Globalization and culture: impacts and interconnections

Hip-Hop Culture, Its Origins and Its Culture

The hip-hop culture, according to Richardson, originated in the United States in response to the oppression of African-Americans. This art form is therefore deeply integrated with the social consciousness from which it arose. The art form created an outlet for creativity and repressed anger and other emotions resulting from the hardship of this particular culture. Therefore Richardson and several other critics criticize not only the commercialization of the art, but also globalization and its effects on the culture of hip-hop. Both commercialization and globalization, while proving a financial benefit to the music emerging from the hip-hop culture, nonetheless detracts some of the deeper culture and messages associated with the original art form. Indeed, when the struggle is removed from the art form, the unique culture from which it originated is lost, and the music changes accordingly. Thus globalization and increasing commercialization have combined to in many cases change hip-hop music not according to the struggle, but according to new cultures as well as monetary requirements.

On the surface, there are four physical aspects that can be attributed to hip-hop as a culture. These include deejaying, breakdancing, graffiti and rhyming. These, according to, Richardson, are not the heart of the culture. Instead, the central message is the platform from which the technical, teachable aspects arise. The message relates directly to the struggle, the poverty, the oppression and the hardship suffered by the African-Americans who were refused the rights of other Americans as a result of their skin color. This is a very specific group of people who created a specific culture. The technical aspects merely exist as an outlet for a specific kind of creativity.

This is why globalization has been seen by some as such a destructive force in relation to the hip-hop culture. Some cultures however have adopted the art form as a result of the same issues facing the African-Americans from whom hip-hop emerged. Other cultures however have become enamored with hip-hop as a musical art form only as a result of a fad-loving paradigm.

Globalization

Several cultures have adopted hip-hop, with greater or lesser success, as an art form. What appears to occur in all of these cases is that the culture adopting the music also adapts it to suit their particular paradigm. In this way the music changes according to the culture in which it becomes embedded, and it is transformed into something unique for each culture. Some of the motives for adopting hip-hop into certain cultures have been questioned in terms of not only purity, but also in terms of their ethical viewpoints.

France and Japan are quoted as examples of countries that have adopted hip-hop into their cultures (Richardson). Japan have imported hip-hop music in terms only of the media, both ignoring and misunderstanding the culture that goes with it. Indeed, it appears that an attempt has been made to adopt the culture, but there is little substance behind this.

According to Richardson, Japan has adopted hip-hop music and the culture that goes with it not from a basis of understanding, but rather from a premise of adopted the latest fad emerging from the United States. Thus it is more in tune with the commercialism that has come to be criticized heavily by purists that with the culture of oppression and poverty that was initially part of the birth of hip-hop. The reason for this is that Japan, as a largely homogeneous culture cannot possibly understand the oppression suffered in a country where one culture is singled out for privileges over another. Another aspect of the Japanese culture is the fact that it is media-saturated to the extent that little else is deemed of value. Thus, whatever the media support is supported by Japan. This is why commercialization plays such a large and destructive role in what hip-hop originally set out to achieve.

Commercial hip-hop, as explicated by Frazitta, is somewhat removed from the hip-hop culture that provides some substance to its themes. Commercially, hip-hop is tailored to the perceived needs of the public as filtered by music giants. If artists do not conform to these requirements, no contracts are signed and millions are lost to the artist. Frazitta accuses artists who succumb to this sort of lure of falsehood and hypocrisy. The hip-hop music created in this way is then also the art form that reaches countries such as Japan, who accepts it without question as authentic. Thus the true cultural meaning behind the music is lost.

Others however beg to differ with this point regarding the depth of the Japanese culture. Johnson for example claims that, despite cultural and language barriers, the Japanese youth does to some extent identify with African-Americans in their quest for freedom from oppression, and thus also with the culture associated with hip-hop. The basis for this view is the assertion that the Japanese culture is not entirely as free of heterogeneity and consequent oppression as may appear to be the case. Indeed, minority groups such as the Ainus and Koreans living in Japan have been the target of discrimination. Artists such as Takagi Kans have thus targeted issues of oppression and commercialism that appear to pervade culture and music, especially in this country. To which extent this is true remains open to debate.

France, in contrast to Japan, unequivocally appears to understand the culture of hip-hop and the issues that it promotes (Richardson). This perception is promoted by the apparently similar socioeconomic problems that certain groups in this country experience. These to a large extent seems to parallel the oppressive practices targeted against minority groups in the United States. Ghettos, although ethnically more diverse than those of the United States, are for example part of the culture being oppressed in France. The economic hardships and other issues experienced here give rise to a culture that parallels the hip-hop movement in the United States. It is thus understandable that hip-hop music crossing the European country's border would strike a chord within the French ghetto. In contrast to the Japanese, often perceived to impose their own culture and commercialism upon hip-hop music, the French adopted hip-hop music as part of their own culture of oppressed suffering. The basis from which this was done is the same as that in the United States. Japan on the other hand, although it may be true that Japanese rappers have come to see and comment on social injustice in their own country, has not done so from a basis of obvious suffering. The initial adoption of the music was the initial result of media-induced popularity.