The last time we talked about Myth, we sprawled out more comments than Maplewood has golfers. Now the Strib revisits Myth and pulls no punches with its lede: “It’s no secret that the suburbs love hip-hop.” The entertainment director at the club confesses he started with a rock club but hip-hop has scored the biggest turnouts. Given the recent problems at the Quest, it raises some interesting questions about downtown and the burbs, hip-hop culture and rock culture.
Ghettoizing Hip-Hop To The Burbs
Dec 8 2005 — 2:00am
10 Reader Comments
8:58 am
Glad I moved out of Maplehood. That whole area has gone in an unfavorable direction, as of late.
2:59 pm
what do you mean by “unfavorable”?
9:58 am
Nice head line Mnspeak, way to be socially sensitive. I hate when middle America white people start using the the word “ghetto” to imply what they can’t get away with saying. From Websters: 1) a situation that resembles a ghetto especially in conferring inferior status or limiting opportunity. Heaven forbid, some black people show up to something in the ‘burbs, now its becoming a ghetto. You should be ashamed of yourself.
11:23 am
Ghettogirl, while we at Mnspeak are frequently insensitive and categorically ashamed of ourselves, in this instance you have misunderstood a joking allusion. I’m guessing that Rex was referring to the fact that the arts community sometimes suspect that the suburbs are a cultural wasteland, a “ghetto” of conformist thinking, if you will; and that long-time hip-hop fans will feel quite annoyed to find themselves sharing their favorite performers with an audience of suburbanites.
2:24 pm
Thanks for the typical backpedaling explanation Sarah, I love it when people do the ” oh no, it’s a metaphore thing ” – we all know that the Strib’s article and Rex’s response were really saying “Holy Crap Batman, look at all these hip-hop loving blacks and wanna-be’s that are flooding our lily white suburb – where’d they come from?”
2:46 pm
That’s hillarious, GhettoGirl — you’ve totally seen right through me! I think you may want to read this site a little more before declaring what I’m “really saying.” Yo, I wanna burn down the lily white suburbs! And while we’re at it, I want to tear down the power elite structure — and off the top of my head, I can’t think of a better initial strategy than infiltrating suburbia with hip-hop.
The implications of “Ghettoizing Hip-Hip To The Burbs” as a headline questions a couple things: 1) has the mainstreaming of hip-hop culture made it more or less relevant? And 2) is this migration about geography (inner-city kids going out to the burbs for shows) or culture (privledged kids identifying with [or co-opting?] an underground scene). Although I don’t know the answers to those questions, I definitely think the implications are important ones — and they’re what I was trying to tease out with the post.
5:05 pm
Headline: Misleading Country Into War
Confused reaction: You calling my country misleading?
Headline: Driving Rex To Drink
Confused reaction: I hope he gets pulled over before he kills somebody.
Headline: Annoying Bob with Cigarettes
Confused reaction: Bob has cigarettes?!
Sorry, Bob, couldn’t resist that last one. Blame it on that ghettoizing hip-hop.
9:35 am
$20 there’s a shooting at the Myth before July ‘06.
Any takers?
11:07 am
I bet ghettogirl is white, suburban, and conflicted.
Rick, you right on, brotha!
12:15 pm
Will the men of Maplewood stop looking for wives and start looking for baby mommas?