Visualizing place, representing age in hip-hop: converging themes in Scarface's ‘My Block’

Abstract

Taking contemporary hip-hop as the primary object of analysis, this paper identifies two dominant and entwined themes: the active representation of place and of age. In hip-hop, to ‘represent’ typically involves the articulation of spatial affinities and place-based loyalties that are fused with the social contexts of one's localized experience. Yet an additional facet of representing also involves the emphasis on formative moments throughout one's life, citing key events that occur in localized or circumscribed environments. This is defined here as ‘age representing’. Following a preliminary discussion of age–place discourses in hip-hop, the specific analytical focus turns to localized aging as it is portrayed in the Scarface video ‘My Block’, a classic coming-of-age tale vividly portraying the nuances of age and spatial experience in Houston, TX. As the paper illustrates, age is a crucial facet of our cultural forms of articulation and, thus, warrants attention as we seek to comprehend spaces and places in the modern urban environment.