Date of Graduation
2008
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MA
Committee Chair
Ronald Althouse
Abstract
This thesis examines the changes in authenticity in rap lyrics between 1997 and 2004. Throughout its American history, Black music has expressed the lived experiences, the psychological realities, of Africans in diaspora and has always functioned to help create, negotiate and maintain cultural identity or “Blackness”. Within the last 20 years, rap music has undergone a tremendous amount of commercialization and appropriation by capitalistic culture industries and their largely white consumer base which has resulted in the widespread assimilation of black cultural expression into popular (white) culture. Rap artists increasingly invoke their authenticity as a way of preserving their cultural and artistic identities in the face of cultural assimilation. By comparing the dimensions of authenticity applied across time, it becomes evident that authenticity, and by extension “Blackness,” becomes synonymous with a single dimension. Here, authenticity is measured in the promotion of (hyper)masculinity as defined by white patriarchal society. In this sense, mainstream rap music is unable to create, negotiate and maintain Black cultural identity.
Recommended Citation
Tummons, Jonathan P., "Cultural assimilation, appropriation and commercialization: Authenticity in rap music, 1997-2004." (2008). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD). 11102.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/11102