Lipsitz article continued

There is a quote in the Lipsitz article that I think is worth considering further: "the reach and scope of commercial mass media unite populations that had previously been divided." This follows an explanation of how free market economics have not brought widespread prosperity and freedom, but rather significantly widened the gap between the wealthy and poor. What Lipsitz seems to be saying is that as the class gap widens, the culture gap narrows. This is especially applicable to hip-hop - its biggest consumers are upper-middle class white kids, members of an economic class far removed from that out of which hip-hop originated. The idea of the culture gap narrowing as the class gap widens is applicable across all media platforms. Television fills the gap of the disappearing middle class, with shows about suburbia and nuclear families. Such programs are viewed by people spanning the class spectrum - from low-income to six-figure salary.

Lipsitz goes on to say that "post-colonial culture expressions...They foreground questions of cultural and social identity, rather than direct struggles for political power. They are pragmatic, immediate, and non-ideological, seeking to change life but putting forth no single blue-print for the future" (509). Though Lipsitz was not referring explicitly to hip-hop, but rather making a broad statement intended to encompass all post-colonial culture expressions, his statement speaks directly to rap. Hip-hop artists constantly talk about getting out of the ghetto, how they have come up through music and now have all the material possessions they could never before afford. What they don't often talk about is how to fix the problem of poverty, or how to get everyone out of the ghetto - or in Lipsitz' terms, "put forth no single blue-print for the future." J.Cole, an up-and-coming rapper who recently signed to Jay-Z's Roc Nation, sums up Lipsitz' work perfectly in his song "I Get Up":

"for all my niggas doin' time man up in prison

thought you had to resort to crime man fuck the system

we raisin' babies up in haiti where it ain't no hope

ain't no fathers dont take no scholarship to slang no dope

politicians hollerin' bout problems but I ain't gon' vote

he talk bout change still we floatin' in the same ol' boat

so tell me how I'm supposed to feel when the president spoke

when he ain't never had to struggle ain't never been broke

ain't even roll through the ghetto aint neva been close

trustin' this government like trustin the devil in oath

for rebel in coast i get up

life style of the young black and reckless

a generation of niggas strapped and askin questions..."

This verse is particularly poignant because Cole also describes the hegemony and power relationship between the government and the hip-hop community. This relationship is what inspired the genre, and this verse shows that it still fuels it.