ABSTRACT
Two arguments will be put forward. First, attention will be drawn to the fact that, within socially excluded urban environments, many individuals are overidentifying (from a normative perspective) with consumer goods in an attempt to create a sense of identity. As Carl Nightingale (1993) has specified in his ethnographic study of Black ghetto life in Philadelphia, one of the paradoxes of contemporary urban America is that members of the ‘underclass’ (a term disliked by Nightingale and many others) are socially and economically excluded yet culturally and commercially included. In other words, while Black youths in these areas experience tremendous feelings of alienation and exclusion from traditional employment and educational opportunities, at the same time they are also overexposed to American mainstream culture via advertising, television, music and other forms of mass media that demand their ‘participation’. Paraphrasing Bauman, one might suggest that these individuals are at once ‘repressed’ and ‘seduced’ (see Chapter 4). Augmenting Merton, Nightingale thus claims that the tension caused within ghetto culture by this divisive combination is resolved by a warped ‘over-compensation’ with many of the symbols of American consumer culture – both mainstream and subversive:
Already at five and six, many kids in the neighborhood can recite the whole canon of adult luxury – from Gucci, Evan Piccone, and Pierre Cardin, to Mercedes and BMW ... from the age of ten, kids became thoroughly engrossed in Nike’s and Reebok’s cult of the sneaker ... (Nightingale 1993: 153-54, quoted in Young 1999: 84)
These social circumstances are reflected in the popular and ironic hip-hop term ‘ghetto fabulous’. Indeed, rap and hip-hop culture more generally can be seen as one of the primary drivers of inner-city conspicuous consumption. Whilst brands have always been an intrinsic element of rap culture, in recent years the stakes have risen considerably. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, hardcore rappers like Ice T or Tim Dogg rapped about $60 Nike trainers or 40oz bottles of Colt 45 beer; today, the giants of corporate hip-hop like P Diddy, 50 Cent or Jay-Z extol the virtues of £200 Prada sneakers, Chanel jewellery or the new Porsche Cayenne sports utility vehicle. The Newsweek journalist, Johnnie Roberts, explains:
This is the rich sound of hip-hop: cash registers ringing loudly for luxury brands. Though rappers have long found inspiration for lyrics in brand names like Adidas and Tanqueray, it’s the prestige logos that sparkle the brightest. Stars like Busta, P Diddy, Ja Rule and Jay-Z have expensive tastes and have made themselves powerful pitchmen, lifting the aspirations of youth culture for life’s finer things while spiking sales of the Cadillac Escalade, Bentley, Cristal Champagne, Burberry, Prada and Louis Vuitton ... An artist deems a product cool, sales jump, the rapper looks like a tastemaker and brands that were once the exclusive domain of bluebloods enjoy blinding exposure to a youthful crowd of new customers. (2002: 56)
This tendency is set to intensify as major hip-hop artists, fed up with promoting other people’s products, now look to bring out their own range of prestige commodities. I would argue that this situation is not exclusive to the US, or indeed to Black youth; after all, hip-hop – and to a lesser degree rap – is now the biggest
form of ‘crossover’ music (pace Eminen as a stalking horse for white hip-hop music).48 Visit any inner-city ‘problem’ estate in this country and you cannot fail to be struck by the proliferation of brand names and designer labels (whether original or not – although as Gaines (1992) has pointed out, this distinction between the real and the fake is becoming increasingly redundant in a culture where the brand/label is the sole signifier). While logos and brands vary from culture to culture – Fila, Louis Vuitton and Hilfigger in the US; Henry Lloyd, Burberry, and Dolce and Gabbana in the UK – the value placed on these products, especially by young people, cannot be disputed. The ethos behind these overt displays of consumer product is simple: in a world of frustration and exclusion, commodities such as jewellery, sports apparel, designer watches and mobile phones act as symbolic messages of power and status (see Hayward and Presdee 2002). Identity and selfworth are reduced to simple symbolic codes (Baudrillard 1988), as interpretable as a Nike ‘swoosh’ or a Gucci monogram. These displays of consumer goods enable individuals to construct perceived identity (Lasch 1979; Campbell 1989; Nava 1992; Slater 1997) and exert a sense of control (Featherstone 1994; Lury 1996) in social environments that have been stripped of traditional avenues of advancement and self-expression. Inevitably, the sense of identity and control created through these displays is a delusion, a faux construction with little value outside of specific locales. Nonetheless, for many, this urgent participation in a world of blatant consumerism provides meaning, a touchstone of identity and security in an uncertain world.
