Currency Exchange: Live Performance and Authenticity in Hiphop Culture

Welcome to the wonderful world of Entertainment
Where art imitates life and people get famous.
Welcome to the world of showbiz arrangements
Where "lights, camera, action" is the language.

-Jurassic 5

The changes that have occurred in live performances because of recording technology form a process collectively termed "mediatization" by performative theorists. Philip Auslander's recent study, Liveness: Live Performance in a Mediatized Culture, deconstructs the traditional binary of live versus mediatized forms.(1) According to Auslander, the relationship between live performance and the media has historically been one of parasitism and encroachment. With the appearance of television, film and music recordings, events previously only accessible through a direct transfer between performer and audience have become subject to mass distribution and commodification. The greater convenience and accessibility of these recordings has given them a distinct edge over the live performances they represent. Mediatized forms compete for the audiences of live events, inevitably siphoning-off significant percentages of attendance and revenues. In response to this imbalance, many live performances have begun to incorporate and deliberately resemble forms of media. For example, rock concerts are often staged as exact reproductions of MTV music videos, and some theatre productions are staged "camera ready," to facilitate videotaping. Because of this, Auslander rejects the possibility of any unmediatized live performance existing in our culture, in so far as every live performance seems to either imitate or else anticipate media recordings. (2)

What I am suggesting is that any distinctions need to derive from careful consideration of how the relationship between the live and the mediatized is articulated in particular cases, not from a set of assumptions that constructs the relation between live and mediatized representations a priori as a relation of essential opposition. (Auslander 54)

Once Auslander has established this principle of performative analysis grounded in specific contexts, rather than ontological differences, he extends his study into two such locations: the rock music industry and the judicial system. What I propose to do is apply this methodology to hiphop culture, in order to understand how live performances and media recordings combine in rap music to define the culture dialectically.(3) I will begin by looking at the history of hiphop culture, and the effect of recording technology on its development, and proceed with an examination of live performance in hiphop culture today, and the various mechanisms the culture has evolved in response to media encroachment.

You gotta pay your dues in this hiphop game,
You gotta make a name before you get the fortune and fame,
You gotta pay dues and earn respect
By workin' harder than the next over… night… success

       -Foreign Legion

Hiphop culture began in the South Bronx neighbourhood of New York in the mid-seventies as a dance party phenomenon. It was catalyzed by the stylistic innovations of a few Disk Jockeys or "DJs"(4) who began mixing records from diverse musical genres using only the "break beat" or percussion breakdown section of each song. Before rap lyrics were ever recorded, DJs would hook microphones up to their mixers and have someone (or themselves) attempt to stimulate the crowd with simple rhymed phrases like, "throw your hands in the air, and wave 'em like you just don't care."(5) Competition over who would control the microphone quickly elevated the criteria of what defined a good rapper, first in the Bronx neighbourhood, then in New York city, then across America, and today lyricists the world over have arguably entered this same competition. It is most succinctly defined in evolutionary terms: "Too many MC's, not enough mics."(6) The five core elements of hiphop culture: DJing, rapping, break-dancing, beat-boxing, and graffiti art all evolved during this genesis phase in the mid-late seventies.(7) All of them represent outlets for creative energy (musical, poetic, artistic, kinetic) incorporating only the limited available resources of the urban ghetto.

Quit wastin' your money on marketing schemes
And pretty packages pushin' dreams to the fiends,
A dope MC is a dope MC,
With or without a record deal all can see

       -KRS-One

Since the original producers of hiphop music recombined records instead of using live instruments there can be no claims of essential purity for their use of live performance; in hiphop, live performances are inherently mediatized.(8) However, hiphop's origins seem to contradict Auslander's concept of live performance as necessarily either anticipating or reproducing a mediatized recording. Richard Schusterman in Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art elabourates:

Hiphop began explicitly as dance music to be appreciated through movement, not mere listening. It was originally designed only for live performance… where one could admire the dexterity of the DJ and the personality and improvisational skills of the rapper. Not intended for a mass audience, for several years it remained confined to the New York City area and outside the mass-media network. (Shusterman 63, my emphasis).

This early phase of hiphop culture was short-lived. In 1979, Suger Hill Records released a single called "Rapper's Delight," the first commercially successful rap recording.(9) Once it had been proven that rap music could sell, the ultimate aspirations of artists shifted from live performances to record contracts. However, rap recordings did not replace live performance in hiphop's center; instead, recording became the primary source of hard currency for artists, while live performance functioned within the culture as the main currency of authenticity. Besides their financial benefits, rap recordings also had the effect of proliferating hiphop culture across the globe, increasing the number of people participating in the culture, both as consumers and producers.(10) This sudden change created a division between aspiring underground artists and crossover or commercial artists. Music critic Nelson George responds to this division with a political analogy: recorded media "has made rap more democratic--but is democracy good for art? Hiphop was, at one point, a true meritocracy"(George 113). This "true meritocracy" refers to the period of hiphop's genesis, where competition on stage ensured the success of performers with the greatest merit.(11) In hiphop as a democracy, you could think of record sales as votes, elevating the artists who sell the most records, regardless of their experience as live performers, or actual involvement in the culture of hiphop. KRS-One articulates the underground definition of authenticity, "Real is an art. Real doesn't necessarily sell. Sometimes it sells. Sometimes it doesn't. The only way you can really be real is not to equate your art with your financial success"(Ehrlich 96). Underground hiphop artists play the role of Socratic gadfly to mainstream artists, criticizing them, but often crossing over when the opportunity to sign a lucrative record deal arises. Because of this interplay, both underground and commercial rap artists are important to the culture, since hit records increase the culture's range and visibility while the demands of local live performance ensure artistic standards of authenticity.(12)  

I'm sick of that fake thug R&B rap scenario
All day on the radio, same scenes in the video…
Would you rather have a Lexus, or justice?
A dream or some substance?
A Beamer, a necklace, or freedom?

       -Dead Prez

Although many purists view hiphop authenticity as an essentialist notion, it is important to note that all definitions of authenticity are produced dialectically within the culture. In his analysis of live performance in rock music, Auslander says that: "rock authenticity is performative, in Judith Butler's sense of that term: rock musicians achieve and maintain their effect of authenticity by continuously citing in their music and performance styles the norms of authenticity"(Auslander 72). Definitions of authenticity are also produced this way in hiphop culture. In the introduction to Bodies that Matter, Judith Butler defines performativity as "the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names"(Butler 2). Rappers not only embody the norms of authenticity in their style, as rock musicians do, they also explicitly engage with these concepts in their content, constantly naming what is and is not authentic. This has the effect of considerably amplifying the performativity of the genre. Since "discourse produces the effects that it names," it should follow that in cultures where the intensity and frequency of discursive interactions are increased, the production of effects through naming will increase in response. Hiphop bares this out in the remarkable proliferation of the culture across the globe in barely two decades. This is not to say that the popularity of the genre is caused only by its amplified performativity; rather, this simply allows the norms of authenticity to disseminate far more quickly and thoroughly to receptive audiences. The most marked effect of this discursive intensity, however, is that it has made the defining norms of hiphop culture notoriously difficult to determine, since definitions become subject to change so quickly.(13) It is much easier to talk about the history of hiphop culture than its current state.

Hiphop fans you're like the woman in my house,
No matter how faithful I am, you still have y'all doubts,
Talkin' 'bout, "is he real in this relationship?
Or did he go 'pop' and on the side get a mistress?"

       -Wyclef

To understand the current state of live performance, it is necessary to consider the role of both the DJ and rapper.(14) DJ's engage in live performances by recombining vinyl records in the form of turntablism, scratching, mixing, juggling, etc.(15) Commercial rap sets a greater premium on a DJ's ability to program, sample, and produce beats for rap recordings than on the technical skills of turntablism. Turntablism is also incorporated into recordings, successfully, but it remains more closely associated with live performance than the production of beats, which occurs in the studio. This may be because fans of turntablism must witness the DJ's manipulation of the records to understand and appreciate which sounds correspond to which movements. Hiphop DJs subvert Auslander's view of the relationship between live and mediatized forms, where "initially, the mediatized form is modeled on the live form, but it eventually usurps the live form's position in the cultural economy"(Auslander 158). If vinyl records represent virtual live music performances that have been usurped and mediatized by recording technology, then DJs re-appropriate mediatized forms to create a live performance. The traditional binary of live and mediatized that Auslander is deconstructing sees the mediatization of live performance as an attempt to "pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura"(Auslander 50). I would argue that DJs resurrect this aura when they recombine vinyl records in a live setting. With DJs, as with rappers, producing records is more commercially rewarding, whereas performing live turntablism confers authenticity, and satisfies the demands of underground hiphop audiences.

From an environment where freestyle's the requirement,
I bought every album, my parents had to hide the rent.

       -Wordsworth

Currently, live performances of hiphop lyrics can be divided into two types: written and freestyle. Written songs are composed first and then memorized, and are often performed live as reproductions of recordings. In this case the recording is more original that the performance, since the audience responds to the familiarity of the song.(16) Freestyle is improvisational rhyming, and remains central to the underground concept of hiphop as a meritocracy. Various definitive elements combine to ensure freestyle's central role in hiphop's continuing evolution; these elements include inherent liveness, resistance to commercialization and the presence of clear standards for judgement in competitions. Freestyle is inherently live because it is composed and performed simultaneously, and although it is possible to record a freestyle, recording considerably undermines a rap's status as freestyle. Eric Pihel explores some of these complexities in his essay "A Furified Freestlye."

Memorized raps that have been pre-written …are not freestyles. Even a rap that is freestyled in a recording studio cannot be considered a freestyle because the rapper is able to do a limitless number of takes before he or she decides on the final version. A freestyle, then, is a live performance in front of a live audience--whether an audience at a club or listeners to a freestyle competition on live radio. (Pihel 252, my emphasis)

What Pihel offers us here is the most limited and purist definition, and occasionally the term "freestyle" is used more loosely within hiphop culture.(17) However, it is a major taboo in hiphop culture to attempt to pass off pre-written rhymes as freestyle, and the term is generally understood to mean unrehearsed live lyrics, composed and performed in the same moment.

Some get Range Rovers, some religion change over,
Angel on my main shoulder, tellin' me "remain sober,"
Told me, "Nigga, game's over, ain't no payola in freestyle"
In battles I'm warrin', like a G-child.

       -Common

The failure of recording technology to capture live freestyle gives it the greatest edge as the measure of hiphop authenticity, simply because this shields freestyle from commodification. Freestyle is considered a valid measure of authenticity because it is virtually invulnerable to corruption. This is because freestyle ability is not based on record sales or the decision of a panel of judges; instead, the winner of a freestyle competition is determined by the reaction of the audience as a whole. The main criteria for judgement are originality of rhyme, rhythmic flow, and comprehensibility. Although the ability to freestyle rarely confers financial gain directly on artists, freestyle competition is understood within hiphop culture as part of the grassroots dues-paying process that eventually leads to commercial success. This is summed-up in Tricia Rose's 1995 interview with Carmen Ashurst-Watson, president of "Rush Communications,"

There are local amateur shows or talent shows which feature competition amongst rappers. They get their experience by freestyling and battling other rappers in jam sessions... Freestyling is not really a commercially viable style of rap--it is more of a training ground. (Rose 123)

Because it is understood in hiphop culture that freestyle is not a "commercially viable style of rap," freestyle skill alone is generally not enough for an artist to achieve financial security; they must also be able to compose lyrics for recording.(18) As is the case with DJs, versatility is the greatest asset. Live performance, freestyle, and turntablism are necessary to demonstrate hiphop authenticity to audiences, and the ability to compose songs and produce beats is necessary to achieve financial stability.

It is a common belief that live performance has been--or will soon be--completely eclipsed by media recordings. This is indicated by Pihel's conclusion: "Rap is now being recorded and distributed worldwide, and freestyle competitions are no longer the most common site of cultural production…Video images and record contracts threaten to pull rap away from its roots in freestyling skills"(Pihel 266). However, this is an illusion of visibility, more deceptive than descriptive. For every rapper who makes a video, or releases a hit record, there are literally hundreds worldwide for whom such exposure is a remote dream; these artists make up the hiphop underground. In fact, freestyle and turntablism are the most common sites of cultural production, but this is not common knowledge, since they are also the least visible sites. Consistent with its ethos of resistance and rebellion, hiphop culture's ideology of authenticity reverses Auslander's appraisal of the present relationship between live and mediatized forms:

This is exactly the state in which live performance now finds itself: its traditional status as auratic and unique has been wrested from it by an ever accelerating incursion of reproduction into the live event… I might argue that live performance has indeed been pried from its shell and that all performance modes, live or mediatized, are now equal: none is perceived as auratic or authentic; the live performance is just one more reproduction of a given text or one more reproducible text. (Auslander 50)

In hiphop, the live performance skills of freestyle and turntablism that form the core of the culture are both antithetical to this view. Freestyle is neither a reproduction of a text, since it is improvised, nor a reproducible text, since its status as freestyle is contingent on live performance. Likewise, turntablism has proven itself resistant to mass reproduction, since it is both recombinative, and offers itself for future recombination. Instead of accepting Auslander's view of the vulnerable, ethereal spirit of live performance as retreating terrified from the cold tyranny of media technology, doomed to eventually succumb to its mechanized parasite, hiphop seizes media technology (turntables, mixers, mics) as its basic tools, immediatizing them on stage. In hiphop, live performance usurps media, as much as vice versa. Through direct interactive engagement with live audiences, MCs and DJs dialectically produce hiphop culture, priming it for lucrative media recording while simultaneously ensuring its survival as an authentic art form through the regulatory competitive practices of live performance.

Endnotes:

1 - The example Auslander cites is of Broadway theatre productions underwritten by cable television money, with the understanding that they will be taped for public broadcast, which would then be staged "pre-adjusted to the aspect ratio, intimate scale, and relative lack of detail of the television image." (Auslander 27)

2 - "The live performance is just one more reproduction of a given text or one more reproducible text."(Ibid 50)

3 - In a very general sense, hiphop culture corresponds with Auslander's description of rock authenticity: "produced through a dialectical or symbiotic relationship between live and mediatized representations of the music, in which neither the recording not the live concert could be perceived as authentic in and of itself"(Ibid 160).

4 - "Hip hop sprang off the uptown streets of New York City via block parties and jams in public parks, sparked by the innovative moves of a handful of pioneering men…They called themselves "DJs," but they left in the dust any traces of the AM radio jocks who first popularized that term." (George xi)

5 - Early DJs employed a "master of ceremonies (or MC) to introduce and comment on the selection. [They] didn't rap as we'd recognize it now but were more in the style of the Jamaican sound system toasters or black radio announcers hyping a record." (Ibid 19)

6 - Pras from The Fugees on their sophomore album, The Score.

7 - DJing is creatively mixing records. Rapping is rhymed and rhythmic (as opposed to metered) oral delivery. Break dancing entails spins, flips and stalls using the hands, head, shoulders, knees and other body parts, in addition to the feet. Beat-boxing is the production of percussion sounds using the mouth and throat. Graffiti art is urban spray-paint art produced in a public space. All of these definitions are insufficient, and none of the five elements of hiphop culture can be adequately described; they must be witnessed.

8 - "As soon as electric amplification is used, one might say that an event is mediatized"(Auslander 24).

9 - "'Rapper's Delight' changed everything; most important, it solidified rap's commercial status"(Rose 56).

10 - "Through the recording media of records, tapes and compact discs, rap has been able to reach out beyond its original ghetto audience and thus give its music and message a real hearing"(Shusterman 68).

11 - "You battled in the park. You rocked the house on stage. You made 12-inches that created your audience. You toured and built a rep. If you survived all these stages, you became a rap star with some level of fame"(George 113).

12 - "To hard-core purists almost all [hit records] are crossover crap and not "true hip hop," a stance that, like a great many purist positions in all art, is short-sighted and ahistorical. Throughout the last twenty years these hits kept the general population excited or at least aware of the music and, within the industry, constantly proved non-believers wrong"(Ibid 65).

13 - "Any definition of the culture must be understood to be a working definition--always subject to reworkings and readjustments…the culture is constantly recreated and redefined from the bottom up"(Pihel 251).

14 - In a paper of this length I will have to limit my discussion to the two most visible aspects of hiphop culture, although much could (and I hope will) be said about the importance of live performance to break-dancing, beat-boxing, and graffiti.

15 - "Mixing" is the combination of two records with complimentary tempos or melodies. "Scratching" is the sound created by rapidly moving the record back and forth over one particular area. "Juggling" is playing two copies of the same record on either turntable and switching the cross-fader between them, creating an echo effect. "Turntablism" is the name for these and other DJ techniques.

16 - In this respect, many rap performances are very similar to rock concert performances "in rock, the live performance is a recreation of the recording, which is, in fact, the original performance"(Auslander 84).

17 - I.e. The album, "Wake-up Show Freestyles Vol. 6" released by Sway and King Tech contains some raps that appear on other albums, and therefore cannot be improvised, but since the majority of the raps appearing on the album are improvised, they are all called "freestyles."

18 - Brian Dorsey comments on the failure of some artists to make this transition: "an ability to improvise does not confer an ability to write,"(Dorsey 341).

 

 

 

Works Cited:

Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. Routledge. London, U.K. 1999.

Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter. Routledge. 1993.

Costello, Mark & David Foster Wallace. Signifying Rappers. The Echo Press.

Echo NJ. 1990.

Dorsey, Brian. Spirituality, Sensuality, Literality: Blues, Jazz and Rap as Music and Poetry.

Wilhelm Braumuller. Universitats-Verlagsbuchhandlung, Austria. 2000.

Ehrlich, Dimitri and Gregor. Move the Crowd: Voices and Faces of the Hip-

Hop Nation. MTV Books / Pocket Books. Simon & Schuster. New York,

NY. 1999.

George, Nelson. hip hop america. Penguin. New York, NY. 1998.

Pihel, Erik. "A Furified Freestyle: Homer and Hip Hop." Oral Tradition. Columbia, MO.

Oct, 1996.

Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America.

University Press of New England. Hanover, NH. 1994.

Rose, Tricia and Andrew Ross, ed. Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture.

Routledge. New York, NY. 1994.

Shusterman, Richard. Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art. Cornell University

Press. Ithaca, NY. 2000.