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Machismo and Urban Music-written for Media Magazine-published by the English and

Media Centre

Representation is, as we know, a key area in Media Studies at any level. One of the keyaims of this area of study at A2 is learning to engage with Post Modern ideas about

identity and performance in the Media, which can then be applied through the course, to

exam units and course work alike. With this is mind, the phenomena of 50 Cent, aka

Curtis Jackson is a worthwhile case study due partly to his popularity and partly due to

the extremity of his mediated persona. 50 is sexist, misogynist, materialistic, arrogant

and a proponent of violence as a solution to the many problems he comes across in the

Ghetto. All in all he is a shocking role model, this however has not deterred his many

legions of fans that lap up his records, computer game and recently released film Get

Rich Or Die Tryin.

50s success is predicated on the manifestation of certain ideas about blackness and the

black male in particular. The difficulty is learning to see beyond the supposed veracity of

50 cents persona, a survivor from the Ghetto, shot at nine times and survived, a former

crack dealer who recounts his adventures in his songs. The thug life hip-hop image is

as much a construction as any, the simple notion that 50 is some how keepin it real is

nave and ill-construed. A2 students writing about Gangsta rap for their coursework after

making a music video should, through close study of his texts and applying careful

analysis to them as Media Products, be able to see beyond a glamorous intoxicating

theatre of bling and beyond into the socio-economic reality of black America.

Furthermore some appreciation of the history of representation of the black American

male would add credibility to any coursework piece that featured Gangsta Rap. For thisreason I refer the reader to the work of Michelle Wallace and other authors who have

explored black consciousness.

Flash back to the summer of 2005. Hurricane Katrina and the fracas in the Super bowl in

New Orleans. News reports after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans revealed America

as a country sharply divided between the haves and have nots the majority of the

struggling poor left to fend in the city where blacks and whites alike were forced to

desperate measures simply to stay alive after the havoc of the hurricane. Looting went on,

some opportunistic, some out of desperation, as the survivors desperately tried to hold on

in the decimated city. The response of the authorities was famously indifferent, but when

they did arrive, punitive. Protecting peoples private property was the priority, ratherthan the lives of the victims. The police did not hesitate to shoot dead those they thought

were taking advantage of the disaster to steal. The event was a debacle and indictment of

the state of American Society. It was a harsh illustration of the extreme chasm between

rich and poor on the richest country on the earth and the lack of any kind of safety net to

protect those who struggle at the bottom of the hierarchy. Given the reality of a country

with inadequate health insurance and social security those who do claw their way from

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the bottom of the heap have about them almost a mythical quality. They have triumphed

out of a do or die situation where the meek certainly do not inherit the earth and the tough

underdog who succeeds despite these odds is fabled, his riches to be flaunted and

celebrated. The way Gangsta Rap glorifies the trappings of wealth and the success of this

representation are a consequence of this extreme polarisation of American Society, which

has left more Afro centric and less overtly materialistic rappers on the margins such asGuru and the Jungle Brothers.

50s image is overtly sexual, his torso revealed, his pelvis jutting archly above his low

slung trousers a flamboyant display of potentially explosive testosterone, his good looks

slaying the ladies (bitches and hoes) who drape themselves, willing and able when ever

he wants them, and as he puts it she wants to be wifey u uh not likely. This black

male is the stereotypical commitmentphobe and hustler, the latest in a long line of black

outlaws, stretching back through ICE T to Shaft and beyond. An image that the black

community and others see as another form of racial exploitation; they say how can they

hope to inculcate respect and self esteem in the young when the apparent apogee of a rap

super stars achievement is to sell his women. 50s pimping as he tells it through his

rapping is really a nothing more than a pastiche of certain motifs that crop up time and

time again in the popular American imagination of the voracious sexuality of the black

man, or The buck as Michelle Wallace describes him*. Many however still worry

about how this image impacts on our notion of black masculinity and contributes to the

problems in our inner cities. Few see it as positive, name less faceless women drift

through the Gangsta Rappers videos, battys in the air, breasts served up for the

audiences delectation, 50, the m*** f*** P I M P, ring master surveys all he sees, a

universe of Bentlys, Hummers, Cristal and Dom Perignon, a glossy unapologetic paean to

consumerism and a perfect standard bearer for the American Dream of prosperity.

Of course 50 cents image is a construction, no one would seriously try to confuse the

stage performance of most music stars with what goes on in their private life. The

hustling, pimping and hoeing are all part of a carefully controlled image designed to sell

as many records as possible, to excite, scare and enrage middle America, and maybe just

maybe to register with under privileged black kids if they havent cottoned onto the whiff

of a sell out, these people, ideally for the music industry, give testimony to their heros

struggles in the Ghetto and feed the mythology of his authenticity. They may dream of

a better life through succeeding at school and college but when 50 talks of his past life as

a hustler some how it is obscured that for most of the downtrodden kids in urban America

and here the reality that awaits is the mundane struggle of the working class 50 cents

prosperity is a by product of his rapping and music not his criminality, even if this is whathas inspired his music. It is axiomatic that the extreme theatricality of his image is

inseparable from Curtis Jackson, indicative of a pervasive racism which inextricably

entwines the posturing and machismo of an artist like 50 cent with the behaviour and

aspirations of young black men both here and in the States.

A2 students need to show that they can separate the representation of Gangsta Rap and

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artists such as 50 cent and its conventions from real life crime. They need to appreciate

the fact that although certain record bosses and music stars involved with Gangsta rap

have been involved in criminality this has been mythologized and is being used to feign a

Post Modern, that is a mediated and constructed, authenticity in a world where so much

of recorded popular music is more obviously cynically packaged and marketed (the

product of shows like the X factor for example). Media students at A2 should be wise tothese machinations when writing up their critical evaluation of their music video if they

have chosen to work within the rap genre. 50, just like the women he scorns is there to be

bought and sold, but by the record, film and computer games industry. The reality of his

past needs to be contextualised as another marketing tool rather than a badge of his street

credentials.

* The buck is a stereotype and has been seen in many Media Products from Birth Of

A Nation to Shaft and Superfly. Michelle Wallace describes him as the

personification of the black threat to white womanhood in her book Black Macho and

the Myth of the Superwoman (Platform books 1979)