Music/Society Modern Wrld (W3)

Social Forces, University of North Carolina Press

Social Context and Musical Content of Rap Music, 1979-1995 Author(s): Jennifer C. Lena Reviewed work(s): Source: Social Forces, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Sep., 2006), pp. 479-495 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3844424 . Accessed: 21/02/2013 13:53

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Social Context and Musical Content of Rap Music, 1979-1995

Jennifer C. Lena, Vanderbilt University

Abstract There is a link between the context of production and the content of rap music singles. This research finds that when independent labels owned most ofthe charted singles, lyrics emphasized features ofthe local environment and hostility to corporate music production and values. In contrast, the major-label dominated market featured lyrics blending "street"

credibility and commercial success in the "hustler" protagonist. I contribute a new finding to research on market concentration and musical diversity: artists' reactions to the market

effects musical content.

Over the past three decades, scholars produced important evidence on the role of industry, organizational structure and markets in the creation of cultural

goods. However, the consequences of these structures for creative people and the content of the cultural objects they produce are not yet well understood, as noted by Cerulo (1984) and Peterson and Anand (2004). This gap in the literature is striking given the emphasis of lead production of culture scholars on the

impact of the context of production on artistic work (Becker 1982, White and White 1965). Yet, there is much evidence for the effect of market concentration and the organization of firms on the production of rap music.

The structure of the contemporary recorded music industry is oligopolistic, controlled by multi-national firms with diversified holdings across multiple media and consumer product markets (Burnett 1995; Burnett and Weber 1989; Dowd 2000, 2004; Frith 1987, 1988). These firms restructured their bureaucratic infrastructure in the past several decades, establishing semi-autonomous divisions that oversee subsidiary labels. Subsidiary labels are typically run

by freelance producers, who are "delegated the responsibility of producing marketable creations, with little or no interference from the front office beyond the setting of budgetary limits." (Hirsch 1972:644) Recently, Dowd (2004) found one effect of this "de-centralized" production was to attenuate the negative effect of oligopolistic markets on musical diversity.1 De-centralized production allows

subsidiary labels to imitate independent labels' ability to seek out new talent and musical styles; at the extreme, they are able to co-opt the type of musical

products independent labels offer (Dannen 1990, Negus 1999). Scholars do not agree, however, on the source of diversity in music markets.

Anderson and Hesbacher (1980) found independent labels often introduce new

genres to the marketplace, but these genres have little variability. Independent

/ would like to thank Peter S. Bearman, Laura Carpenter, Daniel Cornfield, Holly Mc-

Cammon, Gina Neff, Richard A. Peterson, Tammy Smith, two anonymous reviewers for Social Forces and Editor Peter Uhlenberg. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Culture Panel on Creativity, In? novation and Ideas in August 2004. Direct correspondence to Jennifer C. Lena, Vanderbilt

University, Department of Sociology, VU Station B #351811, Nashville, TN 37235-1811. E-mail: jennifer. c. lena@vanderbilt. edu.

? The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, Volume 85, Number 1, September 2006

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480 ? Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 ? September 2006

labels introducing new genres typically record new artists (Dowd 2003, Kennedy 1994, Lopes 1992, Peterson 1997); however, Dowd (2000) found that hits of new

performers are not as musically varied and dissimilar as those of established

performers. Disagreements over the source of diversity are partly attributable to the lack of a standard measure: the literature relies both on a variety of proxy measures and direct measures of musical content. Proxy measures of musical

diversity include the appearance of new artists (Lopes 1992, Peterson and Berger 1975, Rothenbuhler and Dimmick 1982), the appearance of new firms and artists

(Dowd 2004, Lopes 1992, Peterson and Berger 1975), and the number of female

(Alexander 1996, Anderson and Hesbacher 1980) and African-American (Dowd and Blyler 2002) performers. Direct measures of musical content include lyrical diversity (Peterson and Berger 1972,1975), melodic and chordal structure (Dowd 1992), musical dissimilarity (Dowd 2000), and musical material (Alexander 1996).

This research seeks to contribute new measures of diversity, an analysis of

lyrical and sub-genre musical content. It offers the first analysis of R&B music charts and population data on charted rap music as well as evidence ofthe effect of decentralized production by oligopolistic firms on the content of music. There are consequences of social context on art production.

Rap Music

Rap music was the best case for this study for several reasons. First, the link between record label management practices and rap music content has been a focus of highly publicized criticisms of the genre. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D- Conn.) captured national attention with a letter writing and radio campaign aimed at pressuring record companies to cease production of "obscene" rap music

(Holland 1996:8). Lieberman was joined by fellow Sen. Sam Dunn (D-Ga.) and C. Delores Tucker (National Political Congress of Black Women). This followed two years of anti-rap record store demonstrations and Congressional Hearings on the issue. There is evidence that record labels encouraged rap artists to

produce prurient content. For example, during this period, Carmen Ashhust- Watson described the development strategy of rap label Def Jam: "Right now

gangsta rappers are the big thing. If [a hypothetical rap group] look like the kind of group that has the capacity to do that, then [our label] might suggest they do some gangsta-style songs." (quoted in Rose 1994b: 124) The link between

(objectionable) rap content and record labels is thus of interest to policy makers and the public. Second, rap music charted earliest on the Billboard Magazine weekly R&B charts, a data source scholars have ignored. Drawing upon these charts provides the most complete temporal snapshot of charting rap songs and includes more sales heterogeneity than other studies of music markets, with the notable exception of Dowd (2004).2

Data and Methodology

The primary data are all rap singles that appeared in the weekly Top 100 R&B Billboard Magazine charts from Jan. 1, 1979 through Dec. 31, 1995.3 The

compilers of the Billboard charts have based their rankings on a weekly sampling

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Context and Content of Rap Music ? 481

of wholesale record sales, jukebox plays and airplay on radio stations since Aug. 4, 1958. Although the formula coordinating these three sources of data has

changed over time (Hesbacher 1974), experts agree that the Billboard charts are the fairest and least subjective of the published music charts (Anderson et al.

1980, Denisoff 1986, Dowd 2004, Lopes 1992, Peterson and Berger 1975). Four criteria were used to determine if R&B singles were included in the

population of rap songs: chart designation, rap interludes, shelving designation and expert opinion. First, a song was included if it was designated "rap" in the official compilation of these weekly charts (Whitburn 1996). R&B songs with rap interludes were designated thusly: "featured performer MC X (rap)," indicating a rap within the song, and this was sufficient for inclusion in the population. If the text indicated neither the rap genre nor the presence of any interlude, the shelving designation on the back cover of the album/CD was considered; if either "rap" or "hip-hop" were listed among the first two genres, all the songs that charted from that album were included in our population.4 Finally, several

rap music experts, including major retailers of rap music and radio professionals, were asked to determine the genre of ambiguous songs. In total, 1,221 songs met at least one of these criteria for inclusion.

The record label of each rap single was recoded to identify it with the

appropriate parent corporation. Following Peterson and Berger (1975), Lopes (1992), and Dowd (2004), these corporations were determined by issues of the Annual Billboard International Buyers Guide and on information from the Securities and Exchange Commission (in particular, 10-K Forms and annual

reports to stockholders). Corporations typically under-report limited partnerships with recording companies, but errors were reduced by supplementing these sources with Standard and Poor's Daily News reports and trade press articles.

Rap music content was classified into mutually exclusive, exhaustive and independent categories that reflect producers' and consumers' axes of differentiation. Sociologists of culture have provided evidence ofthe differentiation of artistic tastes that constitute consumers as fan communities (Bourdieu 1984, 1993,1995; DiMaggio 1991; Frith 1996; Mark 1998; White 1993; White and White

1965). Audiences sense - literally hear (or see, etc.) - genres and sub-genres in music and by audibly mapping the system and choosing their preferences they contribute to these communities. The link between sub-genres of rap music and audience groups is established in the work of Schusterman (1991), Gilroy (1993a, b), Rose (1994a), Brennan (1994) and Walser (1995). Krims (2000:3) argues, "the

degree to which a rap (or more generally, hip-hop) fan will defend the authenticity, originality, and sophistication of her/his favorite rap style/genre/artist/album/song is virtually unparalleled."

Little musicological analysis has been done to obtain the dimensions of

comparison used by rap audiences with the exception of Krims (2000), and it is from this work that sub-genre classifications were taken. Krims (2000) performed a content analysis of articles and advertisements in popular magazines, interviews with artists, conversations with fans and the music itself to generate the musical and lyrical components that distinguish rap sub-genres. His categories reflect the "remarkable consistency in how the field of...rap music is divided and

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482 ? Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 ? September 2006

that characteristics are attributed to each [sub-genre]." (Krims 2000:47) These distinctions reflect criteria used by producers and consumers to organize the field of production into sets of contrasts between songs, artists and albums. From these distinctions, a taxonomy based on four criteria was developed. When

applied to a song, this sorted it into a sub-genre group with a unique admixture of attributes:

1. Flow is "the verbal wordplay of rap" - the rhythmic pattern and meter used by the rapper in delivering spoken- word texts. There are three kinds of flow: a sung flow is marked by rhythmic repetition, on-beat accents and regular pauses, and gives the effect of a sing-along. A percussion saturated flow employs a sharply attached or crisp delivery and offbeat attacks to push the boundaries of meter,

spilling the text past the caesura of the metric line. Aspeech saturated flow resembles spoken language, but with a great number of rhyming syllables. Rappers often begin a new four-measure unit with the end of the previous measure or

rhyme complex, and commonly omit a metric pulse.

2. Musical Style distinguishes the function performed by the "background" music. If instrumentation is background or rhythm for the primary voice or voices then that rap has a rhythmic musical style. When pre-recorded music

("samples") is foregrounded in the composition (even if the sound or tempo is distorted), this is a memory musical style. When instrumentation or samples function as the "speaking voice," this is an interlocutor musical style. This technique is most recognizable when scratching, the practice of using a

body part or object to slide a record back-and-forth under a needle to create a percussive distortion of the music.

3. Rhythmic Style is characterized by the regularity of

rhythm. One crucial role for rhythm in rap songs is to make

possible the audibility of layering, or the multiplication of musical tracks within a recording through the assemblage of disparate musical sources, creating polyrhythmic (and

polytimbral) textures (Krims 2000, Rose 1994a).5 Rap songs are distinguished based on whether they have a

unitary rhythm style (one dominant beat), or use multiple rhythms. For example, a song with a multiple rhythm style will permit the listener to distinguish a piano from a guitar from a drum.

4. Semantic Content distinguishes songs based on lyrical content. There are more than 10 tropes found in rap music

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Context and Content of Rap Music ? 483

between 1979 and 1995, including sex, love, violence,

gender roles, politics, race, partying, money, comedy/parody and boasting. These categories are not mutually exclusive and exhaustive.

The complete audio recording or majority segments of each of the singles in the population and lyrical content were secured from several archives.6 It is

possible that inaccessible sonic segments of some singles may have caused a partial coding to result, and thus an erroneous allocation of those singles to sub-genre groups. It is possible that inaccuracies in the text of lyrics could have caused errors in the lyrical coding. In addition, the coding of lyrics was

complicated by the use of slang, metaphor and irony. However, errors of this kind are likely to be random, and will affect only the magnitude of effect, not its

presence or absence. Each single was allocated to a sub-genre group using a "best fit" method,

according each single one and only one category for three of the four coding criteria (except semantic content). In order to establish the reliability of the coding procedure, 25 percent of the data was recoded a second time after an interval of nearly three years. The simplest estimate of stability is the percent of codes on which the two waves agree; published articles typically have a minimum of 90 percent coding reliability, although scores in the high 80th percentile are not uncommon (Wimmer and Dominick 1997). The reliability score of this coding was 88 percent, indicating adequate reliability. After songs were sorted into sub?

genres, sub-genre names were assigned that matched the content and style of the songs and are commonly used to refer to those songs by fans. Thirteen sub-

genre groups were identified: booty rap, crossover rap, don rap, dirty south rap, east coast gangsta rap, g funk, jazz rap, new jack swing, parody rap, pimp rap, race rap, rock rap and west coast gangsta rap (see Table 1).

Results

Sub-genre Development

There were several notable characteristics of sub-genre development. Almost half of the charting singles were crossover raps, including the first rap single to chart,

"Rapper's Delight" (Sugarhill Records 1979) (see Table 2). This is unsurprising given that crossover rap's musicological attributes (fast-paced with intelligible lyrics and thin instrumentation) resemble popular music of the period. In contrast,

dirty south rap, a genre notable for its lyrical focus on sex, partying and a twangy "southern" enunciation, had the fewest charting songs; this is unsurprising given its late development and the right-censoring of the data (Miller 2004). The other 11 charting rap sub-genres achieved parity in terms of chart success, relative to these two sub-genres.

The second notable characteristic of rap sub-genre development between 1979 and 1995 is the evolution of stylistic characteristics out of older sub-genres and into new ones. For example, in 1982 parody rappers expanded the musical and

rhythmic styles of crossover rappers to include interlocutor and multiple rhythmic

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484 ? Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 ? September 2006

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486 ? Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 ? September 2006

styles, but narrowed the lyrical focus to include only parodies of other rap songs, or song-length "toasts."7 This stylistic transition was smooth compared to the break between the f\rst pimp rap in 1983 and its peer genres: new jack swing, west and east coast gangsta, and booty rap. \Nh\\epimp raps resemble crossover

raps in the use of a sung flow, unitary rhythmic style and rhythmic background music, the lyrical focus on sex, money, boasting and violence demarcated it from the rest of 1983's charted raps. The single remained sonically and lyrically distinct until 1988 when slxpimp rap songs charted and were joined by singles in other, new rap sub-genres that contained similarly graphic depictions of sex and violence.

Corporations and Puerile Content

Did major record labels produce the majority of puerile rap? The perceived abundance of this lyrical content prompted anti-rap crusaders like Robert H. Bork to describe the genre as a "knuckle-dragging sub-pidgin of grunts and

snarls, capable of fully expressing only the more pointless forms of violence and the most brutal forms of sex." (1996:125) Industry watchers blamed the profit motivation of major record labels; they concluded that as long as there were customers willing and able to buy, "record labels will continue to put ethics and

morality aside to release [violent or sexist rap]." (McAdams and Russell 1991:

R-22) The shock value of this music contributed to its success on the charts

(Perkins 1996): Billboard Magazine editors argued that corporations invested in

puerile rap "because [it] was sleazier as a lure, easier as an enterprise, and more

speedily remunerative at the end of the day." (Anonymous 1996:4) For the purposes of evaluating this contention, songs were recoded in eight

sub-genres (pimp, new jack swing, west and east coast gangsta rap, booty, g funk, don and dirty south) as "hardcore" rap because their lyrics contained

graphic descriptions of sex or violence. The strength of similarity between these

sub-genres rests in their distinctiveness in the field of rap music production - in

comparison to other charting rap sub-genres. Scholars have noted that across

sub-genre styles, hardcore rap lyrics feature a "hustler" as a protagonist (Krims 2000, Rose 1994a). The hustler dominates or victimizes others using force and

seduction; hustlers are either "baaadmen" who dominate through force and intimidation or pimps (macks or players). The pimp and the baaadman are anti- heroes - representations of men who can control others physically or lyrically. As

anti-heroes, pimps and baaadmen personify accomplishment against the odds;

they live in a world of reverse power where the oppressed are powerful (Gates 1988, Kelley 1996, Roberts 1989, Smitherman 1997, Toop 1991 ).8 The protagonists of hardcore rap have one foot in the world of extreme bourgeois consumption and success and the other in the ghetto.

Among singles charting in the late 1980s, there is a striking profusion of sub?

genres utilizing very different styles of flow, background music and rhythm, but all featuring hustler protagonists. Sub-genres differed in how they deployed the hustler narrative. Booty rappers like Miami group 2 Live Crew epitomized sexual

anti-conformity (in songs like "Dick Almighty," "Me So Horny" and "The Fuck

Shop"(As NastyAsTheyWanna Be, Little Joe Records 1989), while pimp rappers

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Context and Content of Rap Music ? 487

foregrounded money and placed sex as a correlate (Sean "R Diddy" Combs' work is an example, particularly "It's All About the Benjamin's" (No Way Out, Bad Boy/ Arista Records 1997). In contrast, gangsta rappers emphasized the violent anti? social behavior of the baaadmen. For example, on the inner sleeve of their album

Straight Outta Compton (Priority Records 1988), gangsta rap group N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitude) thanked:

All the gangsters, dope dealers, criminals, thieves, vandals, villains, thugs, hoodlums, kil/ers, hust/ers, baseheads, hypes, winos, burns, arsonists, police, maniacs and bad ass kids for

listening to our shit...

Finally, don rappers (like Master P and Junior M.A.FI.A.) combined gangsta rap's violence with the emphasis on wealth, individuality and the sexual dominance of the pimp persona.

Table 3 reveals that starting in 1988 the largest record corporations charted

substantially more "hardcore" rap songs than independent labels. In the eight years between 1988 and 1995, majors charted up to five and a half times as

many hardcore rap singles as all their independent competitors combined.

Major record labels produced the majority of puerile rap, consistent with the

hypothesized trend.

Authenticity and Identity

While coding the data on lyrics, strong similarities across sub-genres during the

period before 1988 were readily apparent. Charting artists in crossover, parody and rock rap shared a lyrical emphasis on partying, romance, humor and parody, and upon closer inspection appeared to use similar slang and regional argot as well as references to specific personalities, places, events and concerns.

Songs that described romantic entanglements identified specific community members, as in UTFO's "Roxanne, Roxanne" (U.T.F.O., Select Records 1985).

Lyrical competition, or battling, was organized largely around neighborhood boundaries as in the contest between Queensbridge and The Bronx captured in MC Shan's "The Bridge" (Down By Law, Cold Chillin' Records 1987) and

Boogie Down Productions' answer "The Bridge is Over" (Criminal Minded, B-

Boy Records 1987). Cautionary tales like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde's "Fast Life"

(Profile Records 1981) or Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" (The Message, Sugarhill Records 1982) were located in particular surroundings and evoked the

physical and social deprivation faced by many rappers and their families. These

rap lyrics linked "representin' the ghetto" with "keepin' it real." Sincerity and a

ghetto identity were deeply associated in early rap lyrics, a facet of "authenticity work." (Peterson 2005) The early focus of rap lyrics on local people, places and

things could reasonably be a function of familiarity alone. These artists used for

inspiration the source material in their environments.

Rappers were particularly likely to respond to the impact of the increasing commercialization of rap on their local environment. Rappers often forswore the

corrupt values of commercial enterprise and instead promoted an ethos akin

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488 ? Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 ? September 2006

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Context and Content of Rap Music ? 489

to Bourdieu's conception of "art for art's sake." (1989) Rapper JDL (Cold Crush

Brothers) captures the sentiment of many old school rap musicians:

See, we came from the origin of hip-hop, when it wasn't a

money thing. It wasn't a political structure that the record

company bui/ds around hip-hop. It wasn't about getting paid and all that. It was about something you loved.

(Fernando 1994:14)

In the distinction of "money" and "love," JDL contrasts rappers who work in a "political structure" that is run by the "record company," to "original" legitimate rappers. Early rappers repeatedly echoed the positive value of marginal commercial status. Remarkably, even Rick Rubin, producer of several of the earliest gold and

platinum rap albums, lamented the commercialization of rap:

At the time that I started it was still kind of a pure thing... [people] were doing it out of love for it And I think that

changed to people thinking they could get something from it. And when that happened the art kind of went away, and it became commerce, and people trying to put records

together to sell. And that's what really ruined it for me.

(Rubin quoted in Fernando 1994:169)

Beyond its ubiquity, what is striking about this anti-commercial ethos is the

productive context in which it emerged. The rap industry had entered a period of consolidation, and rap artists were aware of the oligopolization efforts of

corporations as early as 1983 when Sugar Hill Records, the earliest and most successful rap label, established a contract making it a subsidiary of CBS Records

(Lena 2003). Early rap artists noted a rise in the number of major label contracts and chart spots allocated to rap groups (Fricke and Ahearn 2002). A number of

high visibility contract disputes during this period still fuel morality tales that warn new rap artists of the pitfalls of doing business with the "majors" (e.g., Fricke and Ahearn 2002:212-15, 271,324).

Rappers developed particular tropes of artistic legitimacy to cope with the threat of corporate incursion into the market reflected by the "hustler" character. The

large-scale shift toward hardcore rap lyrics after 1988 may have been promoted by ex-independent rap artists who sought to reconcile their earlier espousal of

anti-commerciality with their new status as "corporate" artists. They felt pressure to craft an identity suitable (and saleable) in the mainstream recording industry while "keepin' it real," remaining congruent with an older value system. The hustler is still an outsider, but one with a comfortable relationship to commercial culture and material success. Despite the surface-level tension that exaggerated violence in hardcore rap provokes between reality and art, it still manages to

represent "a religion and ideology of authenticity." (Perkins 1996:20) To wit, hardcore identity is deeply rooted in "being real" (especially found in slogans of "real niggaz," "niggaz for life" and "bein' and stayin' real;" see Perkins 1996:19-

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490 ? Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 ? September 2006

20). The shift toward hardcore rap may reflect a re-alignment of rap identity, one that reconciles "old school" authenticity with "new school" profits.9

Conclusion

These results suggest an unanalyzed dimension of research on market concentration and musical diversity: artists react to this environment and this affects musical content. In the early period of rap production, lyrics emphasized features of the local

environment, and producers emphasized anti-corporate values as an extension of their vision of authentic artistic production. In contrast, the major-label dominated market for rap music featured lyrics that effectively blended "street" credibility and commercial success in the hustler protagonist. These results suggest artists'

perceptions of the R&B market effect artistic content. This research has three goals: (1) to contribute new lyrical and sub-genre

measures of musical diversity, (2) to offer a novel analysis of R&B charts and rap music, and (3) to offer evidence of the contemporary music market's effect on

rap content. Production and artistic content are clearly linked. While the diversity of rap sub-genres over 16 years of production is undeniable, an analysis of rap lyrics suggests strong similarities across sub-genre styles. Taken singly, either level of analysis would contribute only a partial understanding of the relationship between market concentration and musical content. Using past proxy measures

(e.g., the appearance of new songs, artists and firms), and some direct measures of musical content (e.g., background music, flow and rhythm) would lead one to conclude that diversity is thriving in post-1988 rap music. However, this analysis moves beyond such a partial understanding by illustrating critical and strong similarities across styles and artists.

Future research necessitates case studies of artistic production. Only by turning to the reflections of artists and experts was the nature of the link between social context and musical content in rap made clear. These results illustrate the critical need for studies that join specific social contexts to the production of art works. Following Cerulo (1984:886), I exhort sociologists to engage in this research because "if a composer is a product of a particular environment, and

hence, subject to its influences, it is reasonable to expect that a specific social context will provide insight into the processes of musical construction."

Notes

Using a range of historical and ecological factors hypothesized to effect musi? cal diversity, Dowd (2004) found growing levels of decentralized production reduced the negative effect of concentration on carriers of diversity, and at the most expansive levels of decentralization, concentration no longer had

any impact on these carriers (2004:1444). In fact, Dowd found distinct ef? fects on two forms of "producer" diversity: the number of new performers was more sensitive to contextual factors than the number of new firms.

Lopes (1992) remains the only author to have investigated rap music diver?

sity in light of market and industry structure, however, he relied on year-end charts of the top 100 singles and albums.

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Context and Content of Rap Music ? 491

3. The charts used in this study were variously entitled "Hot Soul Singles" (1979- 1982), "Hot Black Singles" (1982-1990), and "Hot R&B Singles" (1990-1995).

4. "Hip-hop" is a more expansive term than "rap," including particular styles of

language, music, dress, dance and occupation of physical space, however, "rap" is the preferred term here because the focus is on the music.

5. There is a close relationship between timbre and rhythm in rap music: timbre is the quality of sound that allows a listener to distinguish sounds that have the same pitch and loudness (Krims 2000). It is determined by the harmonic content of a sound and its dynamic qualities (like vibrato or attack).

6. http://www.ohhla.com. http://www.lyrics.com.

7. Toasts, or long, profane vernacular narrative pieces performed orally, and their connection to rap lyrics is discussed by Kelley (1997) and Rose (1994a).

8. Kelley (1996:130) suggests that rappers parallel white-collar crime with street crime, thus "'reversing' dominant discourses legitimating entrepreneurship, hostile takeovers and a global corporate culture more concerned with profits than committed to a national community...gangsta rappers hold up the illicit

economy as a mirror image of American capitalism."

9. Kelley (1996) offers an alternative interpretation, arguing that these are mas? culinist narratives that use metaphorical and playful descriptions of violence, and also that they are "street ethnographies," functioning as an alternative vision of American life. This sentiment is echoed in other work, notably that of Tricia Rose (1994a).

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