From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap, and the Performance of Masculinity

African American Music in Global Perspective

by Miles White

This multilayered study of the representation of black masculinity in musical and cultural performance takes aim at the reduction of African American male culture to stereotypes of deviance, misogyny, and excess. Broadening the significance of hip-hop culture by linking it to other expressive forms within popular culture, Miles White examines how these representations have both encouraged the demonization of young black males in the United States and abroad and contributed to the construction of their identities.From Jim Crow to Jay-Z traces black male representations to chattel slavery and American minstrelsy as early examples of fetishization and commodification of black male subjectivity. Continuing with diverse discussions including black action films, heavyweight prizefighting, Elvis Presley's performance of blackness, and white rappers such as Vanilla Ice and Eminem, White establishes a sophisticated framework for interpreting and critiquing black masculinity in hip-hop music and culture. Arguing that black music has undeniably shaped American popular culture and that hip-hop tropes have exerted a defining influence on young male aspirations and behavior, White draws a critical link between the body, musical sound, and the construction of identity.

Genres: Race, Nonfiction, Music, Gender, Feminism

166 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 15, 2011

About the author

Miles White is a former journalist and staff writer for USA Today.

Reviews

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swagger, bluster, mean muggin', Crip walkin', racial masquerade and misogyny. Miles White spins a scintillating analysis that situates the black male body staged in the context of racial fantasties and performativity, tracking it from minstrel borrowings to street corner head-spinnings to suburban white wannabes. The value of the "love and theft" formula cooked up by Eric Lott helps explain the ambivalence manifested by white working class fans of the minstrel stage that crave African-American sounds and beats, even as they caricatured the black culture they so copiously copied in the 19th century. This historical framework proves super-illuminating when looking at the rise of gangsta rap, where once again black culture provides the rhythmn and sounds for a hip-hop craze that sweeps white boys off their feet with baggy pants, backward baseball caps and ghetto lingo. Representing masculinity can be tough in inner city neighborhoods where choices don't seem like choices, and hustling provides more jobs than corporate America. But manliness in the suburbs may be problematic in different ways as testosterone doesn't quite find its joy in studying for SAT tests, apple-polishing in AP courses and zooming to endless afterschool activities to beef up precocious CVs. The perils of performing hardcore masculinity in hip-hop won't cancel out the rewards moguls such as Jay-Z have wrested from these negotiations of race, but thinking beyond the first layers of representation offers fruitful insights into how post-slavery categories of thought have shaped our deepest perceptions of gender.

[Christopher Hinton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book almost perfectly elucidated the dichotomy of consumption of black american pop culture, and the near apathy to what goes on in the community. How breads and circuses, or the objects of it can further the very objectification in many arenas. Miles paints an ugly background of the voiceless and trend-setters are obscured by the capitalist system their were harvested in; the original message flatlines, then taxidermied for mass consumption. An empty husk of what it was supposed to represent.

[Leo DeLoatch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating!

This was an amazing read that opened my eyes to truths that I've always felt but was unable to eloquently convey in normal conversation.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quality! Well organized, well researched, super easy to read.