Mainstreaming Urban Culture
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Mainstreaming Urban Culture
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When Cornel West ventured into rap, he did not wander out of the cultural mainstream, because a kind of cultural alchemy had already transformed street corner hip hop and graffiti into platinum watches and billion dollar deals. It's what the marketers call urban culture. Urban IQ, an urban media research firm, says there are 45 million consumers of urban culture -- fully two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35. More than half live outside major urban centers. More than 60 percent are white. Thus the urban culture consumer, like any consumer, is not defined by who he is but by what he buys. And by that measure, Viacom is a big-time urban consumer. It paid 3 billion dollars for Black Entertainment Television.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: And the reason why BET can be bought and sold for such a high number is because of the people it reaches and because of the advertising potential that the corporations believe that it his.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Keith Clinkscales is the CEO of Vanguard Media which specializes in urban media and entertainment.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: Large corporations don't pay hundreds of millions of dollars for niches.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Artists have a tendency to live on the margins, but when the sums are this large, there seems to be no choice but to follow the money into the mainstream. Crossing over has lost its stigma, says Donnell Alexander, author of the soon to be published memoir Ghetto Celebrity.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: There used to be a really huge price to pay. I remember the George Clinton song from the mid-80s -- R&B Skeletons in the Closet --about people like Lionel Ritchie who had like major, major roots in music that was sort of off in the margins. When you crossed over, you ran the risk of losing your original audience. Now it's almost embraced.
GEORGE CLINTON: THOUGH HE'S CROSSED OVER HE IS DEFINITELY FROM ALABAMA [RIDGE?] HE USED TO TAKE [...?...] THERE. SONGS WE USED TO SING, THINGS WE USED TO DO, WE DO NO MORE--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Even in the 1980s, name brand items would turn up in rap music says Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: My Addidas. It's, it's a teen anthem. I mean when I was a kid, I was like-- I wasn't even crazy about Addidas the brand name, but the--juice that comes from a great song like that makes you want to go out and buy a pair of Addidas.
RUN-DMC: MY ADDIDAS WALK THROUGH [...?...] DOORS AND ROAM ALL OVER COLISEUM FLOORS I STEPPED ON STAGE AT MY LIVE AID ALL THE PEOPLE GAVE AND THE POOR GOT PAID THEN OUT THOSE SPEAKERS I DID SPEAK I WORE MY SNEAKERS [AUTOMATICALLY?]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the fashions stayed in the neighborhood, he says. The venture capitalists didn't see the potential until they heard the cash registers.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: When Run-DMC came up with My Addidas they weren't thinking that the anchor of The Sports Show would be referencing My Addidas.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Not very long ago, Alexander was hired to "urbanize" the sports cable channel ESPN.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: I was the designated "hip guy."
BROOKE GLADSTONE: He was assigned to help "hip hop-ify," as it were, the anchors so they wouldn't sound so square.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Stuart Scott was the key figure in the introduction of urban culture in ESPN, and that was about 1997 when he first was brought aboard from ESPN 2. He was the guy who brought in the vernacular, and at first he was the only person saying it. I know Stuart Scott, and I know at first it caused a lot of waves. At first it was a problem.
STUART SCOTT: I got one, one time - someone said speak the Queen's English or carry your bleepety-bleep in BET where those bleepety-bleeps can understand you.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: But now it is really purely nakedly absorbed by the anchors who have no pretense of being hip on any level. And it's not just on ESPN! I see it in commercials all the time. You, you know - in your face - 24/7 - these are things that used to be "hood" expressions.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:As of 2001 the style, attitudes and vernacular of urban culture are fully entrenched into the mainstream culture. Bo Kemp is executive vice president of Vanguard media. He says urban culture hasn't been damaged in the transition. The art didn't change. The consumers did.
BO KEMP: Crossover in some respects only is an identifier that something's become very popular. Nothing more than that. And I think some people try to make more if somehow - you know - if you become popular that means you targeted, you know, whites per se in order to become part of that mainstream when in fact all you may have done is produce something that was of such quality that a huge group of people just wanted to buy it.
TALIB KWELI: I think it is going to be co-opted. It - you know it is - it, it's in danger of and it has been, it will be -- that's the nature of where we live.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Talib Kweli has been called hip hop's positive force. Sincere and plainspoken, said a reviewer in the mainstream New York Magazine. One of the most unusual voices in hip hop.
TALIB KWELI: NOWADAYS RAP ARTISTS COME IN HALFHEARTED COMMERCIAL LIKE POP OR UNDERGROUND LIKE BLACK MARKETS WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY HIP HOP DIED? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE?
TALIB KWELI: Hip hop music is a music that comes out of nothing - out of having no money - no resources - no instruments - no - anything. And it's more - it's about more than just making art or being a rebel; it's about really surviving and living and eating. Other artists, other people sometimes have the luxury of being artists and just being in it just because they love art -- not because they need it to get out of the situation they were in. And I want my music to get heard, so I market and promote myself! I made myself into a product. I do it so I could feed my family. I do it so I could feed myself. Do it so I could have a platform and so that things I say can have some weight and relevance in the community so I can effect some change.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There is the possibility of change, but it's limited by the appetites of the market, says Ray Roker, publisher of Urb Magazine.
RAY ROKER:People are watching MTV and seeing Jay-Z or Nelly or somebody that may look like a very, you know, slick thug to them, but now they see them as an artist and as a professional. Unfortunately I think a lot of it, though, is still playing into people's pre-conceived notions and their prejudices because what is being produced by black culture and accepted by mainstream society? What? Rap music? Just, you know, music about diamonds and gold and girls and violence? You know that's what's accepted in the millions? But if you want to talk about political struggle or what we need to do to, to save the world around us, that stuff's boring. It doesn't get on TV. It doesn't get on the radio. And hip hop music, and I think people who really consider themselves real fans of hip hop music in the old school and everything wish that it had taken that place that it made for itself, that platform and used it to really say something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:In other words the young crosscultural consumers of urban culture embrace affronts to popular taste and popular mores, but they just won't buy an assault on their complacency. So the best of hip hop becomes a victim of its own success. But who can argue with success? Not urban media entrepreneur Keith Clinkscales -- with visibility comes money, comes real power and real influence.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: You know Hearst owns Oprah's magazine right now, but my goodness -- that O is a special thing! It's not just a letter! You know power comes in many different forces. It's not just in share certificates and what goes on, on Wall Street.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Urban culture may be fueled by a rainbow coalition of cash money, but it is still a commodity based on racial difference, on the general perception that black urban style, its agility, its ineffable cachet is what everybody wants to buy. Culture critic Donnell Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Nelson George, the critic, wrote an amazing essay called The Black Basketball Aesthetic in which he pointed out players like Jason Williams who happen to be white but play black; players like Tim Duncan who's a contemporary player and a great player, but he plays like a white guy. He won't sell that many jerseys.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But what does playing black mean; what does playing white mean?
DONNELL ALEXANDER:It's the difference between-- Pat Boone and Little Richard, [LAUGHS] basically -- they could both do Tutti Frutti, you know, and they're two different songs.
PAT BOONE: A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTU FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP
LITTLE RICHARD: GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO I GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO SHE BOP TO THE EAST SHE BOP TO THE WEST BUT SHE'S THE GAL THAT I LOVE BEST TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI WOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Maybe it's cause I'm a white kid from the suburbs, but I'm gonna go out on Little Richard.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price and Katya Rogers, with Sean Landis; engineered by Scott Strickland and Dylan Keefe and edited-- by Brooke. We had help from Allison Lichter. Our web master is Amy Pearl. [SONG CONTINUING]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large, Arun "Broken Bones" Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts at onthemedia.org and e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media from National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And, yo-- I'm Bob Garfield.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY SHE KNOWS HOW TO LOVE ME, YES, INDEED BOY YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE DO TO ME TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE WOOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOOM 58:30
[FUNDING CREDITS]
January 5, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When Cornel West ventured into rap, he did not wander out of the cultural mainstream, because a kind of cultural alchemy had already transformed street corner hip hop and graffiti into platinum watches and billion dollar deals. It's what the marketers call urban culture. Urban IQ, an urban media research firm, says there are 45 million consumers of urban culture -- fully two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35. More than half live outside major urban centers. More than 60 percent are white. Thus the urban culture consumer, like any consumer, is not defined by who he is but by what he buys. And by that measure, Viacom is a big-time urban consumer. It paid 3 billion dollars for Black Entertainment Television.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: And the reason why BET can be bought and sold for such a high number is because of the people it reaches and because of the advertising potential that the corporations believe that it his.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Keith Clinkscales is the CEO of Vanguard Media which specializes in urban media and entertainment.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: Large corporations don't pay hundreds of millions of dollars for niches.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Artists have a tendency to live on the margins, but when the sums are this large, there seems to be no choice but to follow the money into the mainstream. Crossing over has lost its stigma, says Donnell Alexander, author of the soon to be published memoir Ghetto Celebrity.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: There used to be a really huge price to pay. I remember the George Clinton song from the mid-80s -- R&B Skeletons in the Closet --about people like Lionel Ritchie who had like major, major roots in music that was sort of off in the margins. When you crossed over, you ran the risk of losing your original audience. Now it's almost embraced.
GEORGE CLINTON: THOUGH HE'S CROSSED OVER HE IS DEFINITELY FROM ALABAMA [RIDGE?] HE USED TO TAKE [...?...] THERE. SONGS WE USED TO SING, THINGS WE USED TO DO, WE DO NO MORE--
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Even in the 1980s, name brand items would turn up in rap music says Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: My Addidas. It's, it's a teen anthem. I mean when I was a kid, I was like-- I wasn't even crazy about Addidas the brand name, but the--juice that comes from a great song like that makes you want to go out and buy a pair of Addidas.
RUN-DMC: MY ADDIDAS WALK THROUGH [...?...] DOORS AND ROAM ALL OVER COLISEUM FLOORS I STEPPED ON STAGE AT MY LIVE AID ALL THE PEOPLE GAVE AND THE POOR GOT PAID THEN OUT THOSE SPEAKERS I DID SPEAK I WORE MY SNEAKERS [AUTOMATICALLY?]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the fashions stayed in the neighborhood, he says. The venture capitalists didn't see the potential until they heard the cash registers.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: When Run-DMC came up with My Addidas they weren't thinking that the anchor of The Sports Show would be referencing My Addidas.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Not very long ago, Alexander was hired to "urbanize" the sports cable channel ESPN.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: I was the designated "hip guy."
BROOKE GLADSTONE: He was assigned to help "hip hop-ify," as it were, the anchors so they wouldn't sound so square.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Stuart Scott was the key figure in the introduction of urban culture in ESPN, and that was about 1997 when he first was brought aboard from ESPN 2. He was the guy who brought in the vernacular, and at first he was the only person saying it. I know Stuart Scott, and I know at first it caused a lot of waves. At first it was a problem.
STUART SCOTT: I got one, one time - someone said speak the Queen's English or carry your bleepety-bleep in BET where those bleepety-bleeps can understand you.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: But now it is really purely nakedly absorbed by the anchors who have no pretense of being hip on any level. And it's not just on ESPN! I see it in commercials all the time. You, you know - in your face - 24/7 - these are things that used to be "hood" expressions.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:As of 2001 the style, attitudes and vernacular of urban culture are fully entrenched into the mainstream culture. Bo Kemp is executive vice president of Vanguard media. He says urban culture hasn't been damaged in the transition. The art didn't change. The consumers did.
BO KEMP: Crossover in some respects only is an identifier that something's become very popular. Nothing more than that. And I think some people try to make more if somehow - you know - if you become popular that means you targeted, you know, whites per se in order to become part of that mainstream when in fact all you may have done is produce something that was of such quality that a huge group of people just wanted to buy it.
TALIB KWELI: I think it is going to be co-opted. It - you know it is - it, it's in danger of and it has been, it will be -- that's the nature of where we live.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Talib Kweli has been called hip hop's positive force. Sincere and plainspoken, said a reviewer in the mainstream New York Magazine. One of the most unusual voices in hip hop.
TALIB KWELI: NOWADAYS RAP ARTISTS COME IN HALFHEARTED COMMERCIAL LIKE POP OR UNDERGROUND LIKE BLACK MARKETS WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY HIP HOP DIED? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE? IS IT TOO EARLY TO MOURN? IS IT TOO LATE TO RIDE?
TALIB KWELI: Hip hop music is a music that comes out of nothing - out of having no money - no resources - no instruments - no - anything. And it's more - it's about more than just making art or being a rebel; it's about really surviving and living and eating. Other artists, other people sometimes have the luxury of being artists and just being in it just because they love art -- not because they need it to get out of the situation they were in. And I want my music to get heard, so I market and promote myself! I made myself into a product. I do it so I could feed my family. I do it so I could feed myself. Do it so I could have a platform and so that things I say can have some weight and relevance in the community so I can effect some change.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: There is the possibility of change, but it's limited by the appetites of the market, says Ray Roker, publisher of Urb Magazine.
RAY ROKER:People are watching MTV and seeing Jay-Z or Nelly or somebody that may look like a very, you know, slick thug to them, but now they see them as an artist and as a professional. Unfortunately I think a lot of it, though, is still playing into people's pre-conceived notions and their prejudices because what is being produced by black culture and accepted by mainstream society? What? Rap music? Just, you know, music about diamonds and gold and girls and violence? You know that's what's accepted in the millions? But if you want to talk about political struggle or what we need to do to, to save the world around us, that stuff's boring. It doesn't get on TV. It doesn't get on the radio. And hip hop music, and I think people who really consider themselves real fans of hip hop music in the old school and everything wish that it had taken that place that it made for itself, that platform and used it to really say something.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:In other words the young crosscultural consumers of urban culture embrace affronts to popular taste and popular mores, but they just won't buy an assault on their complacency. So the best of hip hop becomes a victim of its own success. But who can argue with success? Not urban media entrepreneur Keith Clinkscales -- with visibility comes money, comes real power and real influence.
KEITH CLINKSCALES: You know Hearst owns Oprah's magazine right now, but my goodness -- that O is a special thing! It's not just a letter! You know power comes in many different forces. It's not just in share certificates and what goes on, on Wall Street.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Urban culture may be fueled by a rainbow coalition of cash money, but it is still a commodity based on racial difference, on the general perception that black urban style, its agility, its ineffable cachet is what everybody wants to buy. Culture critic Donnell Alexander.
DONNELL ALEXANDER: Nelson George, the critic, wrote an amazing essay called The Black Basketball Aesthetic in which he pointed out players like Jason Williams who happen to be white but play black; players like Tim Duncan who's a contemporary player and a great player, but he plays like a white guy. He won't sell that many jerseys.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But what does playing black mean; what does playing white mean?
DONNELL ALEXANDER:It's the difference between-- Pat Boone and Little Richard, [LAUGHS] basically -- they could both do Tutti Frutti, you know, and they're two different songs.
PAT BOONE: A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE TUTTU FRUTTI ALL ROOTIE A BOP BOP A LOOMAH BAH LOP BOP BOP
LITTLE RICHARD: GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO I GOT A GAL NAMED SUE SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO DO SHE BOP TO THE EAST SHE BOP TO THE WEST BUT SHE'S THE GAL THAT I LOVE BEST TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI WOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Maybe it's cause I'm a white kid from the suburbs, but I'm gonna go out on Little Richard.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM [SONG CONTINUING UNDER]
BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price and Katya Rogers, with Sean Landis; engineered by Scott Strickland and Dylan Keefe and edited-- by Brooke. We had help from Allison Lichter. Our web master is Amy Pearl. [SONG CONTINUING]
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Pesca is our producer at large, Arun "Broken Bones" Rath our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. You can listen to the program and get free transcripts at onthemedia.org and e-mail us at onthemedia@wnyc.org. This is On the Media from National Public Radio. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And, yo-- I'm Bob Garfield.
LITTLE RICHARD: TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOM GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY GOT A GAL NAMED DAISY SHE ALMOST DRIVE ME CRAZY SHE KNOWS HOW TO LOVE ME, YES, INDEED BOY YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE DO TO ME TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE WOOOOOOOO TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE TUTTI FRUTTI OH ROOTIE A WOP BABA LOOMAH BA LOP BOM BOOM 58:30
[FUNDING CREDITS]
Produced by WNYC Studios