The Commodification and Control of Black Hip-Hop and Rap Artists

Abstract

Hip Hop, beginning in the 1970s, became popular for the intention to celebrate black liberation. This paper analyzes the commercialization of Hip-hop between the years of the early 2000s to the present day. The mass media attempts to suppress and oppress the lyrics that highlight the injustices of the country. I will ask the following: (1) What ways or strategies has society used to commercialize the identities of black hip-hop artists? (2) How can we compare mainstream rap to conscious rap in terms of content? (3) How are conscious rap artists navigating and resisting societal constraints and criticizing their identities? I argue that black hip-hop artists are mostly recognized with content that is categorized as mainstream or commercial. Although this is the case, black women and men in political rap have found loopholes to get their messages across, but also many artists give up on doing so because of the difficulty of the knowledge that commercial rappers can obtain a lot more money in a short amount of time.