Kyle Collins You da Realest Rapper Breathing if I hold my Breath: Importance of Authenticity in Hip-Hop Culture Realness.

The holy grail of the rap game rears its head in every aspect of Hip-Hop culture. It is the characteristic for which rappers will go at great lengths to obtain or defend. Having this authenticity not only earns rappers respect that they so desperately toil for, but it also gives them an aspect that increases their popularity and revenue. The authenticity has in it characteristics which are largely racialized and considered as possessed by minority groups. This proves to be a significant challenge when white rappers try to enter the game as it is so called. This paper will look at five articles and provide summaries to give a more complete view of how important authenticity is in hip-hop culture, what the characteristics of authenticity are, and the challenges those characteristics pose for white rappers trying to ply their trade in the rap game. To understand the racialized aspect of authenticity within hip hop culture, it is important to first see what makes rap so desirable. Davin Thompson tackles this issue in his article entitled Hip-Hop: The Medium for Urban Youth. Thompson claims that in urban environments where life is rough and everything is in pieces, people pick up the pieces to make culture (Thompson 2008). The article this idea to frame the rest of its argument. Thompson continues to talk about an organization he is involved in called B.U.M.P records to illustrate that hip hop as a median for communication can be useful in educating urban youth and giving them an outlet to discuss the negative events that happened in their life. Hip-hop to him is such an effective means of communication because it is, in its essence, an expressive culture (Thompson 2008). It is not merely an expressive culture, but it is also a culture that connects others to a larger community of people who have suffered the same things that the artist is dealing with. He goes on to argue that hip-hop is an art from that must be taught to urban students to become a

useful piece of art in society. According to the article, hip-hop gives urban youth confidence to express their political and social views by infusing these beliefs into a work of art and something they can be proud of. These are so effective because of the common struggles that urban youth face on a daily basis. He concludes his article by stating that urban youth pick up where [they] left off, they being those men and women that fought for civil rights and for minority voices being heard. Putting hip hop in this frame of mind connects the urban youth not only to the communities they are a part of now, but the larger community of minority heros that fought for civil rights. This, however, narrows hip-hop to being largely a rough, urban, minority undertaking. In the framework of the importance of hip-hop, one can now beg the question why is authenticity so important to hip-hop culture? Kembrew Mcleod writes an article concerning this topic, and he argues that the reason for a focus on authenticity within hip-hop culture is that it was a minority culture that is now threatened with assimilation. Mcleod starts his article by bringing to the forefront the historic ascendancy of rap music in culture. This ascendancy began in 1988 with hip hop bringing in $100 mil in revenue (Mcleod 2006). Prior to this, hip hop was very much a marginal music industry with a following almost exclusively in the minority population. Throughout the 90s hip hop gained a much larger following in American popular culture. It is because of this that authenticity developed as an important aspect of hip hop culture. Mcleod argues that authenticity is formed around topics that include hip hop music, racial identification, the music industry, social location, individualism, and gender and sexual roles (Mcleod 2006). He defines these as semantic dimensions that have coded within them aspects of being real or fake. For example being real in the racial dimension is black and in the socialpsychological it is staying true to yourself. The authentic rapper was brought up in the street, and

their music is underground. In these semantic discourses, the real is the one that is valorized and sought after in hip hop music. Conversely, one is considered fake when he is the opposite of this namely that he be soft, follow mass trends, identify oneself White, mainstream culture that is located in the suburbs. Mcleod argues that all of the definition of what is real and what is fake comes in the framework of a culture threatened with assimilation. The fake are those traits which most closely resemble being assimilated into the dominant culture while those real characteristics are those that are in rebellion against the dominant culture. This rebellion against assimilation is to convey the message that hip hop is, at its core, a pure and untouched culture even though it is immensely popular. He concludes by illuminating that fact that hip hop is largely an African American cultural movement. The force that propels rappers to emphasize authenticity comes from the large push in the African American community not to assimilate into Euro-American Culture. It reflects the larger attempt to preserve aspects of African American culture that are unique from Euro-American culture. The struggle to maintain Authenticity within hip hop culture leads to difficulty from outsiders to enter into the industry and for racial barriers to be torn down. Mickey Hess examines three rap artists: Vanilla Ice, Eminem, and the Beastie Boys to explain the strategies that white artists use to find their place within authentic hip hop culture. He begins by discussing what real hip hop is framed as. In his analysis, he finds that real hip hop is black expressive culture facing appropriation by a white-controlled record industry (Hess 2005). In his analysis, he finds that Vanilla Ice fabricated his image in order to gain respect and a following within hip-hop culture, while others like Eminem framed their whiteness as becoming part of the struggle to enter into the rap game. The racialized aspect of hip hop is also established in this article. Hess shows that hip hop is rooted in African-American rhetoric, and the cultural aspects come from

black rhetorical traditions (Hess 2005). This establishment of hip hop as an African-American rhetorical experience creates a tension between black artists and the overwhelmingly white record label executives. This tension conveys whiteness as a negative aspect and one that would prevent a white artist from gaining a following in hip hop. Hess discusses that in the early days of hip hop, white artists did not have to try to adhere to the African American idea of authenticity, but they were met with acceptance by their peers. However, as hip hop became more and more mainstream, the stigma of the white, privileged record label executive began to emerge. Once this emerged, White artists had to negotiate a way to be seen authentic, and Hess uses Vanilla Ice as an example of this. Vanilla Ice came from a privileged background, and did not face the struggles commonly associated with authenticity within hip hop culture. Vanilla Ice, to gain respect, fabricated his upbringing and tried to be seen as a rapper from the ghetto just like his other counterparts. He, of course, was found out, and this created a greater divide between young black teenagers who claimed cultural blackness to set them apart from whites. This created a separation of whiteness from hip hop authenticity. Hess then examines Eminem and his move toward integration. Eminem constantly begs listeners in his lyrics to look past his whiteness and toward him as an artist. He also is critical of the racial landscape that framed hiphop and the idea that whites are just there to profit from black forms of music. Eminems move away from racially distinguished music and toward a focus on the music and issues faced by both races helped to frame him as an authentic rapper. Todd Fraley further examines the struggle for authenticity with special focus on Eminems career. He focuses his article around the idea that Eminem does not want to be placed in the white rapper category, but he would rather be known an appreciated simply for his skills. This statement by Eminem is telling because it shows that hip hop authenticity is highly reliant

on the social construction of race. Fraley begins by discussing what races importance in culture is. He claims , Race offers a process of giving things meaning by assigning them to different positions within a classificatory system that is the basis for that symbolic order we call culture (Fraley 2009). Fraley claims that the media is particularly important in constructing the ideas of Whiteness and Blackness and creating this social divide in hip hop culture. He then, with the framework of social constructions of race, moves on to the importance of authenticity within hip hop. He found that white artists imitating Black styles of hip hop, such as the beastie boys, have greater economic opportunity because of access to larger audiences. Imitating the black style, however, comes at depicting oneself as being authentic in the African-American sense. This includes coming from a struggle, being hard, and representing the street lifestyle. This is important because allows them to be seen as capable of legitimately interpreting the culture from which hip hop comes. Fraley found that the audience must be the ones who determine whether or not you are real, so the artists, white or black, must appeal to the characteristics of Authenticity. He found that the most successful white artists, such as Eminem, did not deny their whiteness, but chose to be conspicuously white (Fraley 2009). Eminem then has to not only accept his whiteness, but also appeal to the broader hip hop audience by possessing traits that are characteristic of authenticity in Hip Hop.

Works Cited Fraley, Todd. "I Got Natural Skill...: Hip Hop, Authenticity, and Whiteness." Howard Journal of Communications 20.1 (2009): 37-54. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. Hess, Mickey. "Hip Hop Realness and the White Performer." Critical Studies in Media Communication 22.5 (2005): 372-89. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. Mcleod, Kembrew. "Authenticity Within Hip-Hop and Other Cultures Threatened with Assimilation." Journal of Communication 49.4 (2006): 134-50. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. Thompson, David. "Hip-Hop: The Medium for Urban Youth." Youth Media Reporter 6th ser. 2.1 (2008): 55-57. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.