Research Investigation Final

How men are represented differently in mainstream music 'vs' Alternative 'underground' music.

For my research investigation I have chosen to research into how men are represented differently in mainstream music 'vs' Alternative 'underground' music. "Mainstream music denotes music that is familiar to the masses, as for example popular music, pop music, middle of the road music, pop rap or pop rock". Alternative underground music on the other hand is music that "Opposes mainstream music which is the music of subcultures and exists in genre's such as punk rock, indie rock, alternative/underground hip hop, anti-folk and heavy metal". I have chosen to look at the hip-hop and rap genre because of how it is a very male dominated genre and also the controversy that is caused between artist and their audiences. I feel that the subject of mainstream and alternative music relates a lot to hip-hop/ rap music because of how many male rap artist that get signed and start to create much more mainstream music often get called 'sell outs' because of how their overall representation might change through their appearance, lyrics and in their music videos because of how the money and their record label has changed them to appeal to the mainstream audiences.  I will be making reference to music videos such as; Dappy - Tarzan 2.5 (Versace Cover), Jason Derulo Ft 2Chainz - Talk Dirty To Me and Tyler The Creator - Yonkers.

In the book 'Teaching men and film' the author Matthew Hall talks about Traditional gender roles, traits and values in shown through the media. Male traits include; preferring action to discussion, uses confrontation to solve problems, physical/mental strength and endurance etc. These traits all make the 'stereotypical male' (powerful, masculine, dominant, aggressive, rebellion etc.). Angela McRobbie is also a theorist that talks about these stereotypical roles in her feminist theory and how gender is portrayed in the media as being exaggerated stereotypes. This stereotypical male and these characteristics are shown a lot in the hip hop genre and I feel that many underground artists themselves try to exaggerate these stereotypical representations so that they are a conventional artist in the Hip Hop industry but are also trying to be different by making the representations extreme so that they can gain more fans and try to become the most popular artist who is earning the most money. Some audiences may however find some Hip Hop music videos verging on the edge of becoming a parody video because of how some artist’s representations are very extreme.

We see these male traits take place in an underground music video by an artist called Dappy. The video is called Tarzan 2.5 (Versace Cover), which is a rap video about how he feels he is the 'King of the jungle' (meaning king of the rap/hip hop industry). Dappy use to be a very popular uk artist back in 2009 when he with in a group named NDubz. NDubz went double platinum with their albums "Uncle B" and "Against all odds" and also featured in a chart number one with Tynchy Stryder in the uk with the song "Number 1". In this video we see the stereotypical male throughout the video through miss-en-scene, props, clothing, camera etc. Dappy is represented as a very rebellious, dominant 'stereotypical male' because of how throwing this party and he's got all these girls and guys surrounding him as he raps. The main setting for this video is in this posh, expensive mansion (supposedly Dappy's house). He is shown as masculine (girls stroking his body), powerful (main focus of the party). He is also shown as rebellious in a part in the video when he is shouting at his neighbor down the phone. This is a very unusual example of a rebelliousness and aggression because of how it’s quite a funny scene in the music video and is a reason why this could be seen as a parody.

These stereotypical manners of men are also shown in mainstream music but however are less exaggerated and focus on much more positive representations by showing less rebelliousness and aggression. In the video 'Jason Derulo ft 2Chainz - Talk Dirty To Me' (which is a Rap/ Dance/ Hip Hop mainstream track) we do still see some of these stereotypical representations of men throughout like male dominance, masculinity (also on the album cover, which shows Jason Derulo's abs) and wealth but however see a much more positive and joyful side with hints of some rebelliousness other than seeing aggression throughout like in Dappy's underground music video.    

Mainstream artists compared to Underground artists can't create these crazy/ extreme representations most of the time because they have less freedom when creating music videos for their mainstream tracks. Underground artists are not stuck to a contract with big record labels so they have much more freedom in what music videos they create and what they do with them. In the book 'Studying Popular Culture', the author 'Tim Wall' talks about mainstream artist being seen and shown as 'Stars' in the tenth chapter of the book, which is called 'Stars As Individuals'. He talks about how artists are seen by the audience as 'stars' and that the better persona and representation of the artist the record company show, the more sales they will make. We can tell from this source and from looking at Jason Derulo's music video 'Talk Dirty To Me' that the music video doesn't show aggression, bad language and loads of rebelliousness because the record company don't want to represent Jason Derulo across as being this type of 'Individual' because this won't sell records. However the record company still do want to show him as  a wealthy, masculine and quite dominant male almost like a role model for teenagers that might listen to this music. Quotes from source: 

    "…the media and the music business produce images for artists, and that those artists not only perform music, but also perform a particular star persona" - 'Studying Popular Culture', Chapter 10, Representations. 

    "Our awareness of these individuals, and our knowledge of their fame and talent, is the product of carefully executed publicity campaigns. In turn our knowledge of the star is used to encourage us to purchase records and an array of secondary merchandise". Slightly Further on…. "a record company invests significant sums to gain publicity and reinforce an image they believe will, in turn, ensure greater sales of that stars records" - 'Studying Popular Culture', Chapter 10, Stars as Individuals. 


Underground non-mainstream music has developed over years and many artists now have big fan bases that understand the artist’s representations, lyrics, music videos etc. Many artists also start as underground artist and create one or two mainstream catchy big selling tracks and then you might never here much of them again. Underground artist do this I feel to be able to get more audience from their short mainstream success and make them a fan because the audience likes the representation that the artist is showing in his/her music videos. Artist such as Sappy and other UK rap artists (Chipmunk, Maxsta, Wiley etc) do this also to gain large amounts of money from their mainstream success so that they can use the money the create better music and videos and/or use it to flaunt and spend in their music videos to create a new image for themselves or to bring back the old one before they went into the mainstream industry. Many Rap/Hip Hop artists nowadays get called sellouts and loose lots of fans (and gain new ones) when they create mainstream music because sometimes their image and representation changes due to their success. When the artist then change back to create underground music they have lost many fans so try and create crazy extreme representations (just like Dappy did) to show that they are free and never changed just because of a record label telling them what to do. Some Rap/ Hip Hop artist however do still get well known and very wealthy through just making music when not on a record label and slowly gain a fan base because of how they are different to the everyday conventional representations of Hip Hop artist. Rap groups such as 'Odd Future' (US), 'Cash Money' (US) and 'Boy Better Know' (UK) are examples of well known groups with big fan bases all over the world and who have gained a fan base by having some members of the group that have created mainstream music and also mainly through social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook. These underground groups have also created there own record labels in which they choose their own representation and overall image of themselves because they don't need to worry about keeping their mainstream audience and creating music suitable for the radio and the mainstream industry. According to the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) Twitter and Facebook's most followed and liked pages are music artist. This shows that music nowadays is run by advertisement and about gaining fan bases through these sites and also sharing music on YouTube. YouTube also is dominated by music videos being the top viewed and this is a reason why many alternative/underground artist are creating the so that the can show their crazy representations throughout their music and gain masses of views. 


In the article in media magazine called "Issues of Representation in Contemporary Hip-Hop" the author Phil Dyas talks about Odd Future, especially 'Tyler The Creator' (member of Odd Future) as a solo artist and talks about the different representation Tyler shows other than him being a conventional Hip Hop Rapper who raps about girls, money drugs etc. He also talks about how the music video 'Yonkers' by Tyler The Creator is non conventional because its not glamorous which links back to the point were I was talking about how some underground artist use the money from mainstream success to create high quality and glamorous music videos.  

    "What Odd Future do is push the violence and aggression common in hip-hop’s representations of young black men to its logical conclusion. Tyler, the Creator hints at honest psychological wounds and even the violence shown within their music videos is turned inward. The video for ‘Yonkers’, shot in black and white entirely in one take (a far cry from the glamour common in most hip-hop videos) concludes with Tyler hanging himself. All of Odd Future’s controversial lyrics can be traced not to the hip-hop tradition of ‘thuggishness’, but to an intense self-loathing and introspection more common within alternative genres" - Phil Dyas, Issues of Representation in Contemporary Hip-Hop.

    

After looking at artist such as Dappy, Jason Derulo,Tyler The Creator and the overall genre of Rap/ Hip Hop I have found from my research that male mainstream artist have much less freedom in their mainstream music videos because of the way they are being shown as 'Stars' to their fans and their record label wants to show them as quite positive stereotypical men to target at the young teenage mainstream audience so that the artist and record label can sell the most records and merchandise. I have found that underground artist of the other hand create much more exaggerated representations of themselves because they have freedom and want to show rebelliousness because they are not choosing to be with a record label and that they will appeal to their fan base and not try to target the mainstream audience by changing their representation. However I have found also that some artist such as Dappy and other UK rap artists create mainstream music to gain money to fund creating their underground music for their dedicated fans. 

Bibliography: 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream#In_music - Definitions of mainstream and underground music.

Source: Teaching men and film 2005 - Matthew Hall, Pages 21&22, Chapter 2 - Background


Source:  http://www.slideshare.net/333manny1995/angela-mcrobbie-theory  &  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_theory - Angela McRobbies Theory 


Source (Video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4cadIfgk0w - Dappy - Versace Cover Tarzan 2.5


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Dubz_discography - NDubz Discography


Source (Video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbtPXFlZlHg - Jason Derulo Ft 2Chainz - Talk Dirty To Me


Source: Studying popular music culture - Tim Wall 2003, Chapter ten, Representation & Stars as individuals.

Source: BPI - Digital Music Nation, Pg 4, "Music as a driver of social media entertainment"

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_viewed_YouTube_videos - Top Most Viewed Youtube Videos

Source: http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/mmagpast/mm42_hiphop.html


Source (Video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw - Tyler The Creator - Yonkers