"The Cashtro Hop Project" Hip Hop music and an exploration of the construction of artistic self-identity

Christopher Joseph Cachia

doi:10.32920/ryerson.14655234

Abstract

While Hip Hop culture has regularly been legitimized within academia as a social phenomenon worthy of scholarly attention (witness the growing number of studies and disciplines now taking Hip Hop as object for analysis), this is the first Hip Hop-themed project being completed within the academy. Indeed, academic and critical considerations of one's own Hip Hop-based musical production is a novel venture; this project, as a fusion of theory with practice, has thus been undertaken so as to occupy that gap. The paper's specific concern is with how (independent) Hip Hop recording artists work to construct their own selves and identity (as formed primarily through lyrical content); the aim here is to explore Hip Hop music and the construction of artistic self· presentation. I therefore went about the task of creating my own album - my own Hip Hop themed musical product - in order to place myself in the unique position to examine it critically as cultural artifact, as well as to write commentary and (self-)analyses concerning various aspects of (my) identity formation. The ensuing outlined tripartite theoretical framework is to serve as a model through which other rappers/academics may think about, discuss, and analyze their own musical output, their own identities, their own selves.

Highlights

As communication and cultural studies has steadily garnered greater academic interest and support, so too has the serious study of Hip Hop culture
It is interesting here to note the broad range of disciplines taking Hip Hop as object for critical analysis: Education, English, Linguistics, and Sociology, amongst others
Michael Eric Dyson - one of the Hip Hop intelligentsia's more widely renowned voices - has concisely commented on the culture's widespread academic appeal, writing: Hip-hop is being studied all over the globe, and the methodologies of its examination are rightfully all over the map

Summary

INTRODUCTION

As communication and cultural studies has steadily garnered greater academic interest and support, so too has the serious study of Hip Hop culture. Concerning aspects of a given social front and the relations between them, Goffman writes of what he terms "abstractness" and "generality." His contention is that " specialized and unique a given routine is, its social front, with certain exceptions, will tend to claim facts that can be claimed and asserted of other, somewhat different routines" (26) Though this will further be elaborated upon in my analysis section, I will for suggest that, concerning Hip Hop music and even the recording of all musics in a broader sense, individuals often strive in their performances both for originality or uniqueness as well as similarity: originality in order to offer something new and differentiate creative products from others already in existence; similarity so as to appeal to audiences already in existence and be placed into a given (sub-)genre ( loosely-defined it may be). I have done so within an institutional setting, challenging notions of how Hip Hop may be studied, and notions ofwhat constitutes a given (authentic) Hip Hop product

CONCLUSION

A Note Concerning Appendix 2

A Note Concerning Appendix 3