Even if Cam’ron [et al. are] just doing what sells, the question remains: Why is this what sells?Sanneh doesn't exactly engage with that important question, but the larger point is that *the culture* doesn't engage with that question. Why do songs about police brutality gain wide and diverse audiences? Why do songs that generously use the word "bitch" become popular? Hip hop's such an easy target precisely because it is often a gutsy and agonistic artform, an artform that eschews liberal niceties. But it is also an extremely profitable--and, often, profit-driven--artform. And of course these post-Imus critiques are nothing new, though they have that "always-newness," to borrow a term Mary Soliday uses to describe literacy crisis rhetoric. The media revels in its own ahistorical forgetfulness. Lyrics nowadays glorify senseless violence (but "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die" doesn't), and the music today pushes the bling mentality on listeners (but "diamonds are a girl's best friend" doesn't) and the artists create images that demean women (but Frank Sinatra doesn't traffic in machismo and sexual conquest) and music today's full of sex and promiscuity (but century-old blues songs about backdoor men issn't).
Asking that "why does this sell?" question is tough, in part because so many side questions arise--questions about race and class, questions about police brutality, questions about hatred of women, the aforementioned questions about profit motives. And many folks benefit from the failure to ask this question. Maintain the status quo. Don't ask questions about systemic problems in the culture. Execs at 60 Minutes and other for-profit media outlets benefit from scapegoating. Dismissing rap music as bad doesn't hurt media elites. Calling into question distribution of wealth and power does.
The Times piece makes brief mention of rap mogul Russell Simmons' recent call for the voluntary self-censorship of hip hop lyrics but, unfortunately, Sanneh doesn't offer much of a critical reading of the notion of voluntary self-censorship. It's important to point out that Simmons made a great deal of money from artists that use some of the same language he's now proposing be banished from rap. So I like Simmons' emphasis on summits, conversations, and critical discussions (*within* a community of artists) of ethics and implications. But I think Simmons--who engages in a great deal of admirable and important work with the U.N. and other institutions--is also selling a product now ('ethically responsible rap'), as he did during his days running Def Jam.
And the socially conscious persona is profitable in terms of various kinds of capital: fame, credibility, material wealth. This is why I pointed out a few days ago that I think we need to remember Al Sharpton's and Jesse Jackson's past anti-semitism and past instances of offensiveness. Folks in the public eye create personas for various complicated and contradictory and evolving purposes. Simple observations--Sharpton's right, rap's bad, etc.--don't work. Sanneh's question is a good one: why does this sell? I'd add: why has this always sold? And also: how are other agents also engaged in selling of their own? And this one too: who benefits from these various products?
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