Hip Hop and Inequality

Hip hop was developed by inner-city African-American youths in their struggles to deal with the negative consequences of their societal arrangements. The genre in its many cultural expressions is now a universal medium which serves to express more than the frustrated creativity of urban minority cultures from which it emerged. In the 21st century, hip hop has moved rapidly out of the crucible of the inner-city ghettos into the major boardrooms of corporate America. Hip hop is now used to market certain images and values that serve to reinforce the ideology of dominate groups in society.
When noted rapper Eminem commanded his audience's attention in his 2000 megahit release "The Real Slim Shady" and queried in the lyrics, "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?", the authors took the question seriously and began to search for the "real slim shady" among the fabric of contemporary capitalism. The result of this research is this book, which explores how a dominant culture incorporates some dimensions of a subculture - in this case hip hop - and uses it to perpetuate dimensions of social stratification within a society. Essentially, this book critically examines how the values of a dominant culture and the controlling images it reproduces, impact issues of racial diversity, class distinctions, and gender stereotypes.

Dave Ramsaran is an associate professor of sociology at Susquehanna University.