Kanye West and Jay Z, also known as Sean Carter, recently released an collabarative album entitled Watch The Throne. They released a music video for one of their hit songs from the album entitled “Otis.” This music video shows a rich description of consumerism in hip hop. The video begins by showing Jay Z and Kanye walking towards a Maybach 57 with a torch and a saw. A Maybach is a German luxury car that sells for at least $372,500. Instead of them doing anything to the car, they have men in white jumpsuits tearing apart the Maybach.  For the majority of people that live on earth, $372,500 is way more expensive than their rent or mortgage for a whole two years. Jay and Kanye give the viewers the idea that they have so much money that they can afford to destroy a luxury car and not care. Consumerism in hip hop has grown to be very large since hip hop was originated in the 1970s. Back in the day Hip Hop artists sung and rapped about peace, racism, life living in the “hood,” and poverty. Spencer Kornhaber, an associate editor for the Atlantic magazine, wrote a review on the video and said, “Sure, those cars are Maybachs — which ranks second to Rolexes & co. as Throne lyrical memes — and by casually trashing them, the two superstars are once again telegraphing their own stratospheric fortunes. And yes, with Spike Jonze directing and Kanye/Jay involved, there’s little doubt that the shooting-the-shit vibe of the proceedings was storyboarded and calibrated for maximum relatability. But still. Fun stuff” (Atlantic Magazine). In today’s society, Kanye West and Jay Z are two huge role models to teenagers and young adults because of their success. Watching this video has the potential to persuade their audience to go out and waste their money on expensive material items that they cannot afford. Most people don’t realize how much money they have wasted until the majority of it is gone. That is one reason why bankruptcy is so common today. It especially influences African Americans who average a net worth of about $2,000. That is twenty times lower than Whites in this country and that is not a good statistic for African Americans.

The Issues of Consumerism & Hip Hop

One way hip hop promotes consumerism is by influencing most artists to talk about all the expensive name brand clothing in their lyrics and also all the jewelry they have. Through well know mixtape websites such as Datpiff.com and Livemixtapes.com, hip hop fans have access to free songs and mixtapes that artists release for the public. One example of a song that promotes consumerism is Wiz Khalifa’s new song entitled, “Never Been Part 2.” In the song, Rick Ross raps about nothing but personal possessions that he claims to have. In his verse he says, 

“Never the minor things, I’m moving on to finer things
         Yellow stone, diamond rings, Balmain designer jeans
           Chanel frames, Louis scarves, moving like themob   

   I’m getting money, so maybe baby come get a job” (Azlyrics.com). 

Wiz Khalifa and Rick Ross have risen from the bottom of the charts to the top over the past few years. They are two fan favorites in the hip hop culture mainly because he raps about the expensive items he owns and the amount of marijuana he smokes. Once the designers of these clothing lines see sales increase, they will persaude the producers of these artist’s music to include the clothing lines in their lyrics more often in exchange for money. The effects of these clothing brands becoming more popular because of hip hop artists are  Black Friday mobs causing trouble. For example, “A Black Friday mob of frenzied shoppers breaks down the doors of a Walmart on Long Island, N.Y., and tramples an employee to death. Four others are injured, including a woman who is eight months pregnant” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). According to scholars, days like “Black Friday” and “Christmas Eve”, were created just for consumers. It was a brilliant idea to create these days so that people would be persuaded to consume more goods than they would on a regular day. With the use of commercials, billboards, and ads in the newspaper, these days are heavily promoted. Obviously these days aren’t the safest because of the incident at Walmart where people were injured due to the urgency of consumers to purchase as much as they could. Hip hop doesn’t help prevent this either because hip hop artists are a part of these billboards and commercials. Most hip hop artists present themselves to their audience as rich and uncaring.

Imani Perry, an interdisciplinary scholar who studies race and African American culture using the tools provided by various disciplines including law, literary and cultural studies, music, and the social sciences, wrote an article entitled, “Prophets of the Hood.” In this article she explains how hip hop artists use their money towards many unnecessary items just because they have that huge amount of money. She analyzes Run DMC’s song and music video “My Adidas.” In this song Run DMC talks about how many pairs of sneakers he owns and how many different colors he likes to wear. She also used Heavy D’s song “Nike” as an example of consumerism. In one verse of the song Heavy D says, “Everything Nike makes, Heavy D & the Boyz got 'em
                                                So hurry up-ah, run to the store, go get a pair
                                                Guaranteed to be the #1 sneaker of the year
                                                If you're buy yourself, get some for your crew
                                         We wear N-Nikes so you should wear N-Nikes too” (Azlyrics.com). Obviously Heavy D is trying to get his audience and fans to buy Nike sneakers. Imani Perry responded to those lyrics by saying “as hip hop became more successful, artists began to become wealthier and started showing off their wealth by purchasing expensive designer clothing” (Perry). Her main point in this article is to point out that consumerism and conspicuous consumption have become fundamental elements in hip hop.

Another way hip hop promotes consumerism is by painting abstract pictures that one can only be accepted into the hip hop culture if they purchase the same items hip hop artists purchase so they can have the status of a boss.  Rick Ross, a highly well known rapper, always says the word “boss” in his music. The need to have high status in society and the hip hop culture is very important to artists and fans. Since Rick Ross  uses the word “boss” in the majority of his songs,  repeating  it in his songs is letting his fans know that he has a “boss” status in society because of all his jewelry, , and clothes. For example in his song entitled “Boss”, Rick Ross says, “Run how you want, boss 

                               Chill how you want, boss

                                Floss how you want, boss

Do whatcha like
Go rock your chain, boss
Pour that champagne, boss
Keep getting paid, boss

Stunting is boss
Shining is boss 

Grand daddy kush, or the purt, yellow diamonds is boss
  That dime a boss, She fine as a house
  And she driving a porche, She designed for a boss(Lyricsmania.com).

Rick Ross repeatedly says boss in this song and it makes his fans believe he really is a boss so they mimic his style.

        Eric Arnold, an American journalist and author, wrote the article entitled “Is Hip-Hop Too Materialistic.” In this article, he writes about materialism and the consumption of money and products within the hip hop culture. According to this article, “to signify baller status which almost everyone wants to have today, you’re encouraged to have a rolex on your arm, cashmere thoughts, and mustard & mayonnaise” (Arnold). He also quotes artists such as Clyde Smith and the Wu Tang Clan. Clyde Smith is the webmaster of ProHipHop.com and the Wu Tang Clan is a famous rap group. Clyde Smith stated, “Marketing has always been a part of hip hop.” The Wu Tang Clan’s famous motto was “Cash rules everything around me.” These examples prove that consumerism is a huge part of hip hop culture and it also proves that artists like Rick Ross aren’t contributing to the end of consumerism in hip hop.Most people who listen to these types of songs will just raise the amount of money these artists and owners of name brands earn. It will also decrease the amount of money the consumer could have for other important needs. In Professor Imani Perry’s article, “Prophets of the Hood”, Imani tells her readers that “status is very important to the black community and being creative plus having luxury items can raise that status” (Perry). If two scholarly journalists agree on the same idea the status is very important then it must be very true.

One more way that hip hop promotes consumerism is by having hip hop artists wear all their expensive name brand clothing in their music videos. By doing that, it pressures fans to also purchase these goods because they want to fit in with hip hop culture. In Imani Perry’s article, “Prophets of the Hood”, she also explains how hip hop artists use their money towards many unnecessary items just because they have that huge amount of money. She analyzes Run DMC’s song and music video “My Adidas.” Run DMC was an American hip hop group from Hollis, Queens, New York that was very influential to the hip hop culture. In their video, all three of the men are wearing adidas tracksuits, adidas sneakers, adidas hats, and showing off adidas shirts. ,Imani Perry responded to the video by saying “as hip hop became more successful, artists began to become wealthier and started showing off their wealth by purchasing expensive designer clothing” (Perry). Her main point in this article is to point out that consumerism and conspicuous consumption have become fundamental elements in hip hop.

In another music video by Nelly entitled “Air Force Ones”, Nelly and his group the Lunatics advertise the Nike Air Force One sneaker. In the chorus they say, “Give me two pair, I need two pair, so I could get to stomping in my Air Force Ones.” According to the Neon, Las Vegas Review Journal, after Nelly a famous hip hop artist gave blatant shout outs to Nike Air Force One shoes in his song entitled, “Air Force One’s”, Nelly signed a deal with Nike to sell a Nelly Nike shoe. After this song was released the sales of Air Force One’s increased extremely. After this song became old, many artists began to wear expensive, popular sneakers in their music videos. In the music video Nelly and his crew wear the Air Force Ones and jump around in them while rapping. They also show many people running in the stores to purchase different colors of Air Force Ones. Even though not many people could afford these sneakers, children and tennagers would still beg their parents to buy them a pair just because Nelly advertised it in his popular song.

My Alternative Suggestion

Lupe Fiasco, a well known hip hop artist who is against consumerism recently attended the Occupy Wall Street protest in September of 2011. Occupy Wall Street is a protest that began on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district. The purpose for this protest is the issues of social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government. Lupe attended the Occupy Wall Street protest to give his opinion on the economy and to support the protest. According to Salima Koroma from hiphopdx.com, Lupe said, “We're a society based on consumerism…We blur our own lines between what we need and what we want. There could be somebody who lives in Harlem who works [on Wall Street] and you could [tell him], 'Hey, just take a bike.' And [he would say], 'Yo my man, I can't take a bike every day. I need a car.' But when you get in that car, you have to put fuel in that car, so you're financing Exxon Mobile, you're financing Ford or whatever car company it is. You're paying the city because you have to pay for registration, you have to pay taxes [on that car]. So you're financing the system just so you can say, 'Hey, I don't want to bike to work every single day because I'm gonna be tired at the end of the day’’ (hiphopdx.com). Lupe’s statement is absolutely right. People spend money foolishly in today’s society. Citizens today need to stop being so caught up in material things because it affects the economy negatively. One thing I suggest hip hop does to reduce consumerism is to start using artists like Lupe Fiasco in commercials, and on billboards so that more people will become interested and look into Lupe’s philosophy on consumerism. Another action I suggest hip hop takes is to stop entertaining all of the upcoming artists who rap about nothing but clothes, cars, alcohol, jewelry, etc. This may take years to happen but if enough people know about it, they can make a change. It just takes the right group of people to spread the information about consumerism in hip hop.

ENG 1060 Reflection

In this ENG 1060 class that was taught by Dr. Carey, I learned how to do various types of works. At the beginning of the semester in Unit 1, we started off by doing quick and dirty research about any controversial issue of our choice in hip hop culture for our annotated bibliographies. I’ve never done an annotated bibliography so this was something new to me. That assignment definitely took a lot of research for reliable sources. We had a whole class in the library just to learn how to find sources and also incorporate them into our bibliography in the proper format.  During Unit 1, Dr. Carey also explained the definitions of an argument which is comprised of a claim and reasons, claims which are what the writer wants you to accept, warrants which are what the writer believes to be true in their own mind, and reasons which are justifiable causes. Regarding class participation, I was always asking questions and answering questions.

Dr. Carey helped us by offering us days to set up private conferences where she would tell us what we needed to work on, inform us of our current grade, and give us advice on how to write an A+ paper. We also had many exercises every class period on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help us understand how to research information for our papers, make logical arguments, and choose which topic was the best fit for us. In Unit 2, we began our major research paper which was a casual essay on the controversial issue that I chose. We had to do a lot of research in order to write an excellent paper and we also had to use many sources to back up my claims. It was no problem because Dr. Carey already had us find a plethora of sources.

We had five sections to complete to our major research paper. The five were the introduction, the illustration section, the discussion section, the core, and finally the conclusion. Dr. Carey provided us a lot of time to complete this research paper and I’m sure she expected nothing less than perfect. In our final portfolio I used my creativity for the design of my blog. I honestly believe I should move on because all of my work has passed the requirements of Dr. Carey. It may not have been the greatest but my work is above average.

Eric, Arnold. "Is Hip Hop Too Materialistic." www.Eastbayexpress.com. N.p., 4 June 2008. Web. 28 Apr. 2012. <http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/is-hip-hop-too-materialistic/Content?oid=1090155>.

Kornhaber, Spencer. "Jay-Z and Kanye West's Calculatedly Carefree 'Otis' Video."www.theatlantic.com. The Atlantic, 12 Aug. 2011. Web. 28 Apr. 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/jay-z-and-kanye-wests-calculatedly-carefree-otis-video/243508/>.

Koroma, Salima. "Lupe Fiasco Marches In Wall Street Protest, States View On New World Order." www.hiphopdx.com. N.p., 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.16927/title.lupe-fiasco-marches-in-wall-street-protest-states-view-on-new-world-order>.

Perry, Imani. Prophets of the Hood. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. 194-195. Print.

Schor, Juliet B. Born to Buy. Massachusetts: Scribner, 2005. Print.

West, Kanye , and Jay Z. "Otis." www.youtube.com. N.p., 11 Aug. 2011. Web. 28 Apr. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoEKWtgJQAU>.

www.Azlyrics.com. Azlyrics, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2012. <http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/heavyd/nike.html>.

www.Dictionary.com. Dictionary, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2012. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consumerism?s=t>.

www.lyricsmania.com. Lyricsmania, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2012. <http://www.lyricsmania.com/boss_feat_dre_lyrics_rick_ross.html>.