Foregrounding sexual behaviour and the exploitation of women, the subclass of gangsta known as the pimp, situates black urban sexuality at an extreme point that replicates the darkest aspect of their history, namely slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However there is also a less scurrilous historical dimension to the pimp, which resides in the trickster. Pimps and tricksters are both \u2018mackers\u2019, drawing from the older definition of \u2018pimp\u2019, which is to try to convince someone in a persistent and flamboyant way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is this flamboyance that is carried over to the unambiguous and extravagant appearance of the pimp, both in life and in music video and film, with his wide-brimmed hat, copious jewellery, fat belt buckle, and long flowing fur coat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the words of Eithne Quinn, The affluent \u2018pimp daddy\u2019 is preoccupied with the conspicuous display of material wealth (\u2018drop-top Caddy\u2019, \u2018clothes\u2019, and \u2018riches\u2019). The commodification of women (\u2018hoes\u2019, \u2018top-notch bitches\u2019) by the supersexual pimp is recounted in the lewd vernacular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dandified spectacle foregrounds the importance of impression management: naming (\u2018a pimp named Shorty\u2019); reputation (\u2018ain\u2019t fell off\u2019); and recognition (\u2018throw a peace sign\u2019). The pimp is the \u2018aristocrat\u2019 of gangsta culture \u2018who is admired and recognized\u2019, wearing on his body all the signs of \u2018reputation, appearance, and leisure\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amongst his plentiful possessions, he makes no distinction between money, status, and women. Quinn goes on to write that \u2018The pimp constitutes an icon of upward mobility for black working-class males, spectacularly refusing, through their heightened style politics, the subservient type casting that has historically been imposed by the dominant social order\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His onslaught on the history of black material deprivation is to turn himself into a living, breathing avatar of consumption, in which conspicuousness is an understatement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quinn argues that \u2018the pimp figure has, probably most fully, resisted the dynamics of mainstream incorporation, market co-optation, and white imitation\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Least contestable is white imitation, since such efforts end as parodic of a figure that already harnesses chaos and parody to his own ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To combat the corrosive stereotypes that persist about male black culture, scholars of music and popular culture have looked closely at the subtleties of self-expression in rap music lyrics over more than a decade, especially to see beyond the wall of hyper-masculinity, violence, and misogyny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew Oware has found that many black musicians wish to project a \u2018decent daddy\u2019 to combat \u2018popular notions of Black male parental irresponsibility, rhyming about providing, protecting, and loving their mothers and children\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While he concedes that it is difficult to make strong assessments due to amount of material and to the differing ways of obtaining it, a pattern emerges where the rappers evince a sincere love and admiration of their mothers, and in some cases, siblings and fathers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Specifically, they are displaying a range of human emotions\u2014anger, disdain, sadness, love, happiness\u2014that goes unrecognized by critics and many times, defenders, of this genre of music in hip hop research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In relation to research on Black males and the family, these rappers are seemingly \u2018taking care of their kids\u2019. Evidently the mother is a both a real and a symbolic figure that underpins the nature of belonging and personal passage\u2014notions central to black urban culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a broader study of rap does not absolve gangsta rap, the specific version that rose up in the 1990s. Charis Kubrin claims that a broad survey of gangsta rap reveals that almost 65 percent involve violence of some sort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He contends that while such music is a potent political tool of political resistance, he questions its effectiveness, as it benefits only the few, namely the gangsta and his \u2018peeps\u2019, and perpetuates a dominant framework that is not necessarily representative of a more nuanced and comprehensive image of rap music or black culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018This is not to say that the lyrics are inaccurate. But as a cultural force, gangsta rap music offers a particular characterization of urban life\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taken in larger relief, such observations raise questions as to the mission and future of gangsta culture, the cause that they fight, and the way that they fight it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The political missteps of gangsta discourse are traceable to mistakes made by the Black Panthers and the subsequent valorisation of \u2018thug life\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is also important to consider the degree of havoc and complications that \u2018bad niggers\u2019 wreak on black society. As Anthony Pinn makes plain, while \u2018\u201cBadness\u201d became a defining characteristic of many African American folk heroes and of black manhood in general since the nineteenth century\u2019, the gangsta\u2019s immersion in such activity is self-destructive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gangsta\u2019s very mimesis of identity\u2014the explicit playing out of being a gangsta, and the historical echo of badness to give his action legitimacy\u2014can make him feel distracted and perhaps even absolved of the very real effects of his behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps the first step to begin answering this question is to look at the foil to the black gangsta, the white gangsta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What, then, is the future of the gangsta? With widening social demographics and with generational unemployment, one can only conclude that it is a male phenomenon that will only accelerate. There is also a detailed matrix that comprises a semiology and taxonomy of gangster styling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, the gang called the \u2018Bloods\u2019 wore an earring in the left ear, have the hat turned to the left, wear either red or green sneakers, and bore five kinds of tattoos including a Playboy bunny head and a crescent moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile for the \u2018Crips\u2019, the earring was in the right ear, their symbol was a six-point star (as opposed to the Bloods\u2019 five-point star), their sneakers could be either black or blue, and their signature tattoos included a winged heart and a Playboy bunny head with a bent ear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This short litany gives a strong sense of the intricacy of the signs and the wearers\u2019 devotion to them. Such identities have proven crucial for personal survival in the group articulation of difference, belonging, and defiance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately it comes at a great cost of credibility, as it perpetuates stereotypes of delinquency and prides itself in derogatory relationships to those weaker than, and different from, them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Foregrounding sexual behaviour and the exploitation of women, the subclass of gangsta known as the pimp, situates black urban sexuality at an extreme point that replicates the darkest aspect of their history, namely slavery. However there is also a less scurrilous historical dimension to the pimp, which resides in the trickster. Pimps and tricksters are … <\/p>\n