I get a shout-out in this.
I’m no authority on hip-hop, but there’s been a tremendous overuse of “#swag” on Twitter in the past year. For those who are unfamiliar, “swag” is short for “swagger”—meaning that one possesses an admirable demeanor or cool. Justin Bieber says it seven times in his latest single, even going so far as to say “swaggy”, which some music journalists take as a sign that swag is now dead. Bieber’s use of “swag”, though, is no accident; the superstar is signed to a loaded recording venture between hip-hop star Usher, manager Scott “Scooter” Braun, and Island/Def Jam Records, each of which have a direct hand in polishing his image. It’s one of many ways the language of hip hop is moving into Western youth culture.
Cultural studies has established that suburban white kids love hip hop in a complex manner; heaps has been written on aspiration, colorblindedness, misogynism, emulation, and subordination. But just what makes hip hop so appealing to net artists? Instead of passing off any attempt to indulge in hip hop as a 1:1 relationship between appropriation and mockery, I’m interested in looking at how different artists incorporate hip hop in their artwork to talk about themselves.
