TAWANDA CHARI
Culture is a word that has, for the most part, aligned with something positive. A ruse people use to hide behind ‘CULTURE’ for all the abominable stuff they do. In the context of Hip Hop, the word has been used to strip off all the negative elements that goes with it as if to mean culture(s) can’t be challenged or that it’s a perfect state of things.
Fan Culture
Fans are important. Socially, they can be taken to represent a dedicated, active audience; they are consumers who are often and can be analyzed economically as a significant part of contemporary consumer culture.
Fandom – the state of being a fan – is a necessary development of extensive knowledge and expertise about their music or artists, characteristically feeling a sense of ownership over ‘‘their’’ artist/genre. The mission and not limited to that is seeking to break down barriers between themselves as subjects and their artist/genre, creating their fan identity and becoming a meaningful aspect of cultural and self identity.
Types of Hip-Hop Fans You’ll Meet:
1. The “Hip-Hop” Head
These Hip-hop fans have not only listened to hip-hop music from before the year 2000. But they have studied elements and all the nuances of Hip Hop. They are somewhat the scholars and historians of the game.
2. The “Instant Classic” Fan
You’ll see an “instant classic” fan if you open your Twitter feed and look for reactions to the latest big hip-hop release. Every time an album by one of their favorite artists comes out they hail it as an instant classic after ONE LISTEN. These are die-hards and cannot be argued with. There's no point. The futility is insufferable.
3. The “That's Dope” Fan
These are rapper’s friends. And they lie. We do not know what they are afraid of; or if they have any ulterior motives.
4. The “For-The-Culture” Fan
This type of Hip-Hop fan cites everything as being for the culture. That event/song/video/album/cover art they want you to support is “For The Culture.” That new Holy Ten tweet was for the culture. Everything is for the culture. Even when it doesn't help you in any way.
5. The Average Hip-Hop Fan
This fan is your regular everyday hip-hop fan. They aren’t as passionate as your “Instant Classic” fans and also not as purist as your “Hip-Hop ” heads. Some of their simpleton perceptions/views/comments may irk you. Exercise discretionary patience.
We just don’t follow rappers
We follow their influence on and off the mic. The dangerous fandom of morphing into individuals and societies that never pause to challenge what our favourite rapper says or does is catastrophic. The commodified, bastardized version of Hip Hop serves to make the masses ignorant.
Which type of fan are you?
Though it may be seen primarily as a form of entertainment, rap has the powerful potential to address social, economic, and political issues and act as a unifying voice for its audience.
When rappers start flexing their verbal skills, it always reflects what's going on politically, socially and economically.
Hip Hop’s history appears brief. Worse yet “Zim Hip Hop”. The relation to the African Oral Tradition, which provides rap with much of its current social significance, also roots rap in a long-standing history of oral historians, lyrical fetishism, and political advocacy. Which it should be about.
Hip-Hop music worldwide has followed the path of commercialization over the last decade or so. Corporate record labels repackaged rap music as a get rich quick scheme erasing the historical, social, political and economic contexts, out of which rap has emerged, from public consciousness.
The Social Significance of Hip Hop Culture
In order to understand hip-hop, it is necessary to look at it as the product of a set of historical, political, and economic circumstances and to study the role it has served as voice for those subjugated by systematic political and economic oppression.
It's life itself. It should never be about controversy or numbers (although hip hop came from numbers) or social media clicks for reasons that really are stupid. Be entertained but also be aware of what you are consuming.
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