In the 1970s, the music genre hip hop emerged as a creative outlet and response to violence, poverty, racism and social neglect of minorities. Social justice and community were highly valued and helped to bring attention to the discrimination and struggles of the oppressed lower class. This led to hip hop becoming embedded in black culture, with some of the most well-known artists in this culture (such as Dr. Dre, Jay Z and Lil Wayne) having lived and experienced this lifestyle.
While initially starting in the Bronx as a reaction to gang violence, police brutality and crime, over the past forty years hip hop has grown in popularity and spread all across the globe, leading to the worldwide glocalisation of the genre, and to this day is still used as an outlet to express injustices (such as M.I.A’s “Paper Planes”). Unfortunately, this has also led to the appropriation of hip hop culture, with artists such as Iggy Azalea using the genre creatively without any shown understanding or respect of its confronting history.
Australian rapper Iggy Azalea has been repeatedly accused of the appropriation of black culture by both critics and fellow artists. Much of these accusations arise from Azalea’s rapper “persona”. When comparing Azalea’s articulation while performing to her “everyday” speech, significant differences are easily detected. During conversations, Azalea is recognised as an Australian (albeit one that has been living in America for some time), but during performances, she appears to adopt what can only be described as a “blaccent”.
In her music, both Azalea’s articulation and slang drastically change. Words such as “finna” (“Now I’m finna kill this s***” – My World), “boujee” (“Broke h*** think I’m boujee – Down South) and “thick” (“Damn she is too thick – New B****) are used frequently in her songs, unlike when she is in conversation. Her pronunciations also change to better suit her persona, dropping “r’s” (Mista instead of mister), swapping “th’s” for “f’s” (mouf instead of mouth) and so on. This is tied with other cultural choices, such as wearing cornrows and twerking, both of which originate from African American culture. This, unfortunately, means that Azalea has taken a culture she has no personal experience of and appropriating it for the benefit of her music career.
To exploit hip hop culture in this fashion is to complete downgrade and ignore social and racial injustices in both the past and present. Instead of using her influence to bring awareness and change for victims of these still relevant issues, Azalea pretends to have no connections to this at all. She inadvertently encourages inauthenticity and ignorance when her success could instead have been used to be a celebration of African American culture among differing ethnicities. Azalea sends the message to her audience that its acceptable to appropriate the “cooler” parts of a specific culture while ignoring the more difficult or confronting parts of that culture’s history.
When hip hop is so tied in with African American identity, history and culture, a certain degree of respect is demanded. Azalea’s musical persona can be seen as an exploitation of both African American culture and the history of hip hop for her financial gain. To do this completely ignores the original purpose and soul of the hip hop community.
References:
Crooke, A. Travis, R 2017, ‘The healing power of hip hop,’ The Conversation, 27 July, viewed 27 August, < https://theconversation.com/the-healing-power-of-hip-hop-81556>
Eberhardt, M. Freeman, K ‘‘First things first, I’m the realest’: Linguistic appropriation, white privilege,and the hip-hop persona of Iggy Azalea’ (2015) Journal of Sociolinguistics 19/3, pp. 303-327, viewed 27 August, <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/josl.12128>
Guo, J 2016, ‘How Iggy Azalea mastered her ‘blaccent’,’ The Washington Post, 4 January, viewed 27 August, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/04/how-a-white-australian-rapper-mastered-her-blaccent/?noredirect=on>
Hess, M ‘Hip-hop Realness and the White Performer’ (2005) Critical Studies in Media Communication Vol. 22, pp. 372-389, viewed 27 August, <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07393180500342878?needAccess=true>
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