The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City - New Edition by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett

Author:Elizabeth Currid-Halkett [Currid-Halkett, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Urban & Regional, Social Science, Popular Culture, Industries, General, Economics, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Music, Business Aspects, Fashion & Textile Industry, Entertainment, Sociology, Urban
ISBN: 9780691138749
Google: bufaDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0691138745
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2008-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

The ALIFE stores on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side. Cult stores and hangout for sneakerheads and street wear aficionados. Photographer: Frederick McSwain. © Frederick McSwain. Used by permission.

The same can be said of rappers and hip-hop musicians. Radio stations like New York City’s Hot 97 advertise themselves as “strictly from the streets, yo!” while hip-hop musicians do fashion shoots and events for sneaker companies. Further, a listen to any of the music coming from Hot 97 or Power 105 reveals that hip-hop artists use their innercity origins (whether embellished or not) as a part of their mainstream music careers.

Consider Tupac Shakur, arguably one of the most respected and prolific rap musicians in the history of the genre.11 Born in Brooklyn in 1971, Tupac moved to Oakland, California, where he later joined the group Digital Underground, first as a dancer and later as a rapper. He then began producing his own albums, each successive one becoming increasingly popular, and started a successful acting career, most notably co-starring in Poetic Justice alongside Janet Jackson and later appearing in Above the Rim. Increasingly, however, his private life and his musical production were intersecting for better or for worse. Tupac was arrested several times (for assaulting a rapper with a baseball bat, among other deviances) and incarcerated (for sexually assaulting a woman). Despite Tupac’s private life problems, his music remained outrageously popular (his platinum album Me Against the World remained number one on the charts for four weeks while he was in jail). His thriving career was stopped short when he was shot in 1996 after leaving the Mike Tyson–Bruce Seldon boxing match in Las Vegas. He died six days later. Coincidentally, he was with Suge Knight (the producer of Tupac’s label Death Row Records), who in 2005 was also mysteriously shot in the leg while in Miami. This long description of Tupac ties directly into how Tupac and his record labels marketed him. The fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, a thug—both in reality and in his hit songs—lent him the type of credibility that made him a world-renowned rapper. Being deviant, somewhat dangerous, and part of a rebellious subculture gave him cachet.

Tupac’s draw to his original cultural landscape is central to hip-hop’s credibility. Hip-hop musicians and graffiti writers systematically draw from inner-city culture in their efforts to establish their legitimacy in the marketplace. This marketplace extends from music to the accoutrements of hip-hop culture such as throwback athletic jerseys,12 hats, big jeans, and expensive sneakers.

Embedded in the pervasiveness of hip-hop is the expectation that musicians will also participate in other forms of production. Part of this latter phenomenon has to do with the demand by consumers to commodify all forms of the culture. It is not enough just to listen to the music, but to also wear the gear and understand the character. As Q, the manager of the Xecutioners, explained to me, “You’re not a successful rapper if you don’t have your own clothing line or your own movie.

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