stephen Patrick Morrissey the real person. With just a couple of exceptions* I don't think I've ever seen any criticism or complaint that Morrissey's lyrics don't have a documentary basis in his real life, or any examination of whether he's qualified or entitled to write and sing them. I've very rarely seen any exploration of how and whether his lyrics map onto his real experience. It just isn't called into question.
When Morrissey sings "I was delayed, I was waylaid..."
An emergency stop
I smelt the last ten seconds of life
I crashed down on the crossbar
And the pain was enough to make
A shy, bald, buddhist reflect
And plan a mass murder
Who said lied I'd to her ?
Oh, who said I'd lied because I never ? I never !
Who said I'd lied because I never ?
I was detained, I was restrained
And broke my spleen
And broke my knee
(and then he really laced into me)
Friday night in Out-patients
Who said I'd lied to her ?
I don't think any of his followers require that to be authentic or real ~ or stress that Morrissey really did break his spleen and broke his knee. By contrast, my impression is that Fifty Cent's real-life experience of being shot is often brought up as "proof" of his authentic identity.
When Morrissey sings "I had a very bad dream, it lasted twenty years, seven months, and twenty-seven days", and biographer Johnny Rogan discovers there's no relevant reference to any such dream on that specific day in Morrissey's diaries, he doesn't call Morrissey out on it for being inauthentic.
Morrissey is considered to be an artist creating characters. Curtis Jackson, I'd suggest, is not. (I am still talking about "within the white mainstream media" here). And I suggest this may be because of the racist but widespread perceived cultural distinction between "white intellect" and "black body". Within this prejudiced but common opposition, I suggest, whites are perceived to be good as artists, thinkers. Blacks are perceived to be good as muscle, sportsmen.
So I'd suggest in turn that the distinction within the white mainstream in terms of assuming black hip-hop is autobiographical and real, where the same assumption is rarely made about white rock and pop, may stem from this idea that, crudely put, Curtis Jackson doesn't have the wit to make this up. He can only talk about stuff that's actually happened to him. Whereas Morrissey is accepted as a poet and author in the tradition he styles himself, as a modern equivalent of Keats, Yeats and Wilde.
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* The exception that comes to my mind is when Morrissey tried to give some kind of voice to a British Asian experience in "Asian Rut" and "Bengali in Platforms".
Also, possibly, his authenticity may have been called into question when he started posing with young boxers and adopting more of a "hard-man" persona ~ this being out of keeping with his previously fey character. [Grant Morrison actually did much the same thing] |
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