Representations of Black Masculinity in the 2010's Hip Hop

AbstractMainstream hip hop videos have long been known for their images of scantily clad women, extreme materialism, and misogynist and homophobic lyrics. In this article I focus on how rapper 50 Cent's masculinity is constructed and expressed through music, lyrics and images in his video ‘Candy Shop’ from 2005. This is a classically modelled hip hop video, replete with markers of hypermasculinity: fancy cars, ‘bling’, and lots of beautiful, sexually available women. Several scholars have discussed how women are exploited in videos like this and reduced to props for the male star. However, few have explored how this macho masculinity is constructed. Through a close reading of this video, using socio-musicology and audiovisual analysis as my approach, I propose that the macho masculinity presented here is threatened when the male body is on display, but 50 Cent reassures himself (and his audience) through selective framing, involving both other performers and the music.

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Black Masculinity and Hip-Hop Music

10.1007/978-981-13-3513-6 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Xinling Li

Keyword(s):

Hip Hop ◽

Black Masculinity ◽

Hip Hop Music

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From Jim Crow to Jay-Z

10.5406/illinois/9780252036620.001.0001 ◽

2011 ◽

Cited By ~ 40

Author(s):

Miles White

Keyword(s):

Popular Culture ◽

Black Male ◽

Hip Hop ◽

Young Male ◽

Black Masculinity ◽

The United States ◽

The Body ◽

Hip Hop Culture ◽

Action Films ◽

Jay Z

This multilayered study of the representation of black masculinity in musical and cultural performance takes aim at the reduction of African American male culture to stereotypes of deviance, misogyny, and excess. Broadening the significance of hip-hop culture by linking it to other expressive forms within popular culture, the book examines how these representations have both encouraged the demonization of young black males in the United States and abroad and contributed to the construction of their identities. The book traces black male representations to chattel slavery and American minstrelsy as early examples of fetishization and commodification of black male subjectivity. Continuing with diverse discussions including black action films, heavyweight prizefighting, Elvis Presley's performance of blackness, and white rappers such as Vanilla Ice and Eminem, the book establishes a sophisticated framework for interpreting and critiquing black masculinity in hip-hop music and culture. Arguing that black music has undeniably shaped American popular culture and that hip-hop tropes have exerted a defining influence on young male aspirations and behavior, the book draws a critical link between the body, musical sound, and the construction of identity.

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The Fire This Time

10.5406/illinois/9780252036620.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Miles White

Keyword(s):

Black Male ◽

Hip Hop ◽

Black Masculinity ◽

Male Body ◽

Cultural Complex ◽

Racial Perceptions ◽

Hip Hop Music ◽

Geographical Locations

This chapter focuses on comparisons between minstrelsy and constructions of black masculinity in hip-hop music and culture, particularly the context of hard and hardcore styles of rap performance. Since minstrelsy, blackness has been one of America's primary cultural exports. Furthermore, hip-hop music and culture have been integral in the construction of a new cultural complex of racial perceptions about black masculinity and the black male body. In addition, the chapter shows how black masculinity can be relocated and transposed not simply to other geographical locations, but onto other kinds of bodies in representations that reproduce and perpetuate pejorative understandings of black subjectivities.

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Hip-Hop’s Authentic Masculinity: A Quare Reading of Fox’s Empire

Television & New Media ◽

10.1177/1527476417704704 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 225-240 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Nathian Shae Rodriguez

Keyword(s):

Hip Hop ◽

Black Masculinity ◽

Black Culture ◽

Music Videos ◽

Popular Media ◽

Media Content ◽

Hip Hop Culture ◽

Television Shows ◽

Black Gay Men ◽

And Behavior

Black masculinity in the hip-hop culture often promotes instances of homophobia, effeminophobia, and misogyny. To reify an “authentic” black masculinity, individuals within the hip-hop genre police its boundaries through discourse and behavior. This policing is evident in popular media content like songs, music videos, interviews, television shows, and film. These media depictions can, over time, cultivate the attitudes and opinions of the viewing public about homosexuals and their place within black culture, specifically in hip-hop. Through a quare lens, the study investigates how Fox’s television show Empire helps construct and maintain stereotypical representations of black gay men against the milieu of hip-hop. Empire reifies queer stereotypes and highlights conventions of black masculinity and hip-hop authenticity.

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Vocal Vulnerabilities

The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Music ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190281090.013.6 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah Lappas

Keyword(s):

Emotional Distress ◽

Generation X ◽

Hip Hop ◽

Millennial Generation ◽

Black Masculinity ◽

First Century ◽

Pitch Range ◽

Musical Representations ◽

Twenty First Century

This article explores vocal trends associated with hip hop artists of the millennial generation. New vocal techniques such as the use of stylized Auto-Tune, a widening of pitch range, and increased use of paralinguistic utterances associated with emotional distress have permeated the soundscape of hip hop in the twenty-first century. These techniques starkly contrast with the vocal styles associated with Generation X rappers in the 1980s and 1990s, affectively embedding vulnerability into the voices of underground and mainstream hip hop. This chapter approaches the shift in the soundscape of hip hop vocality as a point of embarkation in exploring evolving musical representations of Black masculinity by rappers of the millennial generation.

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