Essentialism in Art & Music, Authenticity

an essay on Rick Ross would be a good read

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actually i think with ross you know hes not real but he delivers such a compelling fantasy you dont really care - its so well executed and put together that with ross its more about him making good songs/albums and having a great presence/image/persona than one thats grounded in 'authenticity' per se

absolutely, but to extend from that, one can then more clearly see that that's been the case for a whole lot of rap artists, few of whom were living the lives they claimed to be (at least prior to stardom). Rap has always been about persona and fantasy, which is why the constant criticism of rap's misogyny and violence, while it has its points, is really irritating when white filmmakers get away scot-free, when making art with exactly the same obsessions. Except of course, they're just playing make believe....

yeah absolutely a lot of rappers personas have been bogus (not that it matters necessarily - not sure why rappers are so obsessed with calling other rappers out for not being 'real', not sure why i should care about that as a fan exactly apart - do i need to only listen to those with criminal records?) but with ross its like no one really cares about him not being real, although he has of course attempted to show he is real, wasnt a prison officer etc etc. i suppose the thing with ross that makes him diff to other rappers, or previous rap eras at least, is that the pressure on him to be REAL, for the authenticity to be true, doesnt seem to be there. everyone knows its gangsta dress up, which is part of what makes him ring hollow to me, but at the same time also makes him more easy to warm to, or less threatening. im sort of of rambling as i havent got time to think about this properly just now but hes more like the firm than say raekwon in terms of that kind of crime mob fantasy thing. maybe its just cos the whole 'getting the streets on your side' thing is no longer that important as it was back in the 90s say, or even early 00s when 50 cent etc was king, or maybe its just cos ross is so good at delivering the whole black mafia fantasy thing. its knowing but not so knowing that its irritating.

I must admit I dont' know everything about Rick Ross himself, except having followed some of his beefs with 50 Cent, the Game, Eminem and, er, everyone else. When he got found out, for about five seconds he denied it (as I recall, may not be right), and then jsut embraced it, with a 'so what' atttiude. If he'd kept on denying it, I think it would have killed his career.

"not sure why rappers are so obsessed with calling other rappers out for not being 'real' " - i would say it's something that has been partly driven by the vicarious wishes of mainly white people and record execs, to have rappers who are almost like movie stars, dangerous and allegedly 'real'.

I think the inability to be allowed fantasy by the mainstream media can be really tragic too - most obviously, Biggie and Tupac and Big L (and Dre and Snoop etc) were dragged into a world of real gangsters adn serious beefs, whereas that wasn't really their background, tough as their backgrounds may have been in different ways. If they could have gone 'oh, it's just a character, obviously', then they wouldn't have felt the pressure to step to everyone who called them out. 'Hit em Up' always strikes me as the ultimate death wish.

but its music, and its hip hop. its not like films, where directors can hide behind their scripts and characters that act out their beliefs and values and opinions, they have to BE that person, otherwise its just fake. i think theres much more expectation in music in general for artists to be who they are on record than in film - no one expects arnie to be the terminator. or for cronenberg to be a sicko like many of his characters. the whole 'people dont criticise movies' analogy/defence doesnt really work because the whole movie making setup is so different. and for rappers to basically deny the truth of their recording personas, they do obv get too caught up in being that character, but if they all just said it was fake, then im not sure it would be as compelling - it would be a cop out almost. we expect music to reflect something of the person making it's personality. then again i love lots of old jazz and theyre just singing songs by songsmiths but it doesnt make me think less of it. hip hop and prob rock too are maybe too caught up in that whole authenticity/confessional trap. reminds of vincent cassel saying he could never be a rapper like his brother cos he would have to be 'on' all the time, he could never just relax and retreat to his normal self.

gumdrops said:

but its music, and its hip hop. its not like films, where directors can hide behind their scripts and characters that act out their beliefs and values and opinions, they have to BE that person, otherwise its just fake. i think theres much more expectation in music in general for artists to be who they are on record than in film - no one expects arnie to be the terminator. or for cronenberg to be a sicko like many of his characters. the whole 'people dont criticise movies' analogy/defence doesnt really work because the whole movie making setup is so different. and for rappers to basically deny the truth of their recording personas, they do obv get too caught up in being that character, but if they all just said it was fake, then im not sure it would be as compelling - it would be a cop out almost. we expect music to reflect something of the person making it's personality. then again i love lots of old jazz and theyre just singing songs by songsmiths but it doesnt make me think less of it. hip hop and prob rock too are maybe too caught up in that whole authenticity/confessional trap. reminds of vincent cassel saying he could never be a rapper like his brother cos he would have to be 'on' all the time, he could never just relax and retreat to his normal self.

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well, i guess it's a case here of clearly separating prescriptive and descriptive. I agree that in reality, there is much more pressure upon (particulalry black hip-hop) musicians to walk it like they talk it (though i think you're overstating the divide with movies a little, as many actors get typecast precisely because audiences can't separate actor and character). What I guess I'm saying is that (i) i think this is quite fucked up in a way, and (ii)that the reasons it's so are v complicated, and that's the part that interests me the most.

edit: one reason music and movies are slightly different is that people don't separate songwriter and performer (obv in most cases they're the same, but even where they're not people don't make the distinction,w hich is what you've said about jazz), as easily as they separate director/writer/actor/etc etc in the filmamking process. But I dont' think it's the entire reason.

edit 2: also, the oversimplification of what real/fake even means, in the media, contributes to a lot of confusion aroudn these notions. It's like the old chestnut about an author's first book being about himself, and the endless specualtion over whether this is so in some cases. The answer is yes AND no, usually.

during the course of the evening last night i kept thinking about this thread.

went to an exhibition entitled "Hommage à CAN" where some old hippie Kraut-Rock band came out of the wood works, dressed as if it was 1975 with leather pants, long hair, tie-dye, beads, etc., and played a really nice set of analog electronics, guitars and effects, and syncopated grunting. proper spaced out weird "drift-rock" (term i hadn't heard until last night actually), to a gallery full of older art-world types age from 40s to 60s.

and then i met a friend of mine to check out a new venue where we might do something, and it was jam session night. 2011, Berlin, Germany: a group of students looking musicians playing that good ol' rock and roll, with stand up bass, not only the singer sounding 100% authentic with Southern accent, perfectly inflected, and guitar, bass and drums tight as hell, even the moves down to the hip twist, the clothes down to the cowboy boots and western collared shirt. sounded really good, and the audience, also mostly students looking, were loving it.

a lot to think about here with these 2 performances... German cultural identity, American cultural hegemony... Kraut-Rock, to me some of the most amazing "rock" music of the 20th Century, and something original and unmistakably GERMAN, was vastly ignored in Germany back in the 70s, where bands imitating American and British rock got all the fame... a lot of other angles and thoughts too... not ready to commit all of them to screen.