One of the things we’ve been talking about recently at Desedo is the fluidity of identity. How different situations bring out different facets of one’s personality or brand and how this fluidity gives a picture in the round of a complex object. Witness Kanye West performing with Jay-Z in three acts:
Hip-hop
Hip-hop for adults
International superstars
What we also see in these photographs is the progression both men have made as they’ve grown from being popular in hip-hop four years ago to pop icons today.
Incidentally, Webster’s lists the etymology of the word swag as potentially derived from the Norwegian svagga to sway, rock; akin to Middle Low German swacken to rock. In other words, last night’s Grammy performance was a return to form.
More reasons why the world needs more tuxedo owners and their swagger (like us).
MillerCoors is discontinuing Sparks due to government concerns that it was too popular with teenagers and its energy and booze combination was dangerous…
I guess I understand that it’s important to protect our impressionable youth; they are our future, after all. [But] lets be honest – has anyone ever actually enjoyed a Sparks “responsibly”?
Drinking Sparks created the Fun Dipesque byproduct of an orange tongue. Such markings of use are an advertisers dream. Alas it’s the U21 set who derived the most pleasure from it.
No surprise that the bev was the brainchild of a marketing firm – McKenzie River. These are the same folks who hired rappers in the way back to shill for St. Ides – one of the first marketing moves into the rugged hip-hop space, presaging 50 and Vitamin Water. Impressionable lad that I was, the Crooked I was my first 40.
Love this new vid, made by Evan Roth, one of the originals from Graffiti Research Lab. And, uh, anyone else think Jay cribbed that voice-buckle from Wayne?
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link from Michael Karnjanaprakorn
At its root, hip-hop has always mixed tech and middle-finger D.I.Y. with open-source. It’s why there are so many different “purple drank” recipes on the web and the raison d’être of the Urban Dictionary. Enter the Graffiti Research Lab — one of the more novel embodiments of all three of these things, but with the backing of the art establishment.
You might have missed the last time when G.R.L. got the MoMa invite, or thought that since the words “F— You Snobs,” appeared in their presentation sometime after a phallus that they’d fail to get another. But the fusion of tech, open-source, and street art is just too compelling a concoction to turn down and thus the G.R.L.’s DVD will make its New York premier at MoMa in two weeks. There is, to be sure, an alluring tight rope that separates the worlds of the graf (anti) establishment and the places where the film has shown — places like Sundance. Many of the graf writers in attendance in the video below obscure their faces even as the bubbly swirls around them — probably as much for affect as for security, but the point is inescapable.
In speaking with Evan, one of the founders, nearly two years ago, he mentioned that one of the difficult parts in getting started was in convincing many of the graf writers that he wasn’t out to arrest them. But in graffiti as in hip-hop, being more visible or “up” trumps being obscure (I’m sure Shepard Fairey and Marc Ecko would agree). It follows, then, that the party video is set to Jay-Z and not the Artifacts. Let’s just hope they swerve the right drinks at the after-party.
Ah, what the hell. Artifacts from back in the day:
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True to their D.I.Y. roots, the G.R.L. has made a torrent of their dvd available here.
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UPDATES
4/21/08: NYPost says that NYC graf is on the rise.
The 2 strongest troupes from the MTV hit America’s Best Dance Crew, Jabbawockeez and Kaba Modern, help to illustrate that US BBoying is now very much ‘an Asian thing’. While Asian agency in hip-hop has been big since the late 90’s (turntablism + sneaker culture being the strongest), it’s now gonna go pop on the mass culture radar. Soon a raft of them cool brands will have ads featuring Asian breakers, a new move in representational politics for the danceform.
0eN9KP6lOZs (the dad in the above McDonalds spot is not just wondering “What is my kid doing?” but “Who is this ad reaching?”)
In addition to the MTV show, the sharp doco Planet BBoy takes this conversation onto the global level, examining different crews from around the world. Witness a clip on the recent Korean BBoy explosion:
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In all honesty, the last thing I want to see is more hip-hop used in adverts. In the 80’s, BBoys and breaking were overexposed in pop culture, and the form went back underground. Twenty years hence, with this ‘new’ BBoy writ large, I do wonder what connections (or caricatures) will come from Madison Avenue. (photog credit)
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6/10/08 Model Minority?
I hate to sound like a broken record on this one, but umm:
…the nerd who is possessed wholly of a black American masculinity is a specific character that enjoys a renaissance today even as the hip-hop world continues to project a cartoonishly grotesque opposite.
…the proliferation of media voices and sources enabled by the internet has allowed a more nuanced and less gangster voice of young black America to emerge untempered by market concerns and sensationalism.
When I originally wrote about black nerds, much of the backlash in the comments amounted to something like this: What are you talking about!? There have been black nerds forever!!; this despite the fact that I had made the same point in the piece. And while there were enough sane comments for a decent conversation to ensue, an email exchange with one of the ranters contained this gem, “I don’t think I fully read your article the first time.” SMH.
The thrust of the piece remains vital — that because of our more democratized communication tools we are beginning to see a more accurate depiction of black america. Mainly because that media is actually being created by, ahem, black people. But all of these things are articulated more succinctly by the SEO Rapper above, whose seamless integration of the swagger required of an MC with the pedantry of the digerati is too smooth for hypertext.
“Crank That” content occupies 5 of the top 100 YouTube videos. Advertising and Academia have written great articles and case studies about the Soulja Boy phenomenon. Even Disney let copyrights slide to join the party. Yup, it’s a new media coup.
Last fall there was a flurry in the blogosphere about the lyrical ‘translation’, but it didn’t go viral, so the song and the artist have not been outcast by corporate America.
The song/dance has remixed past the point of authorial intent, so the fact that people age 6-66 are Cranking in the classroom and at halftime is not really a prob, just really funny. It’s another example of hip-hop subverting dominant linguistic paradigms while working within it. Like in 2003 how Dave Chappelle and Lil’ Jon had millions of Americans blindly saying Skeet Skeet. Or in the late 90’s when LL Cool J slipped a FUBU ad into the text of a Gap TV spot – LL says on camera “For Us, By Us, on the low”. It flew under the radar of both the client and the agency, whom I’m guessing just heard it as some cool urban lingo, not an encoded advert for their competition.
