Hip Hop Culture and Ethnic Relations
123
Street language has become a pidgin language of sorts. Even if hip hoppers
have different first languages, they can still understand the slang of hip hop. Hence,
this culture is bounded linguistically. I can personally recall my trip to Japan in
1995 in which my friend saw a Japanese teenager with a Snoop Doggy Dog (famous
rapper) cap on — the teenager could barely speak English but he was fluent in
street slang.
Why has the hip hop culture transcended ethnic boundaries? The urban
street prep seems like an oxymoronic term. However, urban hip hoppers adorn
themselves with the most unlikely preppy labels. Clothing styles that include such
bourgeois labels as Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica, and Ralph Lauren, seemingly
contradict the image of the fearless street soldier (Hochswender, p. 131, 1996).
According to Michiko Kakutani (1997), young urban blacks have co
opted the dress of upper crust whites as a manisfestation of their lack of power in
American society. While actual material success may be unattainable, the rationale
for adorning expensive Polo shirts, blue jeans and sneakers is to present an image
of success. Conversely, suburban white kids scoff at the material success of their
parents and their parents’ friends. One way to express this disdain is by identifying
with the renegade image of the street. Many white kids are
.. .cultural tourists who romanticize the very ghetto life that so
many black kids want to escape. Instead of the terrible mortality
rate for young black males, they see the glamour of violence.
Instead of the frustration of people denied Jobs and hope and
respect, they see the verbal defiance of that frustration (p.l8).
Kakutani suggests that this vicarious outlet of symbolic expression explains
why white suburban males have become the largest audience of gansta rap. In the
1950’s popular culture was dominated by the “Happy Days” scene. Black leather
jackets and greased hair represented the Zeitgeist. In the I960’s, the hippie and
bohemian look had the greatest influence on pop culture followed by the polyester
and bell bottoms of the 1970’s and the preppy influence of the 1980’s. The 1990’s
have been dominated by hip hop fashion (Carlstone, p.l7L, 1997). This fashion
consists of baggy pants worn very loosely, baseball caps worn backwards (NBA,
NFL, or successful university athletic teams), oversized rugby or polo shirts, and
expensive tennis shoes. Hip hop fashion, unlike the fashion of other generations,
has uniquely cut across almost every ethnic boundary. Indeed, a significant number
of African Americans, Whites, Latinos, and Asians youth between the ages of 12
and 22 dress the same (Lewis, 1998, p.E3).
Before rap music, the music of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Bob Marley,
and more recently, punk rock, galvanized the rebellious spirit of youth across the