An Exploration of Spectacular Consumption: Gangsta Rap as Cultural Commodity

Gangsta rap narratives are treated as testimonials that provoke conflicted strategies for constituting urban African American male identity and social intercourse. I argue that hard-core rap artistry participates in a complex and fluid set of economic exchange relations among the lived experiences of artists, the operations of a consumer culture, and the dictates of rap music industry. The concept of “spectacular consumption” is posited as a discursive template for understanding how rhetorical strategies of self-promotion in gangsta rap artistry alter and are altered by the sophisticated interdependence among private, public, and economic spheres.