The Paraphernalia Of Suffering

"He found himself in the window of a pawnshop full of fur coats, diamond rings, watches, shotguns, fishing tackle, mandolins. All these things were the paraphernalia of suffering."-Nathaniel West

Hip Hop culture and the lifestyle of many young, urban minorities revolve around the value system of economic (a.k.a. false) materialism. Rather than the true, philosophical materialism of seeing matter as the only thing that exists, today's urban youth see products and luxuries as the only things that exist. Hip Hop culture, which was once a truly anti-establishment culture of the poor inner city, has become assimilated into the very establishment it initially opposed. After the initial false predictions of hip hop's transient place in music and the premature, dismissive accusations that hip hop was nothing more than "a fad" were quieted by hip hop's obvious staying power, the most despicable sector of the American capitalist system, the music industry, slowly realized the enormous potential for profit that this music of the urban ghettoes possessed. Soon, hip hop culture became commodified, packaged, and shipped out to be sold around America and around the world. Suburban youth and youth around the world soon were exposed to this new genre of music. But before this, hip hop had to first be refined through the filters of "the mainstream". As a result, hip hop culture was stripped of much of its rebelliousness and authenticity, and like all anti-establishment movements, it ended up being absorbed into the system. The absorption of hip hop into the capitalist establishment also gave hip hop culture an injection of capitalist values. False materialism, capital accumulation, conspicuous consumption, consumerism, shameless self-promotion, and commodity fetishism have all become part of the hip hop culture and thus readily adopted by the new generation of hip hop listeners. Now, this commodified, diluted, commercialized simulation of hip hop has become accepted by many in the culture as the authentic version rather than the counterfeit. Young urban minorities, who were the very demographic which gave birth to hip hop, are now told by large media corporations what is and isn't good hip hop music and what is and isn't hip hop culture.

But all this should not be news to anyone, let's start getting a little deeper into this phenomena of the corruption of hip hop culture with capitalist values. Instead of resisting this distortion of hip hop culture by the establishment, young urban minorities readily accepted and adopted these American capitalist values. Rather than fighting the bourgeois appropriation of hip hop culture, young, urban minorities were seduced by the music and entertainment industries with images of the rappers they admired surrounded by money, cars, beautiful women, and a vast array of bourgeois luxuries. Young, urban minorities were paradoxically made to believe that in order to be a part of hip hop culture and rebel against the ruling class, they had to become just like the ruling class. Hip hop culture integrated within the framework of the establishment as an acceptable outlet through which potential radicals could vent their frustration with the system and thus have the threat that they pose to the existing order become neutralized. Hip hop became a diet rebel-music with only one calorie of revolutionary potential. All other values within hip hop culture (e.g. keepin it real, social consciousness, artistic ability) became inferior to that main value of the capitalist system... stacking paper, getting bread, making dough. Why did this once very revolutionary demographic so readily accept bourgeois values? Well, an examination of history shows that this demographic has been oppressed and kept socially and politically powerless. These poor, young minorities feel, and are fully aware of, this lack of power, and in addition to this powerless state, they have to deal with the poverty and suffering of their surrounding conditions. The concrete jungle is a vicious and stressful environment. Substantial upward social movement seems like a Herculean task to many young, urban minorities, and those who can show off proof of (or the illusion of) upward social movement, which is defined by capital accumulation, are thus honored for fulfilling these shameless bourgeois goals of getting money by any means. Conspicuous consumption becomes a way of compensating for their lack of real power within society and a way of masking and numbing the pain and suffering of the actual economic conditions of their environment or their community.

What makes all this even more tragic is that since most urban youth simply do not have access to legitimate means of capital accumulation, they either save up the little money they have to obtain bourgeois luxuries, or they make use of the illegitimate means of capital accumulation. Their choice becomes one of either risking their freedom (and possibly their life) through activity in the black market or perpetuating their poverty in order to put up a front of economic prosperity. Now engagement in the black market is a topic which I will save for other articles. (the blog is called Puffin L's after all) What interests us right now is the fact that many urban youths feel as if they have to put on the costume of financial success in order to have any self-respect and any positive sense of their own worth. Though they are poor and socially powerless, they must disguise themselves as people of affluence and wealth. They struggle to hide from the rest of society their true condition and, in effect, their true being. And like Nathaniel West says, all the jewelry, brand name clothes, and bourgeois luxuries that these young, urban minorities conspicuously flaunt in public all amount to being nothing but the paraphernalia of suffering. All these material objects that these inner city kids put on to make themselves feel as if, just maybe, they're somebody are just evidence of a crime committed on them by society and the system. Much like Christianity, Hip hop culture, which was once a rebellious and prophetic movement, has become integrated into the establishment and has become a Constantinian version of its original self. And also like Christianity, this Constantinian version of hip hop is now being used as a tool of oppression and repression. Let us say NO to the paraphernalia of suffering! NO to values which makes people feel as if they have no self-worth because they are poor! NO to the commodification of our (HIP HOP) culture! NO to the suffering that is social degradation, self-alienation, and social alienation!