Hip Hop and Culture: Commodification and Authenticity
This paper examines the nature of the hip-hop music genre in contemporary American culture. The paper argues that the COM modification of hip-hop by its appeals to the white middle class and use of mass media resources to sell records has sterilized any authenticity of experience that the genre might once have had. In the end, commoditization has created a musical form whose only effect seems to be to reinforce negative stereotypes against African Americans.
