“THIS
GOES OUT TO MY TATTA’S IN THE
GHETTO”
IMAGINED
URBAN JUNGLES OF OTHERNESS IN
AMERICAN
& DUTCH POP CULTURE
Simon Dopper, 5878225 Simon.dopper@student.uva.nl Masterthesis. Word Count: 23907
Media Studies: Television & Cross-Media Culture Supervisor: Jaap Kooijman
Second reader: Jeroen de Kloet Semester 2, 2017
University of Amsterdam
ABSTRACT
The concept of the ghetto neighborhood historically plays a defining role in hip hop culture and rap music, serving as a cultural original for global hip hop culture, as well as an imagined decor for musical storytelling. This imagined concept of the ghetto found its way into
mainstream media and popular culture, in which the ghetto is often exoticized and painted as a fascinating yet dangerous place. By looking into the Vice produced documentaries Noisey
Chiraq and Noisey Atlanta on the cities of Chicago and Atlanta and their hip hop scenes, as
well as the Dutch produced series Holland In Da Hood and Patrick in the Bijlmer that revolve around ghetto experiences, this research combines American constructions of the imagined American ghetto with Dutch constructions of this American ghetto, and ultimately shows the ways in which the concept of this American ghetto influences and shapes local representations of the Bijlmer, Amsterdam. Within the context of the globalizing qualities of hip hop culture, this research reveals the construction of romanticized imaginary urban jungles, inhabited by people who in this process are lowered to the standard of “Others” and inferior to a Western norm.
CONTENTS
Introduction Page 3
1. From Chiraq to Atghanistan
The American ghetto in Noisey Chiraq and Noisey Atlanta Page 7
Orientalism Page 7
Place, space and inter-ghettos Page 9
The urban Orient:
Noisey’s representations of the American ghetto Page 12
The Other in Noisey Chiraq and Noisey Atlanta Page 31
Conclusion Page 38
2. From South Central to Maassluis
The American ghetto in Holland In Da Hood Page 41
Absolute Fakes and Karaoke Americanism Page 41
The role of South Central in Holland In Da Hood Page 43
Inauthentic Others stuck between the Dutch and the American Page 55
Conclusion Page 63
3. From Kraaiennest to Poelenburg
The Dutch ghetto in Dutch media and pop culture Page 65
Ali B and the Bijlmer Page 68
The Dutch ghetto in Patrick in the Bijlmer Page 71
PowNed and the Bijlmer safari Page 76
How Hoodvlogs contributes to a Dutch shared ghetto identity Page 78
Hoodvlogs at Pauw Page 81
Conclusion Page 83
Final Conclusion Page 85
Introduction
“Talking ’bout the ghetto / funky funky ghetto /
trying to survive / trying to stay alive” (from: Too $hort - “The Ghetto”) “House on the hill, house on the beach / A condo in Compton I’m still in reach” (from: Kendrick Lamar - The Heart Part. 4)
Hip hop has grown into a global and undeniable force. From its early beginnings in the South Bronx, New York, the concept of the ghetto neighborhood has played a key role in hip hop culture and rap music, serving as a blueprint of authenticity as well as an imagined decor for many musical stories. Whereas a ghetto is often perceived as an undesirable space, it is simultaneously a laurelled birthplace for art and creativity. Along with representations from within the culture of hip hop itself, ghetto culture has found its way into mainstream media and pop cultural artifacts. About these mainstream representations, Murray Forman writes the following in The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space and Place in Rap Music and Hip Hop:
Mainstream representations of such spaces (including portrayals in newspapers, magazines, literature, or television programs) are closely aligned with the social construction of reputations that transgress the boundaries of the spaces and places in question and may overdetermine the actual daily practices of those who inhabit them. These "spatial myths" (Shields: 1991), which also introduce a means of labelling according to a loose system of spatial values, are not only disseminated through media mechanisms but are also a feature of discursive patterns at the local level. Rap music is influential in the rejection of certain social stereotypes and labels relating to spatial myths in some contexts, white simultaneously furthering the introduction and
circulation of others. (Forman 2002: 80)
In other words, Forman argues that through rap music, artist are able to create a platform through which they can negotiate with certain ghetto stereotypes that arise from the “spatial
myths” that are constructed through mainstream representations of ghetto neighborhoods. It are these spatial myths that Forman speaks of I aim to investigate and uncover in this research, in which I will look at different types of mainstream ghetto representations in American and Dutch pop culture.
In order to understand how these representations travel and come into being, I will make use of the concept of the “inter-ghetto” by Rivke Jaffe, who defines the the ghetto as “a globally shared spatial imaginary: a specific, spatial form of social imaginary shared by a broad range of people in diverse geographic contexts” (Jaffe 675). Following this definition, ghetto culture provides a shared identity not tied to a specific space.
In this research, I aim to connect spatial myths regarding ghetto neighborhoods to the concept of Orientalism. Orientalism, according to Edward Said, is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient” (Said 3). Through the lens of Orientalism, people of the Orient are different, not normal; they are the “Other”. I will argue that through mainstream representations of ghetto neighborhoods, a variation on the
traditional Orient comes into being in the form of a Western, urban Orient, which consists of places in the Western world that are approached and represented as Oriental. Even though these spaces are geographically part of Western society, they are nevertheless portrayed as different, dangerous and exotic, and therefore not part of a normative standard that is racially and spatially demarcated.
The connection of spatial ghetto myths and the concept of Orientalism, as well as the current flourishing state of the Dutch hip hop scene which can be seen as a cultural
reinterpretation of an American original, form the context from which the main question of this research arises: how are imaginary ghettos constructed in American and Dutch popular culture? This question, applied to a selection of media objects, leads to the main argument of this research:
“The American and Dutch media objects selected in this research contribute to the
construction of imaginary urban ghettos, which are painted as dangerous yet exciting places, inhabited by people who in this process are degraded to the standard of ‘Others’ and thereby inferior to a Western norm.”
In order to make this argument, this research is divided into three different chapters, each containing a different perspective with regards to the construction of the imaginary ghetto. As the first chapter addresses the American construction of the American ghetto, the second chapter revolves around the Dutch construction of the American ghetto. Finally, the third chapter addresses the Dutch construction of the Dutch ghetto. By combining these
perspectives I aim to show in what ways American hip hop culture has influenced Dutch hip hop culture.
For the first chapter, I chose to analyze the text and visuals of Noisey Chiraq and Noisey Atlanta, two documentaries produced by Vice, that show the neighborhoods of Chicago and Atlanta and their local hip hop scenes. I chose to analyze these documentaries due to its contemporary nature, its strongly established connection between ghettos and hip hop music, as well as the growing cultural relevance of Vice. Vice, which is one of the fastest growing media empires in the world, was founded in 1994 in Montreal and now has its headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. It has grown from a magazine into a global media network; it currently operates from 15 different countries, and its websites approximately collect around 30 million unique visitors each month in total.
On Vice, hip hop culture is widely discussed and reported. Besides their series on Chicago and Atlanta, series were made on Kendrick Lamar and his neighborhood Compton, Los Angeles, as well as comparable documentaries on rap music and its fundamental
neighborhoods situated in London and Paris. After addressing Orientalism and the role of space and place in hip hop culture, I will use this framework to analyze the construction of the imaginary ghettos of Chicago and Atlanta.
While in my first chapter I look at an American representation of the American ghetto,
the second chapter of this research revolves around the role of this American ghetto in the Dutch television show Holland In Da Hood, in which Dutch aspiring rappers go to live in
South Central, Los Angeles. As Holland In Da Hood is built on the concept of the American ghetto, it shows how these spaces, its values and connections to the concept of the imaginary ghetto translate into Dutch popular culture. After discussing the concepts of Absolute Fakes and Karaoke Americanism, I address the role of South Central in Holland In Da Hood, after which I write on the role of the characters as inauthentic Others that are culturally stuck between the Netherlands and the United States.
In my third and final chapter, instead of the American ghetto I will examine Dutch representations of the Dutch imaginary ghetto, in order to see how this place is visually and textually constructed, and how this process is influenced and shaped by the original American ghetto. I start this chapter by writing on the Bijlmer, Amsterdam, and combine some of its more prominent representations in mainstream Dutch media (on different levels), in order to see which claims and visual techniques these objects share. In the first part of the chapter I will look at different mainstream representations of the Bijlmer, including music video’s and the BNN produced show Patrick in the Bijlmer, which I chose because it uses a similar
approach to the Bijlmer as Noisey does with regards to Chicago and Atlanta. After addressing the construction of the Bijlmer and its inhabitants as Others, I look at the cases of Dutch rappers Sevn Alias and Josylvio, who demonstrate a flexible ghetto identity that, unlike traditional ghetto rap identities, is not tied to a single geographically defined place.
I then end my final chapter by connecting the concept of the Dutch imagined ghetto to
Hoodvlogs, a Youtube series by Ismail Ilgun, who is a video blogger and content creator from
Zaandam that in the past year attracted mainstream media attention in the Netherlands as a result of filming his neighborhood. By analyzing Hoodvlogs and Ismael’s appearance on the popular Dutch late night television show Pauw, I aim to demonstrate how the imagined Dutch ghetto is able to travel from the Bijlmer to other neighborhoods, and how the Othering of identities rooted in this imaginary ghetto affected the way Ilgun was portrayed on Pauw.
Tying these chapters all together, I aim to demonstrate the globalizing aspects of hip hop culture, while building my central argument that the media objects I chose to analyze in this research demonstrate great parallels in the way they represent ghetto neighborhoods, and take part in the construction of imaginary urban ghettos inhabited by Others, and these constructions ultimately serve to justify institutional power over these area’s.
CHAPTER
1:
FROM
CHIRAQ TO ATGHANISTAN
THE
AMERICAN GHETTO IN NOISEY CHIRAQ AND NOISEY ATLANTA
In 2012, the then 15-year-old Chief Keef (Keith Cozart) released a video clip for his song “I Don’t Like”, which accumulated over 30 million views that year alone. The impact of the song and video eventually resulted in a remix by rap superstar Kanye West and a contract with the record label Interscope. Following up on “I Don’t Like”, the Chicago rap scene flourished through the successes of young rappers like Chief Keef and Lil’ Durk and their so called drill music – a subgenre within hip hop, made out of slow, dark sounding beats and repetitive, short sentences and hooks.
Trying to grasp on this newborn music scene, Noisey (the music platform of Vice) aired Noisey Chiraq over the course of 2014, an eight-part documentary about the violent suburbs of Chicago and its hip hop scene. “Chiraq”, mixing Chicago and Iraq, is a term used by Chicago inhabitants in order to depict Chicago as a war zone due to its high murder rates. In 2015, Noisey released Noisey Atlanta, a series that uses the same approach and provides a look into the music– and drug culture of Atlanta, Georgia. By analyzing Noisey Chiraq and Noisey Atlanta, I aim to point out how these documentaries construct the imaginary ghetto. Before getting to the documentaries, I will address the concept of Orientalism and the historic role of the ghetto neighborhood within hip hop culture.
Orientalism
In this research, I aim to connect contemporary representations of ghetto spaces to Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism (“the broader lens through which Europe viewed “the East” during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (Kempadoo 1)).
In Orientalism, dating from 1978, Said defines the Orient as a European construction, first occurring in the eighteenth century, and consisting of ideas, norms and values assigned to
the Orient by Europeans. Orientalism, according to Said, is a “Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient” (Said 3). This Orient originally consisted of the place of Europe's richest and oldest colonies (Said 1), or, one might say, “the East”. The image created by the Europeans depicted the people of the Orient as different, not normal; they are the “Other”. The Orient and the people of the Orient are presented, among other things, as degenerate, primitive, childlike and uncivilized (Said 207). By creating these images and identities, Europeans could define themselves in the opposite matter, as mature, civilized, rational and normal (Said 40).
According to Said, Orientalism derives from a particular closeness experienced between Europe and the Orient. He addresses how America took a position similar to that of Europeans in relation to the Orient, and how these sets of relations (the “closeseness”) always demonstrate the strength of the Occident (that what is often described as the West): “... since World War II America has dominated the Orient, and approaches it as France and Britain once did. Out of that closeness, whose dynamic is enormously productive even if it always demonstrates the comparatively greater strength of the Occident (British, French, or American), comes the large body of texts I call Orientalist”(Said 4). The strength of the Occident that appears in the body of text that Said calls Orientalist implicates a power structure that negatively affects people of the Orient: the Others.
When looking through the lens of Orientalism, people outside of the Occident are depicted as different. Another concept closely linked to this process of “Othering” which I find useful is the concept of exoticism. Kamala Kempadoo describes exoticism as “the romanticization of the racial, ethnic or cultural Other, yet the simultaneous oppression and exploitation that occurs with it” (Kempadoo 1). As she puts this argument in a historic context, she explains: “Eighteenth and nineteenth century exoticism has been defined as an approach to the non-western world and is associated with the legitimation for European conquest, control and domination, as well as for escapist fantasies and vicarious enjoyment of sex and violence by European literary intellectuals and artists” (Kempadoo 1).
Given the concept of Orientalism, I want to make the argument that with its documentaries on local hip hop scenes, Vice presents regions of Chicago and Atlanta as if they are Oriental, thereby turning these neighborhoods into to a specific kind of space which I choose to call the
restrictions of the traditional Occident instead of the Orient itself. Before I will get deeper into this argument, firstly I will address the role of place, space and (inter) ghettos in hip hop.
Place, space and inter-ghettos
In their documentaries on two specific American hip hop scenes (the scenes of Chicago and Atlanta, two of the more musical productive cities in current day American hip hop), Noisey stresses the connection between the music and its place of origin. Hip hop has always produced and demanded a strong connection between music and place. Not only lyrics, but also the style of music communicates where, or with respect to which geographical rooted musical tradition, it is produced. These sounds and styles represent different things. In ‘‘‘Represent”: race, space and place in rap music”, Murray Forman speaks on the connection between hip hop and place/territory:
This emphasis on territoriality involves more than just a geographical arrangement of cultural workers and the regionalism of cultural practices. It illuminates a particular relationship to space or, more accurately, a relationship to particular places. As Flash conveys it, the sound systems that formed the backbone of the burgeoning hip hop scene were identified by their audiences and followers according to the overlapping influences of personae and turf. (Forman 2000: 67)
In other words: specific sounds in hip hop appeal to audiences through the signifying of character and territory. Murray explains how in hip hop, the city is an audible presence, cited and sampled in the reproduction of the aural textures of the urban environment (Forman 2000: 68). In the Noisey documentaries, this audible presence of the city blends into a visual
presence, adding to the experience of listening to the actual music. The urban environments, fundamental to the feel of the music, become visually accessible, granting the audience an idea of a space – the territory that is so closely connected to the music.
Elaborating on this, Murray argues that rap music takes the city (and its multiples spaces) as the foundation of its cultural production, and that this level of spatial awareness distinguishes hip hop culture from many other subcultures. From 1987-88 on, a shift occurred
construct of “the hood” (Forman 2000: 68). Forman regards the famous East coast versus West coast feud that occurred in the nineties as a defining factor in US hip hop up to date, and states how until the mid-1990s, artists from the Midwest or Southern states, due to lack of a personal localized identity, felt obligated to associate themselves with either the East coast or the West coast (Forman 2000: 68).
Nowadays, musical scenes in Chicago, Atlanta. and New Orleans (among other cities) , have constructed such a strong identity that contemporary New York rappers, like the currently popular ASAP Rocky, have adopted Southern types of rap styles, lyrics, beats and practices into their music, presence and image. The popularity of the Southern or middle American hip hop cultures paved the way for mainstream audiences demanding series like
Noisey Chiraq and Noisey Atlanta.
As Murray argues, many groups and rappers explicitly advertise and represent their home environments, and the explosion of these localized concepts have had a significant impact on the hip hop map of North America (Forman 2000: 68). Concluding, Murray explains how hip hop music, with its almost obsessive focus on place and locality, is never solely about the space and place, as he writes about rap songs: “they also identify and explore the ways in which these spaces and places are inhabited and made meaningful. Struggles and conflicts as well as the positive attachment to place are all represented in the spatial
discourses of rap” (Forman 2000: 68).
The economically neglected urban areas shown in the Noisey documentaries are often addressed as ghettos. In his book The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space and Place in Rap Music and Hip Hop, Murray Forman speaks about ghetto space and ghetto identities. On the
symbolic means of spaces and places and their relation to race, class and age, he writes: “This idea applies as well to the dynamics between space and place and the interlocking social variables of race, class, or age for each configuration reveals sets of relations that are geographically distributed and spatially varied. Spatial narratives and the discursive reproduction of ghetto sensibilities thus derive their social meanings from the fact that ghettoes do exist as knowable spaces and, as such, they constitute a real force of influence in human lives as part of a dialectical interaction of mutua1 influence” (Forman 2002: 104). In
other words: because ghettos exist as knowable places, their symbolic existence and presence is of severe influence and has real social meaning.
Paul Gilroy proposes the question: “How is black life in one ’hood connected to life in others? Can there be a blackness that connects, articulates, synchronises experiences and histories across the diaspora space?” (Gilroy 308). To elaborate on this question, the idea of the “inter-ghetto” by Rivke Jaffe is of use. In “Talkin ‘bout the Ghetto: Popular Culture and Urban Imaginaries of Immobility”, Jaffe speaks on the concept of the ghetto and its role, representation and commodification in popular culture, and explores the ways in which both actual and imagined (im)mobility intersects with notions of blackness and urban
marginalization. In the text, she explores if and how the movement of ghetto imaginaries through popular culture and mass media shapes the concept of a translocal “inter-ghetto” (Jaffe 675). Her notions corresponds with, and provides an answer to Paul Gilroy’s question: “how is black life in one ’hood connected to another?”
According to Jaffe, inner-city youth across the globe adopt the idea of the ghetto as a space of immobility and reproduce this idea in their own local context. “Inner-city” is, according to Murray Forman, a term that points out spaces at the core of urban America. He claims it is not a neutral term, but it is loaded with “extenuating implications, assumptions and stereotypical ideas of who occupies these spaces and in what ways” (Forman 2002: 57). As he claims, inner-city refers to “images or conditions of danger, violence, and moral
corruption”(Forman 2002: 57) . By producing these implications, these values are contrasted with ideals of “the calm, safe, and secure conditions of non-innercity, suburban spaces” (Forman 2002: 57).
As a nuance to Paul Gilroy, Jaffe claims that the appeal and connectivity of the ghetto imaginary is rooted in the existence of a shared marginalized identity, as she writes: “The definition of the ghetto as a space of ethno-spatial segregation stretches to include an
increasingly diverse array of marginalized groups. The discursive space resonates with social groups of multiple ethnic backgrounds, who experience a commonality based more on urban sociospatial exclusion than on African descent” (Jaffe 675). In other words, race is not necessarily the key factor in the construction of a shared marginalized identity.
Adding to this, Jaffe states that “the ghetto imaginary, as a spatial imaginary of immobility, allows for the construction of identities that are defined spatially rather than strictly or solely racialized”(Jaffe 676). However, Jaffe does acknowledge that notions of blackness strongly intersect with the ghetto imaginary, as she states that black popular culture
in particular (ranging from hip hop to funk, soul, reggae, dancehall and reggaeton) claimed the ghetto as a central social space (Jaffe 676).
Jaffe also addresses the ghetto in a context of commodification: “This move, in which the ghetto can belong to anyone who perceives himself or herself as suffering physical and social enclosure and isolation, has mixed repercussions for the potential of the ghetto imaginary. It can function as a site for the production of transgressive, cosmopolitan ‘immobile subjects’, connecting marginalized groups across borders. Yet its flexible appropriation also means that it can be transformed by commercial forces into a global commodity (Jaffe 676).” In other words, she claims that the spatial imaginary ghetto, due to its nature, can also be transformed into an idea to market and sell.
In the following quote, Jaffe explains the paradoxical nature of the ghetto imaginary.
The imaginary of the ghetto is paradoxical in that it speaks simultaneously to a sense of harshly bordered immobility and isolation, and to a border-crossing cosmopolitan transnationalism. It provides the opportunity to articulate, on the one hand, the local specificity of urban marginal spaces, and on the other, to dwell in a translocal musical space that connects a specific urban locality and its residents to similar spaces and like-minded people across the world… I argue that it is the flexible spatial imaginary of urban immobility and marginality— expressed most clearly through the imagined space of the ghetto — that allows these forms of popular culture to become mobile so easily (Jaffe 683).
In other words, Jaffe claims that while the ghetto is a space that represents immobility, at the same time it allows forms of popular culture to travel easily through its flexible spatial
imaginary of urban immobility. It thereby is a representative of both mobility and immobility. The urban Orient: Noisey’s representations of the American ghetto
Over the course of 2014, Vice broadcasted their eight-part documentary about the violent suburbs of Chicago and its own hip hop scene, which was followed up a year later by a similar documentary on Atlanta. Noisey Chiraq and Noisey Atlanta are both presented by the Thomas Morton, who is white, and, among other things, was a Vice magazine warcorrespondent in the Middle East. The series attempt to provide an in look in current day hip hop culture, which, through mechanisms of globalization, has arguably become the most dominant form of popular culture within western society. The documentary provides its audience with a voyeuristic experience and portrayal of a scene they normally would be
Thomas Morton serves as a cultural mediator, who went from reporting on wars in the Middle East, to reporting on ghetto culture in the the suburbs of Chicago – from Iraq to
Chiraq – this is the real first clear indicator of how we are meant to perceive the ghettos of Chicago: as a war zone.
In its first episode of Noisey Chiraq, conveniently called “Welcome to Chiraq”, Chief Keef and his associates are introduced, who refer to themselves as “300” or “3HUNNA” (a Chicago set of the street gang Black Disciples) and Oblock, named after their neighborhood (block) in the South Side of Chicago. These local names are used in basically every song of Chief Keef, making it an important part of his music and identity. In the first scene of the episode, host Thomas Morton is standing in front of an abandoned railroad track that at one time seemed to lead to the center of Chicago, while he refers to the city of Chicago as the “ murder rate capital”, thereby defining the areas to be examined in the series as cut from the city and dangerous.
Adding to the visual language, Morton calls Chicago the most segregated city in the country. Following up on his introduction, a montage occurs that returns every episode, consisting of images of young, black men in the streets of the South Side of Chicago, flashing guns and throwing up gang signs, accompanied by the song “This Ain’t What You Want” by Lil’ Durk.
The visuals used in this introductory montage are packed with symbols representing and indicating danger, lawlessness and violence. These symbols occur mainly in the form of guns, flashing police sirens and (presumed) street gang members who make gang signs with their hands. By putting Lil’ Durk’s song behind these visuals, a connection is established between these places and the music that comes from it. It seems that these neighborhoods are to be perceived as wild, dangerous places – in other words, exotic jungles – that are not accessible for “normal” people.
This is Thomas Morton speaking in the opening scene of Noisey Chiraq. The centre of Chicago in the background of the shot is put into contrast with the industrial wasteland that surrounds Morton. The wasteland as well as the abandoned railroad track on Morton’s right underline the idea that we are now in a cut-off, excluded part of the city, where there are no familiar signs of structure and urban civilization.
In the form of guns and police sirens, the above screenshots show some of the indicators of danger, crime and violence that occur in the introductory montage of the series. The masked and armed figure appearing at 0:26 reappears in the final shot of the montage, in which the name of CHIRAQ is blended with his appearance, through which this anonymous man becomes a main representative of the Chicago that Noisey aims to present.
Also, mind again the use of the name Chiraq, a mashup of Chicago and Iraq, defining Chicago as both a war zone and an Oriental space, while remaining part of the United States, which is supposed to be neither of those. As the camera catches Chief Keef doing an
interview with a local journalist, we hear him giving his take on this, simultaneously making it into a claim of authenticity: “I’m from the real Chicago. The South Side. It’s a gangster
(Tyree Pittman), who is responsible for the production of Chief Keef’s early mixtapes, and album including the hit single “I Don’t Like”. Before addressing the music, the camera shows Chop’s security camera system. “Is this all around the house?” Morton asks. Chop affirms, thereby confirming this is an area that requires advanced security systems.
In the above shot, Morton asks Young Chop about his surveillance system while we get an overview shot.
In the fourth minute of the second episode, Morton interviews members of a street gang located in a South Side neighborhood called “The Village”– referred to by Morton as “very scary”. Mortons narration states that these men now try to make a living of music instead of crime. As Morton is saying this, images are shown of the members aiming their guns at the camera. It is clear that this montage focuses on the crime aspect rather than the music.
Here we see Morton smiling amongst gang members in The Village, while one of them aims a gun at the camera.
One of the gang members shows an ankle monitor. The monitor, alike the frequent shown police sirens, represents crime, which is connected to the environment of the urban ghetto.
In the second episode of Noisey Chiraq, a connection between Chicago territory and its music is further established through an interview with Chief Keef’s manager, who speaks
about Chief Keef’s crews “300” and “GBE”, and explains how these organizations rooted in gang culture and localized space came into existence before the music. “300 is a way of saying Black Disciples [a Chicago street gang], and GBE [Glory Boys Entertainment] is an organization derived from Black Disciples. Its origins didn’t necessarily originate with music.” This statement aligns with Murray Forman’s claim that “in rap, there is historically a sense that an act cannot succeed without first gaining approval and support from crew and neighborhood” (Forman 2000: 72). The music must first build credit among the people in the specific place the music originates from.
The formation of a crew, according to Public Enemy’s Chuck D, is a necessary
response to the system of capitalism: “The only way that you exist within this system is to put together a team in order to be able to penetrate the structures that you cannot break as an individual. These are structures of capitalism and oppression.” Forman takes this and states that “the posse is the fundamental social unit binding a rap act and its production crew together, creating a collective identity that is rooted in place and within which the creative process unfolds (Forman 2000: 71-72).
Forman was mainly addressing the situation regarding hip hop crews from the
mid-eighties until the mid-nineties, like Public Enemy from New York and N.W.A. from Los Angeles. What Chief Keef’s manager tells us about the 300 and GBE in current day Chicago shows that the neighborhood’s approval of the music has now become an effect rather than a cause of success, since these crews already existed before the music did. In these particular cases, the respect and identity of the crew have outweighed the respect and identity of the music. The 300/GBE are not ambivalent about their participation in drug sales among other criminal activities, and the functioning of their crew – in both the music industry as well as gang activities – can be seen as a response to the system of capitalism as described by Chuck D.
Further on in the second episode, presenter Thomas Morton reveals his awareness of his position within the documentary and the violent image of Chicago he consciously and/or unconsciously constructs, when he says: “Last night’s rap concert went well, everyone enjoyed themselves, nobody shot anybody, maybe that’s shitty of me to have expected that.” Of course, he could just be addressing his personal expectations regarding the night out, but the cross-cutting of the speaking Morton with shots of the previously addressed masked figure
Chicago is to be experienced as a place where you can get shot any night of the week – whether it actually happens or not.
In the fourth episode, Morton takes cover behind a vehicle after we hear a shot go off, which then turns out to be a blown tire instead of a gunshot. The clip of the shot going off and Morton taking cover was used in multiple sneak previews of the documentary, insinuating that the camera crew had witnessed an actual shooting. Adding to this manipulative aesthetic choice that fits into the idea of a dangerous ghetto, it is stressed that real danger is
experienced by Chicago inhabitants. In the same episode, rapper Lil’ Durk explains how he is planning to move to Los Angeles in order to keep his kids safe, because, as he states, even kids are (accidentally) falling victim to the gang related violence in Chicago.
The depiction of Chicago neighborhoods as “different” implicates the existence of contrasting areas that belong to a normalized American ideal; area’s flooded with wealth, resources and a lack of criminal activity. This American ideal now functions as the Occident would have done in a traditional Orientalist relationship with the Orient (Said: 4), as opposed to these Chicago ghettos, the normative and ideal American zones are structured, rational and safe.
Times Square in New York should for instance qualify as (a part of) one of those areas. The third episode of Noisey Chiraq shows Chief Keef and his entourage marching through Times Square, constructing an effect that strengthens the perceived ideas of both the “normal” and “different” territories. This effect is for instance produced by a (rather funny) scene showing Chief Keef incorporating territorial street and drug deal logic in a situation with a Spiderman suit wearing performer on the square. “We gotta get Spiderman his corner back”, Keef says to his friends, after the performer is forced to move from a crowded spot.
The documentary then shows how Keef and his crew search for a sense of home as they visit the Times Square McDonald’s. McDonald’s here functions as a “nonplace”, a place “designed to be passed through and consumed rather than appropriated” (O’Beirne 1). In this case, the geographical location of the McDonald’s (Times Square) is not relevant, what matters is that this place constitutes a link between different spaces – it serves as a port to a placeless place that connects with the values of familiar neighborhood territory, which in the case of Chief Keef is the ghetto of Chicago.
While localized urban environments in hip hop music often come to life through descriptive lyrics, Noisey Chiraq provides clear images of Chicago’s ghettos. These images implicate neglect, poverty and desolation.
The screenshots above (taken from the seventh episode) show the ghettos of Chicago as neglected urban zones, in which elements of raw, jungle-like nature blend and mix with elements of urban decay. These images contribute to the idea of the urban Orient, an urban, lawless and unstructured jungle, in which buildings have lost their original function and meaning, and human civilization no longer seems to interfere with forces of nature.
