Hip-hop Realness and the White Performer

Abstract

Hip-hop's imperatives of authenticity are tied to its representations of African-American identity, and white rap artists negotiate their place within hip-hop culture by responding to this African-American model of the authentic. This article examines the strategies used by white artists such as Vanilla Ice, Eminem, and the Beastie Boys to establish their hip-hop legitimacy and to confront rap music's representations of whites as socially privileged and therefore not credible within a music form where credibility is often negotiated through an artist's experiences of social struggle. The authenticating strategies of white artists involve cultural immersion, imitation, and inversion of the rags-to-riches success stories of black rap stars.

Keywords:

• Hip-hop
• Rap
• Whiteness
• Racial Identity
• Authenticity
• Eminem

Notes

1. Referring to the music, I use hip-hop and rap as synonyms, the way they have been used most consistently across the history of the music's lyrics.

2. On “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” and “Lookin Down the Barrel of a Gun.”

3. Like the Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass included a black DJ, but Vanilla Ice did as well, so a group's integration alone cannot establish its authenticity.

4. Echoing the criticism of Vanilla Ice, 3rd Bass saw its biggest chart success with “Pop Goes the Weasel,” a single dedicated to lampooning Vanilla Ice's performance of hip-hop realness. The song compares Ice to Elvis and accuses him of stealing his hit song's chorus from a black fraternity. The video depicts 3rd Bass beating Vanilla Ice (as played by punk rock icon Henry Rollins) with baseball bats.

5. I studied 13 newspaper articles published between November 19, 1990 (the day after Perkins’ article ran) and August 30, 1992. Six make direct, negative assessments of Vanilla Ice. Six raise questions of Ice's authenticity but remain neutral in their assessment. Only one, from The Times (UK), defends his performance. Of six newspaper articles to cover new white rap artists in 1991–1992, all mention Vanilla Ice. Of these six, four articles make negative comments about Ice, and two are neutral; two present a positive view of 3rd Bass and the Beastie Boys.

6. I exclude Snow, a white pop-reggae artist who I do not categorize as hip-hop because of the style of his music (he sings rather than raps); I also exclude Shaggy, a black pop-reggae artist, for this same reason.

7. Like the Beastie Boys and the Latino group Cypress Hill during this same era, House of Pain marketed themselves to alternative rock listeners via their fashion (nose rings, tattoos, and green flannel) and their music, most notably in the guitar-heavy version of “Shamrocks and Shenanigans,” remixed by Nirvana producer Butch Vig. House of Pain released Vig's remix as a single, rather than the original album's more distinctly hip-hop version. With the 1992 release of Check Your Head, the Beasties made live rock instrumentation a key component of their performance and moved away from the strictly hip-hop styles of their first two albums. The Beasties did not release another complete album of hip-hop until 2004's To the 5 Boroughs.

8. Ice Cube's cousin Del tha Funky Homosapien revised this statement on his song “Catch a Bad One,” where he urges, “Please listen to my album, even if you're white like talcum.”

9. Dre's music didn't acknowledge Heller until after NWA's breakup and the release of Dre's solo album The Chronic (1992), where Dre parodied Heller on “Dre Day.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mickey Hess

Mickey Hess is a Lecturer in Writing at Indiana University Southeast