Years ago, as a student at Cal, I spent certain semesters studying African-American culture in the US. As I took classes along those lines, I was often able to integrate my interest in hip hop music and culture into my studies. I wrote papers on things like the cultural impact of rap, the cross-cutural components of hip hop, the impacts of African-American traditions (like the dozens, or snaps) into the formation of rap as a musical and cultural form.

One of the theories I developed was the essential role that slang plays in rap music. That is, the use of and dissemination of slang terms (e.g. bling bling, dis, crunk, hyphy, etc) was a key to the veracity of an artist, and a self-sustaining tool of propogation. The fun part for me was that I was able to take this ostensibly pop culture phenomenon - which I had a deep interest in - and study it from an intellectual, academic standpoint.

These days I have less time to study and get more of my hip hop information in the form rap videos and magazines, which are essentially promotional vehicles and take little time to step out the bubble that they live in, to offer perspective in a larger context.

So I was surprised - and my own thoughts stimulated - the other day as I was reading a (recently discovered) hip hop blog, where they did just that:

When [a rapper says] he owns the cranberry sauce Nike Air Force I … laugh inside, and then I go looking for the sneakers, because how dope would those be? Part of rap music’s genius is to create your own ghetto fabulous reality where you bring value to the shit that is part of your environment. The Dips aren’t trying to wear tuxedos to cross over. They aren’t wearing Gucci or Prada either.

Some examples, for the uninitiated: Rappers have made ‘white tees’ fashionable a status symbol; One of the hottest car-culture trends right now is to take used (generally crappy American) cars from the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, and ‘pimp them’; 40-oz malt liquor was once considered the drink of choice (for those who don’t know, 40s originated because they were a cheaper way to get you drunk); Dickies (work clothes) are fashion statements. You get the idea.

The beauty of this gestalt is that any single individual - with healthy doses of ego and gumption - is capable of making their world ‘the place to be’, not one subservient to the fantasies of Hollywood and Madison Avenue. I suppose that this has always been possible in theory, but with hip hop it is the standard, not the punk exception.

Taking this further, what was once ghetto-fabulous is now co-opted by the mainstream, and even used as evidence of their own credibility. Rap music in Hollywood movies, cholo style in pop videos, rap stars as fashion mavens - each is more prevalent year by year. As a product of America, hip hop magnifies that most American trait - we value the newest, latest, most innovative ideas and products above all else. Unlike other cultures around the world, where tradition is so highly prized, American culture craves change, toasts the innovators, and in a perverse way we  celebrate the very subversion of our own values.