Hip hop - Book Report/Review Example

Topic: Review of Chapter 3 “Fear of a White Planet” – from Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement – by S. Craig Watkins. In Chapter 3 ‘Fear of a White Planet’, S. Craig Watkins discusses Hip-Hop, and in particular focuses upon Eminem. Fear of whiteness is key to Watkins’s discussion, and this is twofold; it refers to the black fear of white Americans appropriating hip-hop and the white fear to be accepted by black Americans as an authentic hip-hop artist.

Watkins makes some key points, he discusses how Eminem has been portrayed as infringing upon black culture and calls this “cultural theft” (91). Eminem is described as “a racist interloper…undermining hip hop’s integrity and social value” (86). Watkins talks about how it’s not just Eminem, but white people as a whole who are increasingly involved in hip-hop, whether this is as consumers (predominantly male white wealthy teenagers who want to rebel, or partake in the fantasy of ghetto life), recording artists, record company owners, or “white-owned black radio” (110) and that this impacts on the nature of hip-hop.

Eminem makes a useful case study; he has been incredibly successful. Watkins at times is fairly descriptive of Eminem’s career and life; he explores how Eminem earned respect by way of his upbringing and participation in battle-rapping. Eminem is portrayed as being very conscious of his whiteness in the role of being accepted as a hip-hop artist. Watkins highlights the similarity between race playing a symbiotic role: white consumers want black sounding music, and Eminem a white hip-hop artist was signed by “Dre a black music producer” (102).

Eminem is shown to highlight his whiteness in music videos and film, and by doing this it serves to negate the threat and fear of whiteness. Interestingly Watkins describes Eminem as “somewhere between a bizarre form of twenty-first-century blackface minstrelsy (he’s acting black) and beguiling political commentary (he’s debunking black myth” (108). W.T. Lhamon also looks at the link between minstrelsy and Hip Hop in his book Raising Cain: Blackface Performance form Jim Crow to Hip Hop.

In conclusion, the chapter has a repeated typical hip-hop refrain which occurs many times throughout, and this is: “keeping it real” (108), and this applies to both black fear of white influence on hip-hop, and a desire to keep it a black form (thus meaning ‘real’); and a white fear to be accepted by black listeners (to be perceived as authentic and thus ‘real’). Watkins questions where the power lies within hip-hop and suggests that whites are as influential to hip-hop as blacks and Latinos, often due to having the finances to purchase the music.

Works Cited Lhamon, W.T. Jr. Raising Cain: Blackface Performance form Jim Crow to Hip Hop. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Print. Watkins, S. Craig. “Chapter 3: Fear of a White Planet,” Hip-Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006. 85 – 110. Web. 20 Feb. 2011. .