Tweeny eminem kids, Tupac as Bob Marleys older brother, Honda civic driving gang
bangers, DJ Shadow loving students, Girls who buy shop sound system RnB CDs and finally
the ever-decreasing unit of hiphop DJs who play out.
Money players and slick crooning are the American benchmarks the current generation has
been raised on as a norm. This representation of hip-hop culture is introduced primarily
to an audience as visual gratification. Advertising concepts that use the look of hiphop
refined this visual typeface from the late eighties. The flamboyant street characters that
populated Blondie's rapture video superseded ad lands fonziesque teen rebels that in turn
preceded the Blinged armies of the night currently populating tabloid TV.
Advertising profiles point to the substantial disposable income of what was once known
as the WIGGER market as a growth area. Today's Irish homeboy has an easy relationship
with all of this. A version of culture on request is mediated through his specific
entertainment requirements. The mainstream American Rap industry showboats cartoon product
at a level that makes the synergy between product and consumer quite transparent. Eminems
classic commercial product / comment in his work, encapsulates this.
The discerning consumer, primarily a middle class collage educated, shadow ticket
buying individual is not exempt from the loop either, as much as he would like to think.
The system just polishes a few more baubles to make up for him [and it is a him] not buying an D12 CD. What are turntabilist magazines for? Why do the
graphics on all his purchases look the same? This individuals entropic relationship within
a privileged definition of the hiphop game often denies many of the core values of hiphops
truth. How many of the audience that attended shadow in the ambassador would organize a
bus to travel to a graff festival 50 miles from Dublin?
The small band of DJs and producers, writers and breakers who have always existed
scarily in Eire operate as keepers of the flame and as unrecognized mediators between
contemporary excess and historical despondency.constitute the smallest audience of all.
The depressing ramblings clogging up the bulletin boards railing against anything old
school are again another manifestation of playstation solutions existing in virtual words.
All city get players cussing working producers without any demos to back up their whining
on a regular basis.
Hip-hop has very few rules but they are not hidden. Respect the cornerstone of DJ/
mc/graff/ breaking. Knowledge is power. Know yourself through your work, If you are a
supporter this is a vital part of the scenario too, Take it seriously.
Ten years ago hip-hop was force that demanded responsibility. The blatant lack of
morals that many of the current generation show to the game is primarily consumerist
related. The signs of implosion appearing are the transparent mechanics of the product
agenda made visible. Market led forces have successfully operated a divide and conquer
strategy.
Defining the hip hop audience in Ireland is a negatively simple exercise within these
perimeters and one that those who care know instinctively yet it must be stated again.
There is a small group of media individuals who use their jobsworth platforms to
perpetrate the current malaise, while enjoying trainer clad self appointed membership
within the culture. These need to be called out for a start. It is more than irresponsible
for byline writers to start any piece on messiah j and DJ flip with the phrase "for
too long Irish hip hop has been regarded as a joke". In 15 years there has only been
one profile of mek and scary Eire [1993.eammon Carr in the evening herald] this is not
meks fault either, as much as these non appointed custodians would like to believe. In the
absence of the slate and the established arbitrariness of the net, these individuals
actively maintain the current stasis with yawning ease.
Market forces will always win out. The audience as it currently stands is currently
being processed for the next generation of consumer applications, Ringtones.. Software
with contained samples.. The degradation of the written word. All symptoms of an organized
industry combined with the absence of an organized critique tending to define once and for
all hip-hop as disposable product,
SEAMUS FLANAGAN
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