Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The hip-hop approach

Hip-hop music is not characterized by certain instruments, tempos, or timbres. Rather, it is an approach to the organization of sound that permits the integration and layering of recordings from many sources. Hip-hop culture, likewise, is not limited to a single bounded set of aesthetics but is an on-going process of aesthetic renewal and reproduction expressed through carefully selected media and communications technologies.

This chapter explores the ever-present role of media technologies in the construction of hip-hop culture. It begins by suggesting an understanding of hip-hop culture through John Fiske's construction of popular culture. Next, the discussion shifts to hip-hop's relationship to law and technology by calling on some helpful concepts introduced by Lawrence Lessig and Henry Jenkins. Throught this chapter, I rely on specific artifacts and phenomena to demonstrate the centrality of technological innovation in expressions of hip-hop culture.

Hip-hop is a culture

Hip-hop is a competitive culture. Its practitioners value an uncommon originality best expressed as "freshness." Fresh does not necessarily mean new. In fact, it frequently indicate a re-freshing of something old, familiar, or forgotten through new use or contextualization. S. Craig Watkins further elaborates the characteristics of hip-hop's freshness as "dialogue with the past, remixing, appropriation, communal ownership, [and] creative chaos." (Watkins 2007 TODO)

Much of the past from which hip-hop draws is encoded in the material history of mass media industries. Hip-hop practitioners must literally find ways to open these read-only artifacts for transformative reuse. As such, hip-hop treats media and communications technologies with the same creativity as it approaches fashion, music, and dance. The competitive demand for freshness requires fresh tools and hip-hop practitioners are consistently among the early adopters of new media technologies.

Hip-hop culture is the result of highly productive modes of consumption and maintains little distinction between producer and consumer. Fans scour the field of available hip-hop commodities in search of texts relevant to their day-to-day lived experience. As the long dominance of hypermasculine images of black men suggests, relevance should not be confused with realism. Racist stereotypes still resonate in social contexts that support such destructive imagery. Even the most progressive hip-hop artifact will contain traces of injustice if it is to be found relevant by hip-hop participants living in unjust societies.

The products and practices of hip-hop culture provide common vernacular for a large, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-generational group of fans. As this group grows, the culture strains to contain its vast diversity. It is simultaneously commercial and non-commercial; professional, semi-professional, and non-professional. Hip-hop artifacts similarly circulate through a variety of cultural, legal, and technological circumstances. Out of this diversity emerges an unusually nuanced permission culture that exemplifies changing understandings of authorship and ownership across the media industries.

Hip-hop's social norms are also subject to constant regulation by law and commerce. Recent changes to copyright legislation affect hip-hop creative practice more strongly than other artistic forms because of hip-hop's dependency on media technologies. In addition to changes to copyright law, a dramatic deregulation of U.S. media industries accompanied the rising visibility and capitalization of hip-hop productivity in the 1990s. As this legislative change resulted in corporate consolidation and reduced professional opportunities for hip-hop practitioners, hip-hop culture turned its innovative attention to the internet.

The hip-hop approach is a way of thinking and making that accepts and refreshes old, disparate, and seemingly incongruous fragments of material culture. In practice, this approach demands an usually creative relationship to media and communications technologies. Considering Fiske's assertion that "popular culture is found in its practices," hip-hop represents a deeply innovative technological culture. (Fiske 45)

Note on my hip-hop exceptionalism

For this purposes of this argument, I use an expansive understanding hip-hop but the phenomena identified herein are not necessarily exclusive to hip-hop. Dancehall, disco, hip-hop, house, and techno share technical practices, aesthetic priorities, and a commitment to repetition with roots in earlier African-American forms. (Rose 1994) Nevertheless, the commercial success, high visibility, and inclusive aesthetics of hip-hop uniquely position it among complimentary musics in the popular imaginary. As a result, damaging stereotypes of young black men in the U.S. are explicitly linked with hip-hop culture and not those other musics, despite the many rich interrelationships among them.

Popular culture

Hip-hop is a form of popular culture. As such, hip-hop is not contained within a single description. It is large and diverse, containing a dense web of interrelated practices, objects, economies, stakeholders, and communities. Hip-hop will always evade us if we look only at industrially produced things - although they offer a nice tangible place to begin. John Fiske affirms this difficulty in his own attempts to locate popular culture, "in that ill-defined cultural space [which exists in] constant circulation among texts and society." (Fiske 6) With this movement in mind, we will examine specific artifacts as well as the practices and discourses that surround them in search of common values and characteristics.

To study a popular culture like hip-hop, we look not at objects but at how objects are used to express meanings. In this sense, we are going to have to sift through warehouses full of hopeful artifacts in search of those that resonate with a popular audience. In the hands of an empowered audience, the resonant artifact ceases to be simply an object and becomes, through use, "an agent and a resource." (Fiske 124) Like DJs selecting and sequencing industrially produced recordings to meet the needs of a unique living, breathing audience, all people negotiate day-to-day social expression through the tactical selection and sequencing of expressive cultural artifacts.

Mass culture

Commercial/indie, mainstream/underground, gangsta/conscious. Fans and critics alike share a sense that there is a distinction to be made in hip-hop culture but no one is quite sure where and how to identify it. As a result, we struggle with temporary structures that can be easily undermined as the sheer breadth of hip-hop culture provides a transgressive example to violate every attempted boundary. Fortunately, earlier studies of popular culture indicate that this problem is not unique to hip-hop but that this slippery distinction is a features common to all post-industrial popular cultures.

Henry Jenkins provides a generalized model that works well in dealing with him when he distinguishes between "mass" culture and "popular" culture. Although it is common to hear these words used interchangably, the difference between them is significant. In Jenkins' words, mass culture is a "mode of industrial production" while popular culture "describes a mode of consumption." (Jenkins 2006 136) Theories of mass culture suggest that because industrial production methods can replicate media artifacts in large volume, the consumption of those artifacts produces a monoculture. Although we are right to be concerned with mass production, this view obscures the active role of the consumer. Dominant industry has the capacity to mass manufacture artifacts but it cannot mass manufacture meaning.

Fiske addresses justified anxiety over the industrial production of media artifacts when he writese that "all the cultural industries can do is produce a repertoire of texts or cultural resources." Once these texts are released into the media ecology, it is up to the people to "use or reject [them in] the ongoing process of producing their popular culture." (Fiske 24) The concern we feel over the mass production of artifacts is better directed to the tools and modes of consumption available to the people who create popular culture. While mass industrial production does not yield a single mass culture, a systematic reduction of chance encounters with a diversity of media artifacts will constrain the development of a popular culture. This is evident in the transition from multipurpose media-sharing environments like MySpace or YouTube to unconnected niche sites like Hulu, MTV Music, and Vimeo. Although each of the smaller sites better serves its niche stakeholders, it necessarily constrains the type of popular culture that users will create by reducing the chance that they will incorporate unexpected artifacts from another niche. [fn TODO connect to my YouTube MiT6 paper.]

One thing to keep in mind about Fiske's analysis is the technological context in which it was written. Regarding the use of industrially produced artifacts, Fiske points out that, with few exceptions, "people cannot and do not produce their own commodities, material or culture, as they may have done in tribal or folk societies." (Fiske 27) In 1989, widespread access to the internet had not yet reached many North American homes so mass scale reproduction and distribution remained the exclusive privilege of those with sufficient capital to access industrial manufacturing and shipping. With the clarity of hindsight we can see that see the roots of today's widespread digital creativity in fan phenomena such as vidding and fanzine publishing that exploit the affordances of photocopiers, VCRs, and personal computers.

Hip-hop culture is unique among other popular cultures in the pre-internet era, as its popular productive practices were tightly interwoven with the mass production of media artifacts. Rather than respond to industrial, high volume artifacts like a television showa with popular, low-volume artifacts like a fanzine, the same hip-hop practitioner who contributed directly to and profited from the circulation of the mass artifact would be responsible for producing popular artifacts through entirely different channels. By playing both sides, the distinctions among these artifacts grew quite blurry. As a result, the hip-hop practitioner concerned with "authenticity" could not use production processes as determining criteria. ((( TODO this para needs some love and clarity and maybe a concrete example. )))

Dual life of a commodity

In the same sense that popular culture must be differentiated from the massive production of media artifacts, Fiske suggests a useful terminology for distinguishing the circulation of artifacts within a capital economy from their use in the creation of popular culture. In one sense, media artifacts operate like commodities to "ensure the generation and circulation of weath" that keeps the market economy of late capitalism in motion. (Fiske 11) Compact discs are manufactured, packaged, shipped, marketed, stocked, purchased, played, and resold. Along the way, money changes hands and the economy is sustained. In the hands of consumers, commodities serve two types of functions: material and culture. Material functions tend to be easily observed - e.g., a compact disc stores digital information - but the cultural functions, "concerned with meanings and values," exist only upon consumption. (Fiske TODO) Consumers actively use certain commodities as resources to construct and disperse meanings about themselves, as individuals, as members of groups, and in relation to their social surroundings. The

Fiske's distinction between the use of a cultural resource and the consumption of a commodity has intriguing implications for conventional understandings of power within post-industrial society. For the same act, power is balanced differently along multiple axes. On its face, picking out a new ringtone is a simple purchase. I select from a menu of songs, a small digital audio file is transferred to my handset, and $1.99 is added to my monthly phone bill. But selecting a ringtone is also a nuanced act of self-expression. (Otherwise, why not use one of the generic ringtones bundled with the phone?) People do not buy ringtones because they enjoy listening to five seconds of a particular song before answering a call. Rather, ringtones are personal theme music. When my phone rings in my pocket, the ringtone emanates outward from my body and draws attention to me. Consumption is just the start of my relationship with the ringtone. Beyond the exchange of capital, I use the ringtone to express meaning about myself to the people around me the same way I might with a necktie, a haircut, a bicycle, or, to bite Fiske's example, a new pair of jeans. For some cellphone users, even the decision to use a ringtone at all - never mind a specific ringtone - carries significant meaning within their social environment.

Excorporation

In one view, consumers of industrial commodities validate and invigorate a capitalist economic arrangement that exploits and oppresses them. Fiske argues that the commodity is "ideology made material" and that every commodity "repreoduces the ideology of the system that produced it." (Fiske 14) By purchasing a ringtone, I validate not only a system that regulates my use of digital media in very specific ways, but also a media industry in which relatively few voices are afforded visibility and distribution. One way to interrupt this cycle and the reproduction of problematic ideology is suggested by the consumer's ability to use industrial artifacts in unexpected, unintended, undesigned ways.

Fiske uses the term "excorporation" to describe a process by which people redeploy the resources provided by industrial production to create their own culture. (Fiske 15) Although the commodities reproduce the ideology of the processes by which they were produced, their excorporation is beyond the control of the dominant system. People are free to build a popular culture that resists, undermines, and parodies the dominant industry out of the cultural resources it provides. This does not mean necessarily that avid fans of Beyoncé are on the verge of overthrowing the pop music industry but it does mean that neither Beyoncé nor her record label can control which pleasures and meanings that fans will make out of her music.

The artifacts and practices that emerge from excorporation do not permanently disfigure or détourn the commodities they use. In fact, quite often, the emergent practices are incorporated back into the dominant system and recirculated as commodities. (Fiske 16) These commodities are then subject to the same active process of consumption and may be themselves excorporated in popular use. The cycle of selection, excorporation, incorporation, and commodification of media artifacts engages multiple stakeholders in a lively negotiation of power relations.

((( TODO include beyonce version. )))

Beyoncé's 2008 music video for "Single Ladies" is an homage to 1960s Broadway dancer Gwen Verdon Fosse. (Griffin) The black and white video depicts Beyoncé flanked by two female dancers. All three women are wearing high heels and sheer body suits that emphasize their legs, hips, waists, and breasts. "Single Ladies" is explicity coded: female, heterosexual, black, sexy, powerful, and mature. The lyrics further assert these social allegiances as Beyoncé taunts a former lover for missing the opportunity to wed her, "If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it."

[fn TODO note re: beyonce as both empowering girl power and heteronormative re: http://www.thestar.com/living/article/575705 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2008/10/first-listen-be.html ]

((( TODO include shane version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGemjUvafBw )))

But many audiences first encountered "Single Ladies" by way of a widely circulated home video of a young man performing Beyoncé's choreography in his bedroom. Posted to YouTube just four days after the official video's release, Shane Mercado's version features the 26-year old dressed in a wisp of nylon, hair styled in a dyed "faux-hawk", perfectly imitating Beyoncé's every movement. Shane Mercado's lithe masculine physique and decidely queer performance not only subvert heteronormative readings of "Single Ladies" but provide a model for reimagining the video as a cultural resource ripe for further excorporation.

((( TODO elaborate on the technology in Mercardo's reuse. )))

[fn "Advocate: I would assume, dressed like that and doing that dance, you knew everybody was going to instantly know that you’re gay. Mercado: Of course." (Von metzke 1)]

((( TODO include justin version. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5qx-MVrXfk )))

Approximately a month after the release of Mercado's "Single Ladies", pop star Justin Timberlake appeared in a sketch with Beyoncé on Saturday Night Live dressed in a leotard and heels. In its highly visible deployment of cross-dressing parody, the "Single Ladies" sketch demonstrates the limitations of incorporation of popular culture by dominant media industries. Though Timberlake's cross-dressing acknowledges Beyoncé's rising status as a gay icon, it only does so within the conceit of Timberlake's heterosexuality. Whereas Mercado's performance is one of queer virtuosity in a social space coded fiercely feminine, Timberlake's is a clowning joke about an awkward straight man in heels. Despite the clipped queerness of Timberlake's incorporation, the commodification of Mercado's performance contributed to the proliferation of homemade "Single Ladies" videos online. Among these performances, videos like "Single Ladies (BIG GIRL REMIX)" take a cue from Mercado and subvert the normative ideology proferred by the original performance.

((( TODO include Big Girl version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uuxQFEOzcc ]

((( TODO seems like I am belaboring Single Ladies - but it's so darn perfect an example! ... footnoting the rest for now. )))

[fn Beyoncé's Single Ladies is itself the product of incorporating two extant popular phenomena. Most apparent is the influence of a mashup of Gwen Verdon Fosse with "Lean Wit It Rock Wit it." J-styles dancing from the queer community so Shane was really just bringing it back around!]

The "Single Ladies" phenomenon is a clear demonstration of the back-and-forth process by which commodities serve the occasionally divergent interests of their industrial producers and popular consumers. In hip-hop culture, the distinction between stakeholders in this cycle of production, consumpution, excorporation, and incorporation is blurred as all four acts may be performed by the same people. Whereas Beyoncé's video was excorporated by Shane Mercado, it is not entirely uncommon for hip-hop practitioners to circulate unauthorized transformations of their own commodities.

Fiske borrows a military metaphor from De Certeau to describe the resistant excorporating activities of popular culture as "guerilla warfare." When we consider hip-hop, I prefer a more playful imagining of the interactions between the producers of a commodity and its user/consumers. Rather than guerilla fighters attacking a massive fleet, imagine that these groups are engaged in an endless game of Exquisite Corpse. [fn TODO explain E.C.] In the military metaphor, incorporation by dominant stakeholders obliterates all traces of past exporations efforts. In Exquisite Corpse, however, the entire project is bound by the creative decisions of each player. Even though some participants may have access to a box of markers, while others must draw with stubby pencils, they are all empowered to affect the direction that the drawing will take.

Observers with radical agendas are rightfully frustrated by the type of excorporation identified in the above examples. Subtle resistance through the creative use of commodities has the potential to be radically transformative but will not lead to large-scale revolutionary action. The transformative potential in popular culture manifests instead in a slow process of chipping away or abraiding dominant systems. Over time, countless such small changes may result in radical structural revision. In the moment, however, these resistant practices may have the appearance of complicity. (Fiske 20)

Hip-hop's most visible commodities frequently concern despicable, indefensible performances; of homophobia, misogyny, hyper-masculinity. The consumption of these commodities may reproduce that oppressive ideology at the same time as it is used to generate meanings that may be counter to them. For example, if DVDs of 50 Cent's shirtless performances are played in nightclubs frequented by gay men, hyper-masculinity is called forth to express a very different meaning from what, we presume, 50 himself might have intended. Although images of violence and self-destruction in hip-hop commodities are alarming, attacking only their content is a limited strategy when there is such potential for change in their creative deployment as popular cultural resources.

Who is the popular?

Who are these activators, architects, and builders of popular culture? What do they look like? Where do they live? How old are they? What color is their skin? What languages do they speak?

Like the culture itself, it is not possible to easily identify the people who embody popular culture. Popular culture is "characterized by its fluidity." Depending on the circumstances, one person may ally strategically with "different, not to say contradictory, social groups." (Fiske 30) Living in a "complex, highly elaborated social structure," very few people adhere to a single group at all times. Instead, we move between several different group-based identities depending on the social moment we presently inhabit.

Hip-hop celebrities frequently demonstrate and attest to their difficulty navigating and negotiating multiple interrelated social categories. Kanye West concisely expresses the anxiety and possibility contained in this multiplicity of allegiances in his song "Breathe in, Breathe out." He describes himself as the first rapper with "a Benz and a backpack," calling forth charged symbols of a powerful tension in hip-hop culture. The blinged-out commercial rapper proudly drives an expensive car, the socially-conscious underground MC carries his rhyme notebooks in a backpack, but both exercise the same expressive use of commidities to construct their presentation of self. Describing his own oscillation, West collapses the Benz into the backpack and shines light on the anxiety and complexity that undergirds the deployment of either artifact in a hip-hop cultural context.

Working with high school students, I frequently used the term "code-switching" to describe the nuanced negotiation of social spaces that I expected of them. Fiske describes this tactical approach to nomadic, shifting allegiances as a matter of "coping" with a diversely elaborated everyday life. (Fiske 30) Hip-hop provides numerous rich examples of code-switching in figures like Jay-Z, the former crack dealer who, through his savvy exploitation of the pop music industry, is now among the most visible black businessmen in the U.S. Nevertheless, when Jay-Z makes rap records, he deploys the same street signifiers as he did a decade earlier. Jay-Z's transit between boardroom and street corner is not always smooth, however. In a 2006 dis song, rival Cam'ron criticized Jay-Z for wearing "open-toed sandals" in pararazzi photos. By identifying Jay-Z's use of sandals, signs of wealth and leisure, Cam'ron hopes to create a sense of incoherence in Jay-Z's code-switching that will rupture the authenticity of his street rap performances.

[fn "Who can fuck with me? No mammal / But we tote handles atcha open toe sandals" - "Gotta Love It", Cam'Ron, 2006]

As men who became wealthy through the exploitation of hip-hop industry, Cam'ron, Jay-Z, and Kanye West must skillfully navigate wildly divergent social spaces and allegiances. Cam'ron's approach appears to have been one of eccentricity. He wields his capital power to create absurd spectacles of wealth by, for example, appearing in public wearing pink fur and driving a pink Range Rover. Jay-Z, on the other hand, has created distinct performances of self that selectively and strategically express various aspects of his personality depending on his perceived audience. Forbes magazine gets one Jay-Z, Vibe gets another, and USWeekly, still another. Of all three, Kanye appears to have incorporated contradiction most fully into his negotiation strategy as he regularly wields atypical combinations of charged artifacts in unexpected social environments - e.g., the Benz, the backpack.

Contradiction

((( TODO another important section that needs revision for clarity. not sure that one single example can sum this up. )))

Contradiction is one of the key characteristics of hip-hop culture. Fiske saw society divided by relations of power in which one group is necessarily dominant in every relationship. He wrote that popular culture is the culture of the "disempowered" and because of this subordinated status, their culture will always contains contains traces of "power relations." (Fiske 24) Hip-hop culture complicates this duality between dominant and subordinate social groups. While some have exploited the pop music industry to access positions of capital power traditionally unavailable to people of color in the U.S., they are not simply or essentially subsumed into the dominant group. Structural racism continues to bear upon these few and, as the examples in the previous section illustrate, the power afforded by access to highly visible media channels is not wielded without tension.

The mass manufacture of hip-hop commodities is not the same as the creation of hip-hop culture. Though the sale of commodities has generated enormous wealth in a very few cases, culture can only result from the selection and deployment of these commodities. Even the most capitalized hip-hop industrialist is constantly at risk of rejection by the popular culture with which he or she identifies. It is not in their power to control the use of hip-hop commodities, even if they prove skillful at anticipating which ones will resonate popularly.

Nevertheless, for much of the last fifteen years, hip-hop's most visible manifestations have rarely reflected the diversity of its popular participation. Despite receding street violence and drug trade, the gangsta pose pioneered by NWA, Schoolly D, and the Geto Boys gave way to ever more crude iterations, culminating in the finely-tuned hyper-masculine performance of 50 Cent. (Coates) Notably, the continued proliferation of gangsta images attended a rising capitalization of the hip-hop industry. Staggering CD sales of artists like DMX in the late 1990s indicated a white fascination and resonance with performances of threatening black masculinity. (Rose) But as CD sales began to fall precipitously in the decade to follow, surprising new trends in the hip-hop industry prevent us from reading it only as the sale of black pain to white kids.

50 Cent may stand as the culmination of a New York / Los Angeles gangsta aesthetic but his arrival also marks the end of the domination of those two cities. With a few notable exceptions - New Orleans, for example, artists from New York and Los Angeles remained most visible in the pop manifestation of hip-hop throughout the 1990s. The attention paid to these two hubs was at the expense of vibrant regional sounds and styles in other parts of the nation - not to mention the rest of the world.

Left to develop outside of the dominant pop industry, cities like Houston, Oakland, and Memphis developed their own aesthetic priorities and modes of consumption. The eventual incorporation of regional styles by the dominant hip-hop industry in the 2000s significantly expanded hip-hop's sonic palette. Though the most visible hit songs from hip-hop variants like screw, snap, hyphy, and crunk did not stray far lyrically from gangsterism and partying, they still differed greatly in terms of tempo, instrumentation, and arrangement. Furthermore, they revealed a diversity in hip-hop culture that was largely invisible in its dominant pop industrial manifestation. People were dancing, speaking, driving, and wearing hip-hop differently in every city.

At first glance, Jody Breeze's hustler's ode, "Stackin Paper" offers little more than might be found on a typical 50 Cent record but there is significance in the way that his Georgia accent hangs on the word "mayne.." Although there is nothing lyrically novel about Breeze's track, his subtle performance of Southerness allied him with a growing dissatisfaction among Southern hip-hip participants and thus gave relevance to his commodity. This slight contradiction between Breeze's conventional surface and subversive reading is an example of why Fiske calls popular culture an "elusive concept" for it is only in the space between the listener attuned to Breeze's accented use of Southern slang and the commodified recording that popular culture is created. (Fiske 45)

((( TODO might be interesting to talk a little bit about Mims' use of auditory regional signifiers in "This Is Why I'm Hot" here... )))

Opposition

My reading of "Stackin Paper" is frankly generous. Another reader might rightfully point to Breeze's uncritical glorification of the drug trade and ask how I reconcile such destructive images with my commitment to improving the lives of young people. To this point, I defer to Fiske, who admits that popular readings are not the only possible readings and may not even be among the most common. (Fiske 44) It is for this reason, that we must examine modes of consumption and locate those that permit diverse encounters with new texts and encourage discussion of available texts. Exploration of a wide variety of texts and readings is an important part of encouraging a diverse media discourse.

In 2006, I organized a hip-hop workshop for my high school students. One of our weekly activities was to gather in a circle around a big work table and listen to a favorite song suggested by one of the students. During the discussion that followed one of these listening sessions, talked turned to the dearth of highly visible female rappers. I thought immediately of Remy Ma from Terror Squad, a female rapper I considered radical in her unusually butch presentation of feminine power. When Remy came up in conversation, however, one of my female students responded that she found Remy's lyrics too violent and overly concerned with sex. I was initially surprised, as I expected this student to identify my subversive reading. After I shared some of my thoughts, I listened as other students confirmed that mine was clearly the minority view. The divergent readings we shared in workshop resulted in a richer understanding of Remy's power and position than we could have had with only one or another reading left unchallenged.

My fandom of Remy Ma further presses Fiske's admission that subversive, resistant popular readings of media artifacts are not necessarily the most common. Do self-identified fans tend away from dominant readings? And, if so, how does my position as a hip-hop fan practitioner bias my research?

Hip-hop fans are "not the helpless subjects of an irresistable ideological system" but neither do they select media artifacts as "free-willed, biologically determined individuals." They are each individually immersed in a complex, unstable web of social relationships that demand constant negotiation through their everyday lives. Fandom is but one dimension - albeit a powerful one - in this social system. Likewise, eagerness to locate a queer or feminist icon in rap priviledged certain qualities in my reading of Remy over ones that better resonated with my students. Popular readings may not be the most common but their possibility foregrounds the role of the reader in making meaning from the commodities they encounter.

((( TODO wrap this section up better. )))

((( TODO this quote seemed relevant when i pulled it... not sure now. "The pleasures of conformity [...] are real pleasures and widely experienced." (Fiske 49) )))

Producerly texts

"Every act of consumption is an act of cultural production." (Fiske 35) Industries succeed only when popular economic participation but people only buy-in if the texts allow to "resist, evade, scandalize it." (Fiske 105)

Not all commodities will be selected for use by the makers of popular culture. People strategically explore available artifacts and select a subset to use in the construction of their culture. Shane Mercado contributed to our popular culture through his creative reuse of Beyoncé's "Single Ladies," an interpretation that demanded considerable labor to rehearse and perform. Why was it worth the effort? Are there qualties that made "Single Ladies" better suited to expressive reuse than other songs?

Building on Roland Barthes analysis of "readerly" and "writerly" texts, Fiske describes commodities like "Single Ladies" as "producerly." The producerly text is unusually welcoming to intervention and creative reuse. No single characteristic determines the producerly nature of a text and no text is producerly in the absolute. Mercado's selection of "Single Ladies", like every popular act, depended on the relevance and timeliness of Beyoncé's commodity to his unique social circumstances.

((( TODO nice quote. needed anywhere here? "People discriminate among the products of the culture industries, choosing some and rejecting others in a process that often takes the industry by surprise, for it is driven by the social conditions of the people at least as much as by the characteristics of the text. [..] Popular discrimination is concerned with functionality rather than quality, for it is concenred with the potential users of the text in everyday life." (Fiske 129) )))

In addition to its social significance, the formal qualities of a text may afford more producerly modes of consumption. The process of selecting commodities for reuse is concerned largely with "function" and "the potential [creative and expressive] uses" of a given artifact. (Fiske 129) Mercado notes that one reason he chose "Single Ladies" is "because you can see the choreography from the first to last second. Most of the other videos out there, they’re all edit." (Von metzke 2) Specific directorial and pictorial decisions revealed the choreography in a way that welcomed creative intervention. Mercado's approach highlights possible educational, instructional uses of music video, a form frequently derided as mere advertising.

In a fascinating twist, Mercado's exploitation of Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" resulted in the production of a similarly resonant commodity of his own. Google results for queries like "single ladies gay" include countless blog posts and forum threads concerning Mercado's recorded performance. Additionally, several unrelated YouTube users created remixes that join Beyoncé and Mercado into a single, split-screen dance. The affordances of digital editing tools and networked distribution shrinks the distance and distinction between the consumption of one producerly commodity and the production of another.

((( TODO revise + include Fiske's discussion of tech in MM )))

In 1990, Fiske could not know the degree to which digital technologies would enable greater flexibility in consumption but had he looked at hip-hop culture, he would have seen a popular culture already engaged in critical consumption of producerly technologies. By manipulating media technologies in unexpected ways, hip-hop practioners craft artifacts that explicitly displayed their producerly "gaps." Just as Mercado's excorporation of "Single Ladies" was enabled by access to tools for editing and distributing video, technologies of consumption and production have always played a central role for the hip-hop practitioner. Though it may not be apparent at first glance, the tools used to read, write, duplicate, and modify media artifacts are commodities subject to the same process of popular selection as any other text. Preferred brands and models of turntables, cassette decks, samplers, software, and websites are all chosen because of their relevant and producerly qualities.

Of all the samplers designed and sold in the 1980s, only a handful found widespread use among hip-hop producers. In addition to the Akai MPC series, the E-mu SP-12 and SP-1200 stand out as favorites among hip-hop producers of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Hank Shocklee from Public Enemy explains his preference for the SP-1200 based on its specific combination of features, "[The SP-1200] allows you to do everything with a sample. You can cut it off, you can truncate it really tight, you can run a loop in it, you can cut off certain drum pads." (Rose 1994 76) Schoolly D describes being resistant to adding a sampler to his studio until discovered that the SP-12 could synchronize his existing instruments, "At first I didn't want to use the SP-12 [sampler] but when I saw that I could link up all my machines and use that, I went even more crazy." (Coleman 409)

The producers' reflections hint at the criteria they use to select their tools. Shocklee describes a machine that affords him the greatest freedom in his manipulation of artifacts clipped from existing recordings. Schoolly values connectivity and compatibility among the various machines in his studio. Once the producers had selected their machines, they frequently describe pushing the boundaries of the machines' intended use. For example, Questlove of the Roots remembers circumventing the short time limit of his Casio SK-1 sampler by recording samples in double-time and programming the machine to play them back at half-time, effectively doubling the sampler's time-limit. (Coleman 372) The producerly media tool is one that not only matches the hip-hop artist's pre-existing aesthetic priorities but affords creative experimentation with its technical constraints.

The practice of selecting, exploring, and innovating media production tools is one of the most consistent features of hip-hop's music culture. While the memories of Shocklee and Schoolly D are overwhelmingly positive about their decisions, recent discourse reveals a tension between contemporary innovators and a certain hip-hop orthodoxy that seeks to limit hip-hop's technical and aesthetic evolution. In response to critics of his transition from vinyl to digital DJing, producer Just Blaze calls upon the history of technological innovation in hip-hop, "Every few years there's going to be advantages in [music] technology. You either stick with them or you don't. [...] Use the technology to your advantage." (TODO pp2g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azZ987rtbs4) 9th Wonder's reflection on his use of the Fruityloops software suite takes a similarly defensive tone, "They only reason that [critics] think it is bad is because they had FruityLoops on their machines for 6 or 7 years and didn't know that it could do that." (TODO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3djx45kKvc) [fn Ironically, 9th Wonder is regularly lauded for continuing to create music in the sonic style of SP-1200 users like Pete Rock.]

Those who criticize contemporary producers for experimenting with new tools and technologies misunderstand the reasons that earlier practitioners selected tools like the E-mu SP-1200 sampler. As the evidence in Chapter 2 demonstrates, hip-hop's approach to music predates any particular machine. Savvy producers like Shocklee selected tools like the SP-1200 because, of the available technologies, they afforded the richest possibilities for expressing the hip-hop approach. When contemporary practitioners select Fruityloops software, they do so not only because a used SP-1200 costs more than a new laptop, but because the software affords new creative opportunities.

Central to the endurance of hip-hop as a highly visible popular culture is a continued commitment to innovation driven by creative competition. The locus of competition shifts in response to changing social, technological, legal, and market demands. Whereas the SP-1200 users competed along one set of axes, contemporary producers like Just Blaze and 9th Wonder work in a different competitive context. Blaze argues that shifting terms of competition influence his tool selection,

 "It's a different day and age. People pride themselves on different things. It was cool 10 years ago to be the only person that has this break[beat sample] but you know what? You're not special anymore because [anyone] can go and download it." (TODO pp2g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azZ987rtbs4)

The availability of digital recordings on the internet altered the terms of hip-hop competition. For Just Blaze, a self-identified collector of vinyl records, this changing context affected the criteria by which he selects tools and texts for creative consumption. If it were not for the competitive negotiation of changing technological contexts, hip-hop would have long ago receded from the pop music industry as its artifacts would no longer be timely or relevant to a popular audience.

For as long as hip-hop culture has engaged with the pop music industry, it has blurred common distinctions like commercial/non-commercial and mainstream/underground. This complicates Fiske's understanding of the producerly text as he conceived of the media ecology as clearly divided into distinct groups of dominant and subordinant stakeholders. In his analysis, the subordinant audience identifies the producerly texts from among many industrially-produced commodities and is able to creatively exploit the selected texts in the creation of popular culture. The recent phenomenon surrounding Lil Wayne's "A Milli" provides a valuable example of a hip-hop text moving fluidly through a variety of social contexts due to savvy deployment of media and communication technologies.

Shortly after "A Milli" leaked onto the internet during the spring of 2008, dozens of vocalists recorded themselves rapping, singing, and talking atop the same instrumental as Lil Wayne. Leaving Bangladesh's beat largely unchanged, each of these new versions replaced Wayne's voice with the artist's own in the same fashion as the "riddim-plus-voicing" tradition in Jamaican dancehall reggae. (Manuel) Highly-visible artists like Jay-Z, Ne-Yo, Lil Mama, and LL Cool J wrote and recorded "A Milli" versions along with lesser-known, non-English speaking, or aspiring artists. Many of these versions were collected on DJ mixtapes, blogs, and playlists on media-sharing sites like imeem.

Whereas "Single Ladies" welcomed innovation along multiple axes: dance, dress, gender performance, and video production, revision of "A Milli" happened almost exclusively in the recording of new vocals. Rather than inhibiting participation, this constraint highlighted a producerly opportunity for intervention and gave a clear discursive center for critique of the wealth of new artifacts that began to circulate. Materially, the consistent instrumental track facilitated reuse by DJs mixing on two turntables. By synchronizing the speed of each turntable platter, the various versions could be endlessly overlapped, blended, and re-arranged in live improvisations.

"A Milli" appeared to attract an unusual quantity of creative reuse and its producerly quality actually increased with use. The practice of versioning meant a greater diversity of voices from a wider variety of social contexts yielding continued relevance and timeliness. The enlarging phenomenon created an exciting discursive environment for fans and a pleasurable, competitive context for rappers. With all of these stakeholders thus enlivened by the phenomenon, rapper Fabolous recalls, "I did the freestyle because the beat was hot in the streets." (Reid 2008)

"Hot in the streets" is a phrase that is often used to describe a song that is resonating with popular hip-hop audiences. It frequently suggests interest among urban, African-American hip-hop fans as an indication of future commercial potential. As a well-known artist with Fabolous' decision to record his version because the "A Milli" is hot in the streets reflects a combination of artistic one-upsmanship with commercial interest. If the version Fabolous creates is well-regarded by hip-hop fans, it will raise his visibility in ways that may lead the way to future opportunities in the pop market place.

The importance of internetworked personal computers to the spread of "A Milli" cannot be overstated. Less visible, less capitalized artists like Kingdom recorded versions with the same motivation as Fabolous. Because only Lil Wayne's version would (or legally could) be released as a conventional pop single, all of the downstream versions circulated using the same internet distribution mechanisms. Despite their vastly different social and capital power, when rendered as a mp3 files, Lil Wayne, Fabolous, and Kingdom are techologically equal: entries in a playlist, files on a hard drive, links in a blog post.

Participation in "A Milli" was further facilitated by increasingly accessible digital production tools. While some versions were likely recorded in conventional recording studios, many others were recorded in home studios by the artists themselves. Kingdom recalls recording his vocal performance directly into the built-in microphone on his Apple laptop computer. Using software available free of cost on the web, Kingdom compressed his version into an mp3 and emailed it to friends, DJs, and bloggers who would, in turn, circulate the track further. Because the performers were adept at using recording apparatus and digital self-distribution tools, they were able to turn around new versions of "A Milli" very quickly. This rapid expansion gave the phenomenon tremendous power to reward participants with social visibility and renewed popular relevance.

The "A Milli" phenomenon teaches us a few important things about the unique characteristics of a producerly hip-hop text. First, and perhaps most distinct from Fiske's analysis, producerly hip-hop texts fluidly circulate through commercial, non-commercial, and not-yet commercial contexts. Each of these classifications, like the other qualities of a producerly text, is determined largely by the social context in which it is observed. The inclusion and sale of Fabolous' version as a track on a mixtape is commercial use but fan distribution on YouTube likely is not. Second, the producerly quality of a hip-hop text is dynamic and changes in response to shifting circumstances. As excitement about the "A Milli" phenomenon grew, it text itself actually became more producerly and attracted further innovative intervention. Finally, the producerly hip-hop text must enrich the culture with opportunities for discussion and debate. After a few versions circulated through the internet and radio, "A Milli" became vernacular. Every fan is exposed to some of the phenomenon but no one is exposed to it all. This unequally distributed knowledge provides rich opportunities for sharing, discovery, and debate.

((( TODO some more solid quotes that might not be needed ... "To be made into popular culture, a commodity must also bear the interests of the people." (Fiske 23)

Popular texts contain many possible meanings. Fans and readers can dig in, select the bits that they find useful or relevant, and leave the rest. (Fiske 143 in re: to deC) )))

Secondary texts

Critics of hip-hop culture rely on the primary artifacts manufactured by the hip-hop industry. They examine albums, music videos, singles, and rap magazines. Hip-hop culture, however, circulates an enormous volume of secondary texts that, for many fans and participants, form the material strata through which the primary texts are encountered. Blog posts, YouTube videos, messageboards, gossip, radio mixshows, and unauthorized mixtapes all play a role in constructing diverse cultural contexts in which the primary texts circulate.

Music video in particular must be examined with a contextual lens as a growing number of young people encounter music videos primarily through media-sharing websites like YouTube or WorldStarHipHop. While MTV and BET are still the gatekeepers and agenda-setting stakeholders for the production of hip-hop music videos, they do not - by even a small margin - account for the bulk of music video watching. Though young people go to YouTube and related sites in search of videos that they may have first seen on MTV or BET, the mode of consumption afforded by the website is quite different from that of the TV channel.

When video playback concludes on YouTube, the viewer is immediately presented with a revolving menu of related videos. Presumably, the videos in this menu are selected algorithmically based on some combination of keywords and user habit. They will inevitably include other artifacts of the pop music industry by the same or similar artists. But, as many hip-hop fans no doubt discovered, they may also include home videos, remixes, and critical responses. Despite the fact that "Blame It" by Jamie Foxx and T-Pain may not activate much producerly activity in its viewers, seeking it out on YouTube can (though it certainly does not always) lead to a much richer series of vidoes. I'm just as able, though not necessarily likely, to follow "Blame It" with another T-Pain video like "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)", as I am to select the video of three guys rapping in their dorm room. Without consideration for the apparatus in which they are viewed, it is difficult to see the diverse connections that internet-enabled viewers make among contemporary music videos.

Artifacts of the hip-hop industry frequently leave visible the seams of their construction as suggestive indications of the producerly practices that might follow from their consumption. For example, when Jay-Z precedes his verse on "Brush Your Shoulders Off" with "turn the music up in my headphones," he highlights the technological environment in which hip-hop recordings are made. [fn Brilliantly parodied by Dave Chappelle: TODO] Secondary texts further exploit the momentary gaps in these artifacts by enumerating the tools and practices by which they were produced. Teenage YouTube vlogger JehFree562 sparked a minor scandal in 2008 with a short video in which he reconstructed the instrumental track for Usher's single, "Love In This Club" using stock samples that ship with Apple's GarageBand, a piece of audio editing software bundled with all Macintosh laptops. The volume of criticism that followed Jehfree's revelation compelled producer Polow Da Don, of whom Jehfree is an admirer, to make a public comment defending his use of these sounds. Jehfree's video is merely one of many secondary texts that materially deconstruct the hip-hop industry.

[fn Jehfree has since removed the video from his channel but it remains available due to the mirroring efforts of other YouTube users. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVHvnpoVTGY]

((( TODO this is interesting but might not fit in here:

"Without textual reproduction of the power that is being struggled against, there can be no relevance." (Fiske 25)

"A text that is made into popular culture must contain both

 * force of domination
 * opportunities to speak out against them" (Fiske 25)
   * Asian / American Boy

)))

Which things are incorporated?

((( TODO i have no answer.. perhaps this should be a footnote? )))

Phenomena like "Single Ladies" and "A Milli", reveal some common critera to producerly hip-hop texts. If a commodity is able to move fluidly among diverse commercial environments, change in response to shifting social contexts, and provide raw material for discussion and debate, it is more likely to be selected for creative reuse by hip-hop culture. We have also seen, in the case of Timberlake's "Single Ladies" parody sketch on Saturday Night Life, how effectively pop media industries are able to incoporate hip-hop innovations into the manufacture of new commodities. Is it possible to identify common criteria and anticipate which innovations will be incorporated?

Free culture

Fiske's understanding of popular culture and especially his identification of "producerly" artifacts help explain the selection, circulation, and manipulation of hip-hop commodities within changing social circumstances. Those social circumstances can be further elaborated to reveal a collection of interconnected forces constraining the day-to-day practices of hip-hop participants. In his writing about free culture and digital remixing, Lawrence Lessig offers a more detailed understanding of the peculiar arrangement of technology and law from which hip-hop's social circumstances are determined.

Lessig's thinking is strongly informed by his experience of computing culture and the free/open source software tradition. As is a common habit among studies of internet culture, Lessig occasionally uses terminology borrowed from hip-hop - e.g. "remix" - without providing cultural context nor history for the term. This obscuring of hip-hop history not only robs individual innovators of their due credit but, it misses a potentially transformative connection between the the contemporary personal computing paradigm and the creative practices of hip-hop culture. Because of widespread discursive slippage between hip-hop and young black men, illustrating some of Lessig's ideas with hip-hop examples, can contribute to altering an enduring stereotype of young black men as less technically savvy than youth in other social categories.

Whereas Fiske's study of culture concerns the everyday practices of media user-consumers, Lessig's work tends to emphasize the intertwined histories of law and media technologies. By combining these two perspectives, we can see with finer detail how the hip-hop practitioner engages creatively with his technological surroundings. Furthermore, the social and economic norms found in hip-hop provide a new lens with which to consider Lessig's exploration of permission cultures and the boundary between commercial and non-commercial activities.

Read/Write (RW) culture

Lessig's analysis begins with a description of "read/write culture," the default mode in which humans create, share, and express culture freely. In read/write cultures, professionals and amateurs interact in on-going discourse that can fluidly move between commercial and non-commercial spaces. In this sense, Lessig's read/write culture appears to share many of the same characteristics as Fiske's understanding of popular culture. The people in a read/write culture "add to the culture they read by creating and re-creating the culture around them [...] using the same tools the professional uses." (Lessig 2008 28)

The meanings generated in such a culture are the product of a community and reflect the values of that community. In a classroom context, read/write culture is found in group projects and open discussion. In hip-hop, read/write culture manifests in clusters of creative activity like "A Milli." Professionals, semi-professionals, amateurs, and fans contributed in different ways to the production of a multi-layered phenomenon that represented hip-hop's spirit of creative competition, innovation, and reuse. Some of the artifacts generated in this phenomenon were sold in various commercial contexts while others circulated solely through social channels. The means of production were as diverse as the artists who contributed recordings but their output was materially uniform, circulating almost universally in mp3 files.

Read-Only (RO) culture

In contast with the diverse, egalitarian read/write culture, Lessig describes read-only culture as "less practiced in performance, or amateur creativity, and more comfortable [...] with simple consumption." (Lessig 2008 28) Whereas professionals, semi-professionals, and non-professionals intermingle in a read/write culture, read-only culture is characterized by a voice of authority that is tightly related to professionalization. Accompanying this authority is a stricter distinction between commercial and non-commercial activities. In a classroom, read-only culture is the conventional textbook or the lecture.

((( TODO i'm sure someone else has written the following paragraph much more coherently. )))

The professional is distinguished from the amateur in a few ways. Institutional accreditation and a shared formal training give members of a professional class a common foundation and shared vocabulary with which to discuss and enact their practices. The amateur, on the other hand, only exists in contrast to the professional. The amateur is characterized as an auto-didact for whom a given practice is not tied to sustanance. In cases where no formal training is expected, merely being paid can be a form of validation and professionalization. By this formulation, an amateur rapper has a day job and a professional pays rent with money earned through rap.

While there are many instances of professionalization in history, the professionalization of popular culture is a unique feature of the twentieth century. Rather than look to one another for expressions of popular culture, writes Lessig, "people were taught to defer to the professional." (Lessig 2008 29) In the time leading up to the last century, new media technologies like the paperback book and phonograph afforded high-volume replication of professionally-produced cultural commodities. These artifacts of read-only culture were designed to be "consumed, not used. Played, not played with." (Lessig 2008 37)

To make money from a tangible cultural commodity, one is typically required to invest time, labor, and capital up front in the creation of an artifact. This object is then replicated, distributed, and sold to recoup the initial expense and turn a profit. The founders included copyright in the Constitution as a special regulation to encourage U.S. citizens to produce creative works. This regulation provides a state-enforced monopoly on the reproduction and sale of media artifacts for a limited period of time. For read-only artifacts that require significant capital investment to produce but very little to re-produce, the guaranteed monopoly is both incentivizing and confidence-building. Copyright regulation thus enabled the growth of media industries to produce highly capitalized read-only artifacts: blockbuster films, "triple-A" games, music videos, etc.

When is culture commercial?

Until very recently, copyright law was concerned primarily with commercial activity. According to Lessig, "commercial" refers only to those artifacts and practices that are "produced and sold or produced to be sold." (Lessig 2004 7) The remaining cultural activities are non-commercial and, again, until recently, "essentially unregulated." (Lessig 2004 8) Because of this benign neglect, read/write and read-only cultures in the U.S. were able to grow and borrow from one another for most of the first three-quarters of the twentieth century.

In the last three decades, however, the distinction between commercial and non-commercial activity has become increasingly blurred. As the act of consumption increasingly results in the production of new commodities like mixtapes or homemade music videos, the law has begun to constrain activities that were previously unhindered. Furthermore, when popular culture is expressed through digital media and circulated using commercial online services like YouTube, the same artifact may simultaneously have commercial and non-commercial implications. This ambiguity reveals opportunites for regulatory intervention where previously there were none.

Although the tension between existing regulatory structures and digital media became highly visible as soon as people could access the internet from their homes, hip-hop culture has, from its earliest manifestations, embraced complexity and ambiguity in the commercial status of its practices and artifacts. As Chapter 2 will explore in depth, the hip-hop mixtape, composed of artifacts from the pop music industry, exemplifies a regulatory structure that prioritizes social norms over more formal legal structures like licensing. The mixtapes circulate through internet-mediated fan trading networks as well as more traditional commercial spaces and in many cases, the exchange of mixtapes overlaps and competes with industrially produced commodities. Nevertheless, artists signed to major record labels regularly participate in the socially-regulated mixtape economy alongside their contractual engagement with the pop industry. Despite their differences, the mixtape and pop economies are each vital expressions of hip-hop culture enriched by their interrelationship.

[fn 1996 closure of the fan-made Simpson's Archive]

((( TODO a P about fair use )))

Does hip-hop even have a read-only culture?

In the production of mixtapes, hip-hop practitioners bring the creative affordances of media technologies to bear on read-only artifacts in a manner more closely related to read/write culture. To understand the ways in which hip-hop culture complicates Lessig's notion of read-only artifacts, we need to first take a moment to walk through the emergence of read-only culture.

Initially, read/write cultures simply incorporated new media commodities into their folk practices. For a family gathered around the fire after supper, one song might be sung from a songbook, the next from memory. (Darnton) This integration was made possible in part because media artifacts were still somewhat rare amid widespread folk traditions. Twentieth century industrialization dramatically increased the volume of media commodities being produced and flipped the balance between folk cultural and industrially-produced artifacts. Mass production rather than local tradition now supplied people with the raw materials from which to select and create their culture.

In the case of popular music, the combination of phonograph records and music programming on the radio yielded, for the first time, authoritative renditions of popular songs. (TODO cite would be nice here.) Although the sale of sheet music had been underway for some time, sheet music still demands interpretation and human performance. The player piano, the radio, and the vinyl record, on the other hand, play music mechanically and require very little labor on the part of the listener. To the eyes and ears of music-loving critics like John Philips Sousa, the proliferation of phonographs would lead inevitably to the deterioration of read/write culture. Instead of a nation of singers and songwriters, we would be a nation of music consumers served by a small number of professional recording artists. (Lessig 2008 27)

Sousa was right, to a degree. College dormitory guitar players notwithstanding, the U.S. is not the nation of amateur musicians he imagined. However, Sousa could not yet see the producerly possibilities in media technologies such as the vinyl record and phonograph system. Among hip-hop's most memorable manifestations is the turntablist manipulating vinyl records to construct new musical arrangements from existing recordings. It is easy, but inaccurate, to argue that since Sousa did not forsee scratching, he was being an alarmist regarding the future of non-commercial music-making. After all, we are no more a nation of scratch DJs than we are a nation of marching bands.

Scratch DJing is notable for its radical reimagining of the turntable as a musical instrument but its steep technological requirements (special turntables, mixer, amplifier, speakers, headphones, and a record collection) and relatively small number of practitioners does little to challenge Sousa's argument that the industrial production of music recordings would bring an end to everyday music-making. Less immediately radical, but perhaps more revolutionary is the recognition of curation as an expressive activity that accompanies DJ culture. Though the reproductive capabilities of the phonograph may have mitigated the need for voice lessons, it introduced new creative dimensions to the presentation of music in the home. With emphasis shifted away from performance, the phonograph operator at a social gathering is challenged to select and sequence a compelling set of recordings for his audience. This practice gradually made way for the prominent role of the DJ in 1970s dance musics like disco, reggae, and northern soul. In each case, commodities designed to be read-only were selected, sequenced, and layered into evening-long programs of music. It is from this expressive reuse of media artifacts that hip-hop's treatment of the vinyl record is directly descended. (Brewster)

It is unclear whether or not Lessig's distinction between read-only culture and read/write culture stands when we consider the creative reuse of media commodities in hip-hop. In addition to the curatorial approach to existing recordings practiced by the DJ, industrially produced hip-hop commodities often reveal the means by which they were produced or bear explicit points of entry for creative intervention. The clearest example is in the case of hip-hop singles. Building on the convention of including instrumental B-sides that emerged in Jamaican reggae and New York disco, hip-hop singles frequently include "instrumental" and "acapella" versions. (Manuel, Graham) These recordings are as much instruments as they are artifacts, equally resources as commodities. Although their packaging, circulation, and sale suggest read-only culture, an implicit message is communicated by the inclusion of incomplete additional versions: the hip-hop single is but an instance of a larger phenomenon to be read, written, revised, and innovated upon.

Not every hip-hop fan seeks out or accidentally encounters the instrumental and acapella versions of their favorite songs. In fact, considering the prevalance of single-file downloads from peer-to-peer filesharing networks and online retailers like iTunes, incidental purchase of these separated tracks is likely less common than it was in the past when they came packaged together with the single. That being said, the transition to compressed digital audio affords new opportunities for expressive reuse. For example, selecting a song to play in the background on one's MySpace page is an even more intimate use of that pop commodity than simply playing it during a party. The constant search for new sounds among old recordings, a hallmark of sample-based music, is now reflected in the detailed exploration and evaluation of digital music in which iPod owners engage on a daily basis. We may not be the nation of musicians that Sousa hoped we might be but with our carefully curated playlists and bulging harddrives, we are no less expressive.

Permission culture

Copyright law is only concerned with the replication and exploitation of tangible instances of cultural expression. Teaching a friend how to sing a song is not regulated but burning a recording of that song to a CD is. As popular expression moves from non-commercial contexts to semi-commercial online spaces, copyright law effects constraints on practices and practitioners that it was never intended to regulate. This unexpected regulation is the consequence of the material process by which computers mediate communication among individuals. Nearly every activity we conduct on a personal computer generates instances of expression subject to regulation.

U.S. copyright law is very generous. Unlike trademark or patent protection, there is no copyright registry or application process. Rather, the law is triggered by the very acts of production and reproduction. In the case of replicating an artifact produced by someone else, "[copyright] law requires either a license or a valid claim of 'fair use.'" (Lessig 2008 100) A license requires a formal arrangement with the publisher of a media artifact and fair use is only be determined by a judge after infringement has been alleged. Either option requires considerable time, labor, and capital to pursue. As such, these arrangements are entirely out of balance with the everyday copying habits that proliferate in highly technological cultures such as hip-hop. When expressed through digital media, read/write culture is caught in a constant state of copyright infringement. As Lessig puts it, read/write culture is "presumptively illegal." (Lessig 2008 100)

Despite its prominence in the pop music industry, hip-hop's persistant commercial ambiguity and creative use of media technology postitions it squarely in the "presumptively illegal" bind. From a purely legal standpoint, each of the countless versions of "A Milli" constitute copyright infringement. Were the legal representatives of Universal Music Group so inclined, they could have initiated legal action against any of the rappers, singers, DJs, or bloggers who contributed to the growth of the "A Milli" phenomenon. Assuming they were aware of the proliferation of downstream "A Milli"s, we might assume that the the corporations were happy to tacitly allow the unauthorized activity because of the promotional value it generated for Lil Wayne's commercially available album.

But what about the various "A Milli" vocalists who made their recordings without concern for copyright law? Their creative labor was not done as voluntary, unpaid advertising for Lil Wayne. Rather, they acted upon the implicit understanding that unauthorized reuse in hip-hop is permitted in certain cases of creative competition so long as the products do not compete in the same commercial space as the original. Jay-Z's widely circulated version, "A Billi", is perfectly acceptable without the authorization of Lil Wayne or his record label but if Jay-Z wished to include "A Billi" on his next official album, he would have to negotiate a license to reuse the instrumental track. Whereas copyright law expects permission to be granted explicitly through formal licensing arrangements, the negotiation of permission in hip-hop depends on a nuanced understanding of its social norms.

Lessig's terms "read/write" and "read-only" are inspired by the "file permissions" structures on multi-user computer systems. Permission is a valuable term for describing the regulation of creative reuse. Permission may be perceived or granted in many ways. Explicit licensing is one type of arrangement but the implicit social norms found in cultures like hip-hop make up another type of permission. Appropriately, Lessig uses the term "permission culture" to describe the structural effects of a copyright regime that expects explicit authorization for all instances of reuse.

Permission culture is only possible when everyday creativity and reuse is expressed through media and communication technologies. Copyright always required permission for unauthorized transformation of existing media artifacts but, until recently, read/write activites were largely invisible because the capital barrier to production and distribution was so high. Beginning in the mid-1970s, hip-hop practitioners exploited unexpected possibilities in consumer technology to bring read/write culture to bear on read-only culture. For many others, the barriers were finally surmountable in the early 2000s with fast internet connections and hard drives measured in gigabytes.

When these barriers fell, copyright was still an obscure area of law with which relatively few people were familiar. Most computer users assumed that the affordances of new media technologies implied permission to manipulate the artifacts of read-only culture. If a legally-purchased CD could be ripped and stored as mp3 files, why would anyone think it unlawful? The lowering of technological barriers, as seen first in hip-hop culture, did not immediately effect revolutionary change to social expectation or copyright policy but revealed a pre-existing gap between user expectation and legal regulation. (Lessig 2008 98)

At the same time that new media technologies lower barriers to participation, they also enable greater enforcement of permission culture than ever before. While a DJ in 1975 could use any vinyl record with his turntables, a digital DJ in 2009 is not similarly free to use any song she purchases. Some digital materials are distributed in formats that prevent them from being copied to unauthorized devices, played back by unauthorized software, or burned to CD. For a concrete example, consider the DJs who discover that they cannot use the songs they purchased from the iTunes Music Store in Serato, the industry standard digital DJing software. For consumers of pop music, the transition to downloadable media actually introduced new constraints to their creative uses.

Hip-hop vernacular is multimedia. Participants speak and write with and through the material reuse of extant popular artifacts. Although copyright law makes no specific exception, lexical expression has been traditionally less frequently regulated than video, audio, film, or photography. One reason for this inequal application of the law is the legal distinction between "amateur" and "professional" creativity indicated by the fair use guidelines. (Lessig 2008 33) Highly technical audio-visual practices were more likely to be "professional" productions than text and as a result, they were subject to more stringent regulation. (Lessig 2008 54) But as these forms of expression become as common as writing in plain text, the regulatory distinction appears increasingly arbitrary. As such, the bias against highly-technical media expression subjects hip-hop culture to more strict regulation than other cultural forms.

((( TODO weird to have a section on (c) + hip-hop w/o mentioning sampling, bridgeport )))

When is permission required in hip-hop?

By appropriating, experimenting, and modifying media and communications technologies, hip-hop practitioners are able to open the artifacts of read-only culture and reimagine them as "raw materials" in the Fiskean sense. The products of this interaction often have commercial potential and may circulate in the same economic spaces as the source materials from which they are derived. Although hip-hop culture is occasionally thought of as one that disregards permission culture out of hand, the norms governing creative reuse in hip-hop are as strong as those found in a conventional read-only regime. Whereas other cultural forms rely on law to guide reuse, hip-hop practitioners adhere to well-known, if not written, social norms that may or may not match the existing legal regime. Lessig writes it is a social context in which "creativity must check with a lawyer" that will ultimately "weaken" the traditions of read/write culture in the ways that Sousa feared. (Lessig 2004 173) The highly capitalized read-only culture of the twentieth century produced some of the most spectacular works of creativity in human history. To abandon it, and copyright, altogether is to sacrifice the forms of creativity that have prospered within permission culture. Might the ambiguity, complexity, and self-regulation of the hip-hop economy provide a useful model for imaging a future copyright regime?

The production of a hip-hop mixtape requires the DJ to negotiated several different social relationships for permission to reuse an existing artifact. The typical mixtape might includes several different types of reuse, each with different social norms but all of which constitute copyright infringement.

Remixes can take many forms. Most are constructed to either improve upon an existing recording or to center details that may have been peripheral in the earlier version. Remixing nearly always builds on an implicit permission structure in hip-hop culture that permits reuse of hip-hop commodities for purposes of competitive creativity.
Leaked tracks and exclusives also come in different forms but, unlike the remix, these artifacts were likely produced to be sold as a commodity in the pop economy. The exclusive is typically included with informal approval from the artist, producer, or a member of the marketing team. Leaks, on the other hand, are given to the mixtape DJ without authorization. Regardless of whether or not they have been tacitly approved, both leaks and exlusives are violations of the publishing companies exclusive copyright.
Freestyles are performances recorded specially for inclusion on the mixtape. Although the artist appears of his or her own volition, the performance may be a violation of the artist's recording contract with a record label and the freestyle is often performed atop a beat "jacked" from another popular song.

Since the turn of the century, the mixtape has been informally incorporated into the hip-hop industry. Although its production and distribution constitute unauthorized reuse of pop commodities protected by copyright, the industry benefited from the hype generated among mixtape consumers who tend to be the most devoted hip-hop fans.

The mixtape story is not a happy one, however. In 2007, at the request of the RIAA, an industry trade group, police raided the studio of DJ Drama and Don Cannon. The pair of mixtape producers were arrested on charges of racketeering and had all of their computer equipment and recording technology confiscated. In sensational coverage of the event that exploited the worst stereotypes of young men of color in hip-hop, Drama and Cannon were misrepresented as bootleggers and participants in organized crime. Their mixtapes, among the most loved in hip-hop, were compared with pirated DVDs and commentators insinuated that their sale was connected with the drug trade.

Andrew Graham wrote at the time about the "honor" and "prestige" artists garner from being featured on a DJ Drama mixtape. (Graham) This arrests, and the racist tone of the news coverage, revealed a persistant cultural tension in the pop music industry. While read-only hip-hop commodities continue to be among the most profitable across the industry, the social practices from which these songs emerge are ultimately tied to a read/write cultural orientation that violates the dominant permission regime. Since the raid, the mixtape trade has moved in large part to the web where it has flourished and received increasing attention from music critics and fans. Rather than succeed in weakening the mixtape economy, the raid served mainly to highlight the incongruity of producing read-only artifacts within the primarily read/write culture of hip-hop.

In 1998, the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act attempted to update copyright policy to deal with the unique affordances of digital media. Among several specific new regulations, the DMCA prohibits the cirumvention of copy-protection technologies. The creative practices of hip-hop culture are particularly vulnerable to prosecution under this new law. From its very earliest manifestations as a DJ-driven performance to the richly layered sample-based compositions and fertile mixtape economy to follow, hip-hop practitioners have always used media technologies in unexpected ways to express their cultural priorities. Whereas an early DJ like Grandmaster Flash highlighted unseen qualities in pop music using vinyl records and turntables, today's hip-hop practitioner - the inheritor of this technical tradition - may risk criminal prosecution should she attempt to deploy digital media artifacts in similarly unexpected ways.

[fn For example, if the digital DJ who purchased a song from iTunes Music Store wants to convert it into a format that is readable by her Serato software, she may be subject to criminal prosecution for circumventing the copyright controls embedded in the instance of the song that she purchased.]

Lessig envisions a future in which media industries flourish within a regulatory regime that offers diverse options to satisfy both consumers and producers of read-only artifacts. The hip-hop approach to material culture suggests that the distinction of some artifacts as "read-only" is an illusion maintained only insofar as it benefits media industries and obscures the anachronism of the legal regulatory regime. The producerly hip-hop commodity may appear read-only on the shelf at Best Buy, but in practice, it is but one instance of a much larger read/write phenomenon. Each version of "A Milli" to circulate through web sites, mp3 players, nightclub soundsystems, and radio programs was both a distinct artifact and an incomplete component of a larger cultural project. Some instaces of "A Milli" were sold as commodities and generated income, others were not, but all of them were products of a read/write cultural tradition.

The present regulatory situation cannot last. Existing copyright law no longer reflects the needs and expectations of the people it was designed to incentivize and protect. The result is incoherence that disciplines unevenly and unjustly. Drama and Cannon were but one of numerous cases in which socially normative practice is deemed unlawful. As Lessig cautions, "Even the good become pirates in a world where the rules seem absurd." (Lessig 2008 44) Hip-hop culture provides one space in which read-only and read/write values appear to co-exist somewhat better than they do elsewhere. Its practices, norms, and creative uses of technology may provide inspiration for a more democratic policy to regulate the production and distribution of media artifacts.

Participatory culture

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Jenkins takes Fiske's understanding of popular culture and rethinks it in the context of a culture enabled by digital media. People still sing, dance, and tell stories together they way that they always have but they now build upon and treasure most the cultural artifacts of industrial production: juicy plot twists in TV shows, tunes made famous by pop stars, charming characters from video games. Fiske's distinction of mass culture ("a category of production") from popular culture ("a category of consumption") is central to Jenkin's analysis but he does not create an oppositional between dominant media industries and their subordinant audiences. (Jenkins 136) Instead, Jenkins uses the term "participatory culture" to describe a media ecology in which artifacts circulate in ways that may be mutually beneficial multiple stakeholders in different ways.

Participatory culture is not unique to the contemporary technological context but one of the affordances of digital media is greater visibility for a culture that previously existed primarily "behind closed doors." This culture was always a social phenomenon as "its products circulated [...] friends and neighbors." (Jenkins 136) Early hip-hop DJs like Brucie B recall duplicating their mixtapes in quantities of only a few dozen at home on dual-deck cassette recorders. These tapes were then sold and circulated through an informal economy that existed in parallel to the conventional pop industry. (TODO Reid) Because available technologies limited the volume and mobility of its output, this alternative economy did not concern the dominant media industries and, as Lessig described, it remained largely unregulated.

Participatory technology

Unlike a folk culture that is tied to specific practices without regard for changes in the technological environment, hip-hop culture developed new practices in tandem with the rise of digital media. (Watkins 2005 132) As Shocklee's discussion of the E-mu SP-1200 sampler demonstrates, practitioners critically approached each new media and communications technology in search of specific affordances. The spirit of competitive innovation encouraged them to explore the boundaries of these technologies and pioneer novel approaches to the production and distribution of recorded music. Today, the technological distinction between the pop music industry and the "alternative" hip-hop economy is quite minimal.

Hip-hop culture is not only the result of technologically-mediated expression, its competitive spirit rewards innovative use of new media technologies. As the figurehead of 2007's "Crank Dat" phenomenon, Atlanta teenager Soulja Boy exploited social-networking and media-sharing websites to encourage a widespread dance craze that afforded him a level of visibility typically only available to artists working within the pop industry. "Crank Dat", like "Single Ladies" and "A Milli", began as a single commodity but grew into a multi-faceted cultural phenomenon. Whereas each of the previously-discussed examples invited reuse in just one dimension (dance and vocals, respectively), "Crank Dat" provided numerous welcoming opportunities for participation.

Within just a few months of the first "Crank Dat" music video, fans had posted countless custom revisions of "Crank Dat" to media-sharing sites like YouTube, SoundClick, imeem, and MySpace. In each case, the participants altered the original video in a different manner. They changed the dance steps, altered the lyrics, created new instrumental beats, wore costumes, and performed in groups. Some created remix videos that borrowed footage from popular TV programs and movies. Just as was the case with "A Milli", each new iteration of "Crank Dat" increased the producerly quality of the entire phenomenon, attracted new participants, and suggested new avenues for intervention.

"Crank Dat" welcomed diverse modes of participation but every production required considerable technical expertise. Even a cursory exploration of the various "Crank Dat" iterations available on YouTube provides evidence of many different media production tools and techniques. The most basic homemade dance videos required operation of a video camera, post-production preparation of compressed digital video, and a successful upload to YouTube. For some of the participants in "Crank Dat", the dance craze provided an impetus for their first media projects. This lively media culture is representative of a spirit of innovation that traverses hip-hop history.

S. Craig Watkins dubs this culture of technological innovation the "Digital Underground" and identifies the internet as a "vital public sphere" for the hip-hop community. (Watkins 2005 132) The online exchange of hip-hop media presents a "resilient rejection" of rising corporate consolidation. (Watkins 2005 139) The diversity of creative expression found in online spaces is inversely proportional to the artifacts generated by record labels with shrinking rosters. With little capital at risk and an eagerness to engage creatively with new media technologies, Soulja Boy and his teenage contemporaries are the first representatives of the Digital Underground to be seen and heard in conventional hip-hop channels. While some of older practitioners pine nostalgically for the days of the E-mu SP-1200, Public Enemy's Chuck D has long spoken out about the centrality of technical innovation in hip-hop, "This community was the first to embrace [samplers] in the creation of music," he said in a 1999 Billboard interview, "The Internet is no different." (Watkins 2005 132)

Common vocabulary, convergence culture

As the hip-hop discourse that Greg Tate calls "a common ground and a common vernacular for Black folks aged 18-50" is increasingly manifested in online spaces, continued participation requires the use of new media technologies. This transition enlarges the locus of technical innovation from music production to everyday discursive practice. (Tate 2) Everyone who wishes to contribute to the growth of hip-hop culture is compelled to learn to express themselves through media and communication technologies. In this social context, the role of technology in the common culture of hip-hop achieves a new centrality and visibility.

As Fiske identified, people selected a subset of the available mass-produced media artifacts to create their popular culture. As the same artifact might have been selected by a variety of groups, these unusually resonant producerly texts form a common cultural vocabulary. As this process is increasingly enabled by media technologies, Jenkins deployed the term "convergence" to describe the circulation of cultural artifacts through a diverse technological environment. (Jenkins 137) Whereas Fiske's understanding of popular culture emphasizes the producerly characteristics of individual texts, Jenkins' "convergence culture" prioritizes the flexibility and mobility of a text. In convergence culture, a text is only relevant if it is technologically compatible with preferred modes of consumption.

In some cases, hip-hop practitioners acquire new technical skills in order to creatively compete with one another. Discursive uses of technology, however, concern the development of shared community practice and the experience is enriched by greater participation. Thus, evidence suggests that training in new technologies appears to happen through the use of older technologies. In an emerging example, rappers, producers, and DJs joining Twitter regularly ask questions of the community that demonstrate a desire to attain a sophisticated understanding of its social and technical norms. In his first few days using the micro-blogging service, rapper/producer Lil Jon asks how to import his contacts from AOL and publicly wonders, "so am i jus suppos 2 write random thoughts through out the day[?] umm im confused! well back to work." (TODO)

In the introduction to Convergence Culture, Jenkins describes early adopters as "predominantly white, male, middle class, and college educated." Because of their visibility and access to new media technologies, this group of consumers exerts disproportionate influence on the media industries. (Jenkins 23) Fortunately, the technical priorities of hip-hop practitioners indicate an orientation toward media technologies that anticipates the logic of convergence culture. As hip-hop now provides a common vernacular for a large number of young black men, recognizing and encouraging the culture's innovative relationship to media technology could effect material change to the lives of those young people.

Note in defense of bad art

"Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good!" - "Peter Piper", Run-DMC, 1986

I was surprised to discover that both Jenkins and Lessig felt pressed to admit that "most" of what is produced in participatory culture spaces will be, ahem, "gosh-awful" "crap." (Jenkins 136, Lessig 2008 93) Of course, they both go on to vigorously - and elegantly - defend this crap against those who consider it a waste of time. They cite, in both arguments, the educational value of producing gosh-awful crap. The very act of writing, says Lessig, leads bloggers to "think differently about politics or public affairs." (Lessig 93) And with people thus engaged and empowered, conventional media spaces grow more diverse. People who do bad art, writes Jenkins, will "get feedback[, ] get better[, and] the best will be recruited into commercial entertainment or the art world." (Jenkins 136)

Why did both writers feel it necessary to include this caveat about bad art? It is as if they apologize in advance to the critical reader who fears that loss of the blockbuster film. These critics are correct insofar as an unauthorized video remix will not bear the highly-capitalized polish of a J. J. Abrahms production but making this comparison is not a casual observation. Qualifying the artifacts of popular culture against the products of a massive industrial process validates a discourse of virtuosity and gradiosity that permeates the dominant media industries. The consolidation and capitalization of media industry in the U.S. is not replicable, nor has it proved sustainable. In pursuit of a more free and participatory culture, we should be skeptical of its values and metrics.

No need to apologize for bad art in a participatory culture. When the available modes of consumption respect and afford producerly intervention, art that is irrelevant, offensive, boring, redundant, costly, or uninspiring will be shortly ignored, replaced, remixed, or discarded.

Restating the hip-hop approach

Hip-hop is more than music. As KRS-One takes every opportunity to remind his fans, "Rap is something you do. Hip-hop is something you live." The practice of living hip-hop involves a creative relationship with material culture expressed through the innovative use of media technologies. Hip-hop is competitive and participatory, encouraging a highly productive mode of consumption.

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Although the turntable and microphone tend to be the iconic instruments of hip-hop music, the culture's technological orientation is truly embodied by the unassuming DJ mixer. The mixer produces no original sounds. Input agnostic, it defines a process, not a result. Microphones, CD players, turntables, iPods, drum machines, samplers, and keyboards can all be mixed and manipulated by the typical DJ mixer.

As audio signals pass from their source through the mixer and out to an amplifier, they are subject to the editorial control of the mixer's operator. The common mixer functions - cue, blend, cut, and filter - determine the relationships among the various inputs. The mixer enables its operator to treat tangible commodities as raw materials.

In 1976, Grandmaster Flash added a cue channel to his DJ mixer so that he could listen to one record while he played another to his audience. This seemingly minor modification set a standard for the creative transformation of media technologies that permeates hip-hop history. The next chapter explores this history through the evolution of hip-hop mixtapes.

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