The Hip-Hop community is one that started long before the days of the internet becoming a viable medium of socializing. However I believe that Hip-Hop is now one of the most synonymous communities with social media. From reddit, memes, twitter to online magazines and forums, Hip-Hop can be found in any crevice of the internet in one way or another. I believe that Hip-Hop’s prominence on the internet is at such a high caliber that it in turn affects all culture and language in the entire world and especially in the United States.
All my life, Hip-Hop has been a part of me. Growing up in New York City it was almost inevitable that I would come across it, as I lived in the birthplace of the culture. As I got older I fell more and more in love with the community. I was no longer in love with just the music, but the history, the skill and the culture. Online I have already been a part of many communities and pages that allow me to keep in touch and socialize with the fellow members of the culture. On reddit for example, r/HipHopHeads is a forum in which it’s all about the lyrics. Everyone in this forum appreciates elite lyricism and they make posts on said lyricism while the other members chime in with their own opinions. On Instagram there are pages like Dj Akademiks’ page in which, ‘Akademiks’ (The admin and personality behind the page) reports on everything Hip-Hop from incidents to new music drops. Simply said, there is no shortage of Hip-Hop online. While figuring out which platforms to choose, it was really easy. As I was making these choices, I simply chose platforms and communities that I had seen and was familiar with and approached them as an outsider mixed with the prior knowledge of an insider. I decided to use Reddit and Instagram.
As I tried to remove myself from this subculture, to have a more objective view, I noticed a recurring dynamic. Traditional Hip-Hop lovers vs the new age. Although Hip-Hop is so prominent now, the community and genre is only about 50 years old. This means that a lot of ideologies and trains of thoughts from different eras of rap are still alive today. The two biggest and clashing eras are the 90s – 00s era and the late 10s+ era. These two eras could not be more different. Not only is the music different but so are the people listening to the music. Although there are some artists and everyday listeners that could of course travel from era to era, that cannot be said for the majority.
Here we have two posts from forums dedicated to two very different artists, one from the 90s and one from this current era.
There are a couple of things that I would like to point out about each rapper’s individual forum. Tupac’s forum(left) has 7.1k members, Lil Uzi Vert’s forum (right) has 139k members. By these numbers you would think that Lil Uzi Vert is just the better artist, however, commercially Tupac was more successful than Lil Uzi Vert was/is for the most part. Then how can this giant disparity in members be explained? Does Tupac just have less fans? Well for starters he is no longer alive and active in music. However any prominent rapper now, has more members/followers than any rapper from the 90s and 00s. This has to do with the fact that the demographics of each rapper has evolved and so has Hip-Hop the genre. See in the 90s and 00s music was physically sold, but with the internet, streaming is how most people are listening.
Now forum and numbers aside, let’s analyze these two posts. On the left we have Tupac fans discussing his influence, while on the right we have a Lil Uzi fan praising his tweet in which he denounces old school Hip Hop ideals. Uzi says “I’m not a Rapper all them lyrical bars and [explicitive] nah….”. Lyricism being the main focus in what many consider the golden age of Hip-Hop(90s), this would anger a lot of old school traditional fans of the genre, but they aren’t listening to Uzi anyways. Furthermore the Tupac fans on the left are analyzing parallels between the late rapper and current rappers who seem to have borrowed and been influenced from and by him.
Now, since we have established how the members of the Hip-Hop community on the internet looks, we will move on to a very prominent instagram page, Dj Akademiks.. In these next pictures you can see how current Hip-Hop fans react when the numbers that an album is doing are released
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The term “W” can be seen all throughout the comments of this post. This is a relatively new thing that people started commenting online. It simply means win/winning/won. A very prominent rapper J.cole has recently dropped an album and the people in the comments of Dj Akademiks’ post are congratulating him on his accomplishment and projected sales. While some other people are being critical and saying he should be doing more based on his stature and quality of rap.
As I observed Hip-Hop from an outsider’s point of view and put biases aside(such as the fact that I am from New York and am attracted mostly to New York style rap) I realized one important thing. Everyone in this community is just trying to listen to music that they enjoy. It didn’t matter if it was a traditional member or a new one, all they like to do is listen to their music. Another thing I noticed was the lack of gatekeeping. I will have to admit, from the 2000’s and before, there were obvious gatekeepers. You couldn’t be a successful rapper without a record label and you were not going to be successful without getting plays on the radio. Now with the expansion of the internet, rappers and even just artists have so much information and technology at their disposal that none of this stuff is needed. A radio station would be laughed at if they felt as though they still held weight and leverage in a rappers success. It is completely free to upload music online, and all the tools to record music can be found on a mobile device. For that reason I believe that this subculture genuinely has no gate keeping. However there are things that will make it harder for you to be accepted and respected by the community. Sadly, the community of hip-hop is very hesitant in letting white rappers and female rappers get the respect they deserve. The white aspect comes from the history of race in America. The female apsect comes from the years of misogyny and male dominance in the field. However this is not a rule, as two of the greatest, successful and acclaimed rappers are Eminem(white) and Nicki Minaj (female). Their path to acceptance was harder than others, but they were able to make their mark on the culture, even with the subtle identity gatekeeping. If I were to further investigate this subculture, these aspects of old vs new gatekeeping is something I would love to elaborate upon.
Reflection:
While writing this essay I found it very easy to write. The reasons are probably because I knew exactly what I would be writing about from the beginning as I am a member of the subculture. However it was a little challenging keeping it objective and observing from a scientific perspective. Selecting the communities I would explore was very easy as I said previously because I had already been a part of them, that is why I chose Instagram and Reddit. I feel the outcome was outstanding as I was able to show pictures of each community from an outside perspective. The most interesting discovery I made was in the difference between eras and thei presence online. This came when I tried to find the reddit for Jay Z, one of the rappers that is constantly in the greatest of all time conversation, I was shocked to find out that his reddit has less than 1,000 members. This was incredibly shocking, but it goes to show the difference between eras and fans. There just aren’t many Jay Z fans that are active on reddit I assumed. Primary sources I went to were my friends and personal experiences in which people tried to make it in the rap game. I was able to learn my biases, observe a subculture and its community from a social-scientist perspective. I intend the reader to better understand some of the dynamics and diversity inside of the subculture of Rap, as well to learn how easy it is for the most part to become a part of it. I wrote this essay in a flow of stream kind of way, I just wrote it in what seemed to make sense for a chronological analysis of the community. One thing I would have loved to improve upon is the overall depthness of my essay. I wish I had gone into more detail on many of the issues in the community etc…
References
- Conrad, J. B. (2011). The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy. Library Journal, 136(12), 97.
- Lewis, N. (2006). Is (Black) America Dying Slowly? The Interstices Between Hip Hop Culture and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic. Conference Papers — Association for the Study of African American Life & History,
