Intrinsic materialism in hiphop
pcmr
5,591 Posts
Here are quotes by Nas and 50 cents 
NAS"You know what's the crazy thing about it? I've had times of missing 50. I brought him with me on tour before. He used to open up for me. I showed him his first Bentley. I showed him his first big diamonds in person ??? he ain't know nobody who had real diamonds the size I had. I showed him all that" 
50 CENT50's latest barb aimed at Nas is on "Window Shopper". In response, Nas asked how he can be a window shopper when he was the first person to show 50 the high life. Fif has an easy answer."Now if he tried to buy the stuff I buy, he'd be window shopping," the G-Unit general explained. "He hasn't progressed to the point I progressed. He failed to set up a situation where he can feed his people. Where's Jungle and Whiz and the rest of the Bravehearts? [Lloyd] Banks' house cost $2 million in Long Island. Tony Yayo had a million dollars after taxes in his account when he got out of jail. I provided for the people that were around me. [Young] Buck's house don't cost $2 million, but you wouldn't know it. In Nashville, the property value is different." 
"I bought this and own this!"Jesus! with the Mobb Deep comments on their signing bonuses I am worried about the level of importance accorded to possesions in HipHop. Looking at Jay-Z's diamond watch and other Ice excesses is something but this kind of talk is revealing in the intrisic nature of materialism in hiphop. Some of these cats are great business men but where's the music. It's always financial beef now. Game/50 "i have the rights to his hooks so I'm makingmore money off his album. 
Two things why is rap the only form of music with this focus and secondly don't these rappers think about those people in the hood that save up to purchase their singles.The state of hiphop now makes me think of the state of Hollywood back in the 50's with superproductions 3hour movies (cleopatra, ben-hur) Money over music! and the market keeps on feeding it. Fuck at least use the success against the machine, but i guess the market absorbs all. What's next 50 cent inc stock options.Sorry for the mixed up ideas but do discuss
NAS"You know what's the crazy thing about it? I've had times of missing 50. I brought him with me on tour before. He used to open up for me. I showed him his first Bentley. I showed him his first big diamonds in person ??? he ain't know nobody who had real diamonds the size I had. I showed him all that" 50 CENT50's latest barb aimed at Nas is on "Window Shopper". In response, Nas asked how he can be a window shopper when he was the first person to show 50 the high life. Fif has an easy answer."Now if he tried to buy the stuff I buy, he'd be window shopping," the G-Unit general explained. "He hasn't progressed to the point I progressed. He failed to set up a situation where he can feed his people. Where's Jungle and Whiz and the rest of the Bravehearts? [Lloyd] Banks' house cost $2 million in Long Island. Tony Yayo had a million dollars after taxes in his account when he got out of jail. I provided for the people that were around me. [Young] Buck's house don't cost $2 million, but you wouldn't know it. In Nashville, the property value is different." "I bought this and own this!"Jesus! with the Mobb Deep comments on their signing bonuses I am worried about the level of importance accorded to possesions in HipHop. Looking at Jay-Z's diamond watch and other Ice excesses is something but this kind of talk is revealing in the intrisic nature of materialism in hiphop. Some of these cats are great business men but where's the music. It's always financial beef now. Game/50 "i have the rights to his hooks so I'm makingmore money off his album. Two things why is rap the only form of music with this focus and secondly don't these rappers think about those people in the hood that save up to purchase their singles.The state of hiphop now makes me think of the state of Hollywood back in the 50's with superproductions 3hour movies (cleopatra, ben-hur) Money over music! and the market keeps on feeding it. Fuck at least use the success against the machine, but i guess the market absorbs all. What's next 50 cent inc stock options.Sorry for the mixed up ideas but do discuss
Comments
1) My internal grandpa (yes, i've got one) sometimes fears the negative influence of this kind of monotone possession-driven behaviour. Since these rappers are almost the definition of "high profile", i would like them to take a little responsibilty as to the way they influence their fans
2) They're behaving like a bunch of kindergarten brats and do not deserve any attention. No supper for you, 50!
1)Its a propagation of the american ideal: make money, expand, never stop. And it has plagued hiphop throughout its history. the money politics fuckup easy's label, the deathrow money schemes with that lawyer etc. Not a constructive use of money, no example of redistribution for their fans
2)its more than behaving like kindergarden (hwever i have this u dont is) they are placing $$$ at the essential level of music. I hate when i see rappers claiming " so and so is off the radar cause he doesnt have this... or where his sales at". And everyone hating 50 but respecting his business skills.People are criticized for not securing a$ situation not running their business to full potential. The focus on $$$ before music is no good. This independent label thing was suppose to be a step towards liberating artists from exploitation (flagrant in hiphop) now that there is all this success the same phenomenon of label expansion is leading to the self-destruction of the artform (on the mainstreamlevel at least).
Fuck i remember when red & meth crossed over, back when hiphop was barely getting any tv shine (one dfsquad video per day) and i thought to myself this is the beginning of sumthing ugly...
I probably agree with what you mean though. My inner-grandpa is disturbed too with the harem mentality of current mainstream hip hop. Apparently these images of poolside harem activity intermingled with expensive cars is not easily inflated. I have no solid theory on how life copies art and the reverse but this shit simply sets a weird example. I've had it with godfatherism in general. This stuff is on mainstream television in the afternoon.
My inner-grandchild on the other hand is glad with all this free materialistic porn.
Bowie already did that stock thing years ago.
a band like U2 tread on this line all the time too... custom ipods, popmart tour. Hell i even remember seeing an interview with bono around the tiem of the ipod where he said "where we come from it's cool to be buisiness men"
so rockers have definatly sewn this up.
the differance lies in the presentation of their music. Nobody thinks about Neil Young and Bob Dylan as multi millionaires even though they obviously are. But neither ever speaks about it in interviews, you dont see their mansions on VH1 cribs and they would never never NEVER write about their money in a song.
its interesting that people like springsteen / dylan / neil are into 30+ year careers based on their image of being working class / from the people / common man type figures, even though they've been millionaires for decades.
alot of these rappers might wanna take notice of that.
They better be carfull with that stuff, or they might "OG" (over-gold).
I enjoy the music and I admire the accomplishments. Rap has always been bragadocious and specifically when it comes to money, ie I have the gold the girls the cars and you ride the train, etc. so I don't see much of an issue there. If it inspires more youth in the slums to achieve, if it leads them to aspire towards being successful businessmen, that's a great thing. Better than snorting the profits up your nose, which is what many old school pioneers did.
I think there's selective memory when it comes to looking at older music stars and success. Soul singers used to pimp minks and cars too, no question.
I agree with both of you I am refering to the top actors in the music genre's comments leading us to believe this is more about running your business than making music. A rapper grading his performance on the worth of houses bought for his homies is like a consultant anouncing 20% profit this semester. It seems $ is the main question making it intrinsic. In this record contract talk to me about my bonuses not marketing or studio time. To me the chains is just another way of expressing $ gains, (my crew has 3 chains and 2 benz, yours only one mansion) the flossing does not bother me
I think the above statement is true.
I also think that at a certain point most people can't relate to the numbers. It's like listening to people who won the lotterey or something.
The back and forth of 50 and Nas reminds me of a story I read about Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer trading barbs on the set of the incredibly awful "Island of Dr. Moreau". Brando leveled this at Kilmer, in what I recall was the last word on the strange feud:
"you know what your problem is; you equate your salary with your talent."
That's what popped into my head when 50 is going on about how much Young Buck's house is worth, and how Nas hasn't parlayed his success into untold millions. I am sure Nas has provided much for many on the back of his success, but in the end, 50 is talking about numbers most regular folks can't really comprehend.
"[Young] Buck's house don't cost $2 million, but you wouldn't know it. In Nashville, the property value is different."
Perfect example, are we in a music interview? Who are you trying to prove
something to?
edited for spelling
er...
[Hook x2]
Lil' mama show me how you move it,Go Ahead- put ya back into it,
Do ya thing like there aint nothin to it,
Shake...Shake..shh..shh..shake that ass girl.
but seriously, sure there's some hiphop out there that dollar-worships to the extreme - but hasn't that component always been there?
true, true - but also not new, per se:
(yeah you could go way further back than that for examples of this stuff, I know. I'm lazy.)
there was this doc on PBS about 10-15 years ago that looked at materialism in hiphop culture....I just remember scenes of people waving around anything with a Polo pony on it - rugby shirts, golf caps, beach towels, whatever. wish I could remember the name of it now....anybody else remember it?
if nothing else, my inner grandpa - which gets more outer every damn day - is more bored than disturbed with a lot of current music, the same way people a generation before me were bored by hiphop's sampling of funk loops (bc they had already heard and seen this stuff before - "LIVE!" - and thought I was just enjoying something derivative), but I've left the Youth Segment and am now in my 30s (thankfully), so my boredom doesn't matter. (I'm also increasingly annoyed by the trueness of that Mike Watt quote about the only thing out there that's new is you finding out about it. grrrrr)
but anyway, back to materialism: american culture, like many (all?), has its materialistic component and we're all guilty of being influenced by the desire for objects to some level (if we weren't we wouldn't be hoarding records in the first place). the overt materialism in hiphop is a symbol to toss out to consumers, and it's no different in other markets - a yuppie's Polo pony and Heineken is the hipster's black canvas Chucks and Parliaments is a rapper's diamonds and Moet (er, and LV wallpaper?!?) - they're all just symbols, your "costume" or "role" if you will....if the materialism in hiphop has gotten extreme, I think it's just matching the extremely pervasive level of object fetishment that we live and deal with everyday. hiphop has long since proved its ability to be profitable, so that is going to natually get the attention of The Market who'll all want to come to the party and make a buck off it. most (not all) artists happily go along for the ride because they finally get to eat, if not way more than that.
"Getting Over/Making It/Success" is a pretty common thread in pop culture regardless of what corner of it you're looking at: pop music (Pink rides in a Benz, Skateboard P namedrops yachts), jazz (Joshua Redman hawks DKNY), tv shows (the Jeffersons are moving on up, Mary Tyler Moore is going to make it after all, some kid from the sticks is Your Next American Idol). selling the image of success is big business: some people are going to buy into The Life associated with a product full-on, and others won't. and if nothing else, if the masses want to buy 50 records by the truckload and the Akademiks tracksuit or whatever, that doesn't mean you have to - there's tons of other artists who'd love to have your attention and dollar, and won't try to sell you a sneaker in return. they may not "shift units" but that means nothing in terms of quality assurance. personally I think we're seeing a pendulum swing back to "thinking small" and a re-awareness that just because an idea - artisitc or otherwise - may not make you a million dollars doesn't mean that it's not worth doing. that may also be me being in my 30s and moving on from the pure mind-candy stuff that pretty much dominates your universe in your 20s and looking to other things for escapism that have always been there (see Mike Watt quote, above).
anyway, popcult critics/pomo freaks/elvis studies majors-types love to talk about this kinda "Signifier" stuff for days, and hiphop provides fodder for that kinda stuff in spades. if you want to read an interesting book about the shift from product-based marketing to lifestyle-based marketing, check for this book from Everyone's Favorite Curmudgeon, The Baffler's Thomas Frank:
Thinkin of a master plan
Cuz ain't nuthin but sweat inside my hand
So I dig into my pocket, all my money is spent
So I dig deeper but still comin up with lint
So I start my mission- leave my residence
Thinkin how could I get some dead presidents
I need money, I used to be a stick-up kid
So I think of all the devious things I did
I used to roll up, this is a hold up, ain't nuthin funny
Stop smiling, be still, don't nuthin move but the money
But now I learned to earn cos I'm righteous
I feel great! so maybe I might just
Search for a 9 to 5, if I strive
Then maybe I'll stay alive
So I walk up the street whistlin this
Feelin out of place cos, man, do I miss
A pen and a paper, a stereo, a tape of
Me and Eric B, and a nice big plate of
Fish, which is my favorite dish
But without no money it's still a wish
Cos I don't like to dream about gettin paid
So I dig into the books of the rhymes that I made
To now test to see if I got pull
Hit the studio, cos I'm paid in full
DUDE DO YOU LISTEN TO HIP-HOP OR JUST TALK ABOUT IT
But don't believe that this means I don't like or listen to everything open mindedly.
Of course they did it for fame, money, pussy, etc. It was not purely for the music. As soon as Flash was able to make some paper he was loving it and it went straight up his nose. There's that scene in Wild Style where Busy Bee is spelling his name out in money. Shit's never been that pure.
Anyway, it looks like 50 is saying here how he brought his team up and made sure everyone around him was independently situated good. If you are the boss of a crew, this is something you are allowed to brag about. He makes a very good point that nas was never able to manage that for those in his crew, regardless of his time spent in the game.
This seems to be a common misconception. I can name a lot of rap songs recorded before 1987 about money, drugs, and girls. I can't name too many that had a "message" (save for the obvious).
I dont get it, yall say you like rap music, but what the hell have you been listening to? You'd really rather they just rapped about rapping?
It's
I think "the founders" were just as into making money and spending it. A couple of thousand dollars from a gig was a lot of money for a ghetto kid. I don't think Flash and them guys bought all of those "white lines" with peanuts.
Making your team some money is not the point. making good music with them is. Its just lets say you would compare Shady rec to G-Unit. Both we're trying to bring in the crew. Oh fifty was more succesful with lloyd banks than em was with obie trice.(from an economical perspective)Is that the type of focus we and the rappers should have?
Trust that if "making good music" was the sole reward to be had in the rap game, 97% of rappers would not be doing it.
LOL
STAY BROKE OR DIE TRYING.
True. Its a fact. I was simply stating my discomfort with that situation.
I mean most rappers now have a market team behind them. I just dont like the productisation that implies. Its every thing wrong about the interations with the culture and corporate america.
A marketing team wants to get into a certain market. They take their van to the streets of baton rouge and check the hood out. Oh this guy has tatoos and he sells crack, nice... interesting bullet wounds... (getting a hardon at this point)
Then i mean the rapper does look out for himself and run his biz. But the way corporate exploit the culture (which og hiphop was denouncing) is galvanised by the ill-sided interests/actions of the succesful hiphop moguls. They dont stop it and prolly encourage it by looking out for their $$$ but i understand they just do it for themselves. Its just they could use it in a better way but dont and dont see they can. thats the flaw of inividualism/materialism. We can see the effect the money politics have had on 50.
Plain and simple rappers that use to rap for the hood (lets get out of this/socialstyle): jay-z (reas doubt), nas, to an extent mobb deep have had their careers and focusses tremendously altered when money came in (from good or worse) look at mobb deep now... all others krs,etc got their stake in the game they helped build get lowered. Where's G Rap's $$$ in lloyd bank's pockets? it could have been another way
Finall rant the South's popularity (no front on great southern acts that have repped for years) is similar to the latin music takeover of a while back (ricky martin, paulina rubino, shakira, jlo en castellano)
G-Unit global region team is