Most fundamentally, virtually everything associated with Hip-Hop culture as it pertains to males relates to the portrayal of masculinity and a high degree of self-esteem, a positive self-image, and to being a powerful person on every level. This is portrayed in numerous specific ways, including the lyrics of songs, the adoption of certain physical mannerisms, manner of dress, and to inferences of social and physical dominance of men, particularly toward women (Price, 2006).
In many respects, these images completely contradict reality. For example, Hip-Hop artists have frequently appeared on prominent cable television programs profiling their success through guided tours of multi-million-dollar mansions and expansive estates complete with several brand new Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Rolls Royce, and Bentleys in their driveways. Aside from the social irresponsibility of promoting ostentatious displays of luxury to impressionable youth, in many cases, the portrayals are themselves largely phony (Price, 2006).
That is simply because much more often than not, the luxurious estates and automobiles are merely leased or rented and depict a false image of the actual wealth of the artists (Watkins, 2006). In other cases, the artists may own some of the property displayed, but those acquisitions actually represent the bulk of any equity actually owned by the artists because outward display of wealth is even more important to them than actually accumulating bona fide wealth from more appropriate financial investments and planning (Watkins, 2006).
Whereas a substantial amount of effort apparently goes into portraying male Hip-Hop artists as powerful figures in charge of their own destiny and unconcerned with the opinions of others, the fundamental basis of ostentatious displays of wealth and of promoting one's self as a conqueror of female hearts is psychological...
In that regard, some of the very same social "rebels" who originally built their so-called "street creds" by professing to reject mainstream American social and cultural values now own mansions on large estates in New York's most exclusive Hampton communities where they hold extravagant annual parties featuring prominent members of the very same mainstream American social culture that share absolutely no values at all with them, let alone with the millions of ordinary African-American consumers who are responsible for their wealth. Some of those successful Hip-Hop artists have contributed more to charitable concerns than others, but in virtually all cases, substantially less than could be considered appropriate in light of their tremendous wealth and the comparative poverty of their fans.
Finally, one of the most glaring hypocrisies in the Hip-Hop community relates to the discrepancy between the imagery and statements about "masculinity" and the apparent prevalence of homosexuality on the so-called "down low" engaged in by some of the most masculine representatives of "thug life" on the streets (Alim, Ibrahim, & Pennycook, 2008; Price, 2006). In principle, there is nothing necessarily wrong about sexual experimentation of this nature; it is simply the degree to which it contradicts the images that the individuals involved work so hard to portray publicly that is the basis of further hypocrisy throughout Hip-Hop culture.
References
Alim, a.S.; Ibrahim, a.; and Pennycook, a. (2008). Global Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop
Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language. New York: Routledge.
Price, E.G. (2006). Hip Hop Culture. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Watkins, S.C. (2006). Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston MA: Beacon.
