1 Jessica Baltmanas 9 December 2011 The Hip-hop Cultural Phenomenon Hip-hop is a musical style and cultural art form

that developed during the 1970s in Bronx, New York. Hip-hop culture has four essential pieces consisting of break-dancing, rapping, DJing, and graffiti writing. It began as a street culture by African-American and Latino communities in urban communities of New York, but soon became a rich global phenomenon. This paper will focus on the hip-hop cultural phenomenon with special interest on its place in communities of color living in urban areas, the commercialization of the culture, and its use as a diplomatic tool. By applying the tools of complexity, the hip-hop cultural phenomenon can be greater understood. In an interview, Jeff Chang, a hip-hop journalist and activist, retells the story of the development of hip-hop culture in his Hawaiian community. In the 1980s a lot of development began occurring, and Chang experienced his community become a concrete jungle seemingly overnight, representing a short time scale level of description in the system of hip-hops development in Changs life. The configuration of this transformation is the number of housing projects, business centers, and commercial industries that were erected. Over a longer time scale, Chang began to develop feelings of anger to the observations he made of the being surrounded by concrete and the conditions that came with that. He would recall memories

2 he had before his community had more gray than green, and would have a visceral reaction every time he walked through the streets by the pain brought about from the transformation of his community. Over a longer time scale, he was led to action by his emotions to resist to the urbanization of his community. In acts of resistance, he began to spin on concrete, spray graffiti, express himself through rhymes and turntables on the streets, demonstrating that his frustration will not be kept back. Over a longer time scale level of description, other youth began to join Chang and participate in these acts of resistance to the transformation of their community. Over a longer time scale, other youth were self-organizing by joining in these actions of resistance, forming a pattern of behavior. The patterns of these behaviors began to form a distinct culture of resistance. These communities were reacting directly to the concrete blocks that surrounded their homes and schools, creating a culture of expression and resistance to the urbanization they lived in and faced on a daily basis. The configuration of their acts of resistance are measured by the number of people that were with them in the movement, the walls they would spray on, and the streets they would rap, spin, and break on. Individual acts of street performing attracted others to participate in expressing their frustration with concrete in a positive way. These behavioral events of street form expression acted as a positive feedback to the formation of hip-hop culture. As more people would flock to the streets to express themselves, a pattern of behavioral

3 interactions was established. People knew what forms of resistance to expect over time. As the repeated behaviors of urbanites developed into a pattern of resistance, urban protest and story-telling acted as a stabilizing attractor for the emergence of a new cultural phenomenon. Hip-hop culture had its dynamical emergence once the pattern of expression stabilized, consisting of four key elements of rapping, DJing, break-dancing, and graffiti writing. With the established pattern, hip-hop culture became a slaving force for new urbanites in the community. The culture slaves the urban youth that move into the community because the established pattern is embedded as an essential part of urban culture, thus drawing individuals to act in accordance with the pattern dynamics of the four key elements. As slaving occurs, the culture gets dissipated throughout urban areas, smoothing out to become more prevalent and part of urban identity. These dynamics and the configuration of the number of urbanites participating in hip-hop culture in any way comprise the phase space of the system. Although the early hiphop culture was a street-based phenomenon, it came to experience negative feedbacks and a bifurcation. Over a longer time scale, the hip-hop culture had a configuration of many people involved in the culture through performances. However, hiphop was not exempt from colonization by the commercial music industry. The group Sugar Hill Gang produced a song called Rappers Delight, acting as the first commercially produced rap. Over a longer time scale, this rap

4 became dissipated through the air waves, normalizing in the ears of the listeners to the newly emergent hip-hop form heard on the radio. This form of music resulted in the possibility of higher dissipation of other recorded tracks. As Rappers Delight gained more airtime, it acted as a bifurcation to the original street form of hip-hop. This track single-handedly showed that commercial hip-hop is likeable and can be highly profitable, thus acting as an attractor for the development of commercial hip-hop and acting as a negative feedback loop to the focus on street hip-hop expression. The original hip-hop scene began to go through a transition. Over a longer time scale level of description, a pattern of commercialized music began to develop as the industry expanded to include more artists. The more it grew, the further it destabilized the original street art, acting as unstable attractor, with opposing lyrical content from the original hip-hop style focused on urban struggles. The configuration of this level of description would be the number of fans of the commercialized forms of hip-hop and the number of artists involved with its form. Over a longer time scale, hip-hop was no longer constrained to the streets due to the stabilization of commercial forms, making for competition for followers that did not exist before. Rappers no longer used expertise to represent the city. Instead, the hip-hop industry was purposefully marketing itself to consumers, telling of crimes and violence (Spence 37). Due to the emergence of the commercial hip-hop culture, the original movement was forced to a different attractor of

5 retreating underground. The original movement turned this way because the two fields were at odds with each other due to their different focuses and motivations for expression. Underground hip-hop remains a positive and influential force that is realistic in telling the struggles of urban life while commercial hip-hop is governed by a quest for money to support the multibillion dollar industry comprised of raps about sex, violence, and greed. Over longer time scales, the commercial form destabilizes the impact of the original street culture by its accessibility in stores and more peoples identification to the multibillion dollar industry form. The commercialized form has led to great dissipation of hip-hop music, spreading as a global phenomenon worldwide, both in urban and non-urban areas. Though hiphop was created by African-American and Latino youth on the streets of the Bronx, hip hop's influence has extended worldwide. Approximately 75 percent of the rap and hip-hop audience is now nonblack, whereas before it was largely a culture for people of color (Reese). The culture has gone from the fringes, to the suburbs, and into corporate assemblies. Even McDonald's, Coca Cola, Sprite, Nike, and other corporate giants have capitalized on this phenomenon. Although hip-hop culture is constantly perturbed by commercial greed, the original hip-hop scene continues to develop underground, acting as a stable attractor for hip-culture cultural expression. Though truly independent artists who want to be responsible for the lyrics and messages they convey might not be able to make it in the mainstream

6 nor desire to, they have an underground hip-hop world they can always be a part of. Attractors exist for the underground movement and commercial hiphop form. Attractors for the commercial hip-hop form include making money and conforming to the industry. The more the commercial industry grows, the greater the negative feedback is on the original hip-hop culture due to the popularity of the commercial material. Hip-hoppers may lose their interest in the early street form and retreat to their headphones of highly accessible commercial hip-hop music instead of getting out on the streets and rapping, writing graffiti, or break-dancing. The individual actions of participating in hip-hop culture also create a negative feedback of societal stigma, police repression, and policies of containment. These events act non-linearly to constrain the behavioral choices of people in urban communities to participate in hip-hop culture. The influence of hip-hop on lifestyle choices and influence has become undeniable. It was only a matter of time that governments caught up to the potential of using hip-hop as a political tool. Hip-hop came to be used by the US as a diplomatic tool, especially in the War on Terror. Although rap and hip-hop have been colonized by neoliberalism, there are forms of the popular culture that can be used to create new political opportunities (Spence 175). Like jazz that was used in the 1950s and 60s to improve Americas image around the world, a recent employment of hip-hop has been used to improve the poor perceptions of

7 the US worldwide, particularly in Muslim countries. When an interviewer asked Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, if hip-hop can be used as a chess piece she replied, Absolutely!"(Aidi) It took a long time scale level of description from the jazz envoys of Rhythm Road to turn into to the recent use of hip-hop in the War on Terror. The dynamics consist of artists staging performances that are followed by workshops. Over a short time scale level of description, an individual in the audience experiences the intensity of the performance. Perhaps this is their first exposure to hip-hop music and first time seeing what American music is like. As the performance continues, they may develop feelings toward the music; liking it, disliking it, wanting more, etc. After the performance, the individual attends the workshop that is spoken in their language. The workshop talks about what it means to be Muslim, their opinions of America, and discusses democracy. The configuration of these non-linear interactions is the number of people talking and any tools that may be used in the discussion. Hip-hop was used as a tool for traveling and embodying American progress in the integration of Muslims in American society since many hip-hop artists sent on these missions have been African-American Muslims. These dynamics are strategically used to demonstrate the progress of American democracy, equal rights for all, and the integration of American Muslims in society. The larger goal of these missions is to prevent dissent in the audience experiencing the performances and workshops. Over time, the intensity for

8 an individual in attendance dissipates. They move on in their life, surrounded by societal norms in ways of thinking, dressing, and behaving. However, the intensity of their experience and their memory of the performance and workshop may be remembered and relived daily in their memory. By doing this, the dissipation of the intensity of the experience does not smooth out quickly. Going from hip-hop activists protecting music from corporate greed, the conversation has shifted to music being used in diplomacy and counterterrorism. Due to the stabilization of the commercial forms of hip-hop culture, the use of hip-hop in diplomacy is the recent development of the cultural form. However, a great irony of the State Departments determination to model the integration of US Muslims through these hip-hop envoys is similar to that of the jazz tours when Jim Crow laws were still in place. Today, the symbolic acts of the integration of US Muslims through the hip-hop tours occur against a backdrop of an anti-mosque, sharia, and Muslim sentiment unprecedented in the US. Although hip-hop is being used by the US and other countries diplomatically, these countries ought to ensure the stability of the dynamics within their countries first. First exploited by corporate interests to being used by governments, hip-hops development and transitions have been loaded with a rich history. However colonized and exploited, rap lyrics have been found to be influential. Rap influences attitudes. Hip-hop and rap open up a space for artists and the audience to be involved in politics (Spence 166). Rap consumption

9 and exposure do shape political attitudes and has been used politically to mobilize constituencies as well as a diplomatic tool for improving countries images. Hip-hop has persevered through bifurcations of policies of containment that have limited participation in hip-hop culture. These policies of containment demonstrate that there is a certain fear associated with its continuity and prevalence. The exhibited fear validates that hip-hop is powerful, non-linearly interacting with urban communities. A study found that people who consumed rap in the early 1990s were more likely to support tenets of Black Nationalism, more likely to engage in nontraditional political behavior, and the youth who consumed rap in the early years of the twenty-first century more likely to express criticism of the legality of something (Spence 166). The study demonstrates that over a long time scale, listening to rap has influenced political attitudes and concepts of identity. Hop-hop went from being a protest against urbanization and the struggle of urban life to resonating with marginalized Muslims worldwide through the use of US hip-hop diplomacy envoys. From the cities of Paris to Palestine to Kyrgyzstan, there is a uniting spirit of expression against oppression. Hip-hop is this expression of struggle against the authority of governments and urban forms of domination. Hip-hop has proven to be the language transcending all barriers and will continue to develop, stabilize, and live on as a powerful cultural global phenomenon.

10 Citations 1. Hip hop Culture By Emmett George Price 2. Hip-Hop Culture By Wendy Garofoli, Emmett G. Price, III Ph.D 3. Cultural Collision and Collusion : Reflections on Hip-hop Culture, Values, and Schools By Floyd D. Beachum, Carlos R. McCray 4. Black in School : Afrocentric Reform, Urban Youth & the Promise of Hiphop Culture By Shawn A. Ginwright 5. Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics By Lester K. Spence 6. Promoting Academic Literacy with Urban Youth through Engaging HipHop Culture. Ernest Morrell and Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade. The English Journal. Vol. 91, No. 6 (Jul., 2002), pp. 88-92. Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/821822 7. Hip-hop Nation: The Undeveloped Social Capital of Black Urban America. Lisa Y. Sullivan http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ncr.4100860309/abstract 8. The Culture and Politics of Graffiti Art. Timothy Werwath. Mar. 19, 2006. http://www.graffiti.org/faq/werwath/werwath.html 9. From the Fringe: The Hip Hop Culture and Ethnic Relations. R.Reese, Popular Culture Review, volume XI, no.2, Summer 2000.

11 http://www.csupomona.edu/~rrreese/HIPHOP.HTML 10. Video: Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels Of ATCQ by Michael Rapaport. http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzA5MDY2Mjc2.html 11. Interview with Jeff Chang. ISR Issue 48, JulyAugust 2006. http://www.isreview.org/issues/48/changinterview.shtml 12. Leveraging Hip Hop in US Foreign Policy. Hishaam Aidi. Nov 07, 2011. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/10/20111030910182 99924.html 13. Hishaam Aidi. Race, Rap and Raison d'Etat" MERIP Fall 2011. http://columbia.academia.edu/HishaamAidi/Papers/908662/_Race_Ra p_and_Raison_dEtat_MERIP_Fall_2011