Sugarhill Band? Capitalism and MASKulinity in Hip Hop

SUMMARY

Sugarhill Gang or Band? This group’s seminal single set the tone for our understanding of hip hop culture in the mainstream, but it sacrificed the culture’s wholeness along the way… We’re continuing our conversation pondering the performance of masculinity in music as an art form and in music as a business. 

• Masculinity Scholar and Accountability Strategist Nalo Zidan joins the pod this week to talk masculinity and capitalism within hip hop and shares indispensable wisdom on what liberation may look like…

• Samantha offers a snapshot of the beginnings of commercial hip hop. How did we get from that DJ Kool Herc party that started it all to “Rapper’s Delight”? 

• We examine how the performance of masculinity thrives in commercial hip hop and why capitalism benefits from music upholding bravado over vulnerability.

• Thankfully, there are some artists disrupting the performance of masculinity, but why are they on the fringe of the mainstream?

• Listen to Nalo dive deep into how our classist system, capitalism, and the performance of masculinity helps hip hop moguls evade accountability. Acknowledging the impact of patriarchy connects us to the need for social justice.

• Nalo stresses how divesting from capitalism allows us to regain our imagination and think of a life beyond patriarchy…and how it’s an individual choice we must consistently make. Listen to find out the most antipatriarchal, anticapitalist response you can have in the face of the status quo.

Referenced in the episode

• Mother of Rap: The Success & Controversy of Hip Hop’s Sylvia Robinson, producer of the first commercially released hip hop track, “Rapper’s Delight”

• Saba: ‘RAP CAN GET CLASSIST – I WANT TO BE THE OPPOSITE’

• Noname: Tiny Desk Concert featuring Ghetto Sage

• The Sound of Capitalism

COMPANION PIECES:

• MASKulinity is Making Some People a Lot of Money

• Nalo Zidan’s TEDxLSU talk It’s Time to Redefine Masculinity

• The Roots of Jay-Z’s ‘Black Capitalism’

• Black Capitalism Won’t Save Us

• Noname’s got a dope book club

• Noname is Fighting America’s Capitalist Culture

• Smino Knows All About Love

OUR GUEST THIS WEEK:

Nalo Zidan, Masculinity Scholar and Accountability Strategist

Nalo A. K. Zidan is a Queer Black writer, organizer, and Trans-Masculinist whose work pushes at the normative boundaries of gender and sexuality. While completing her degree in Women’s & Gender Studies at Louisiana State University, Zidan founded BlackGirlMasculine, a non-profit organization created to reimagine and complicate conversations around nuanced masculinities. For over six years, Zidan has been a noteworthy contributor to academic and corporate dialogue on shaping safety in the workplace, LGBTQ+ rights, and building accountable masculinities. Along with being a 2019 TEDxLSU speaker, Zidan was a 2020 Masse/Remillard Gender & Sexuality Award recipient for her groundbreaking work on de-gendering masculinities in the human body. When she isn’t expanding scholarship, Zidan shares most of her time with her partner and baby turtle Nalito in Detroit, Michigan. Her podcast, Black Masculinity Futures,  is upcoming.

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