Critical Review #4: Hayes

In Hayes' study of relocated rap by white non-urban youth, he focuses on a town right outside of Toronto called Scottsville. The town is prominently white, and the high school that the youth that were interview attended, had no black people in it. Most of Hayes' study focused on non-urban whites that liked rap and its associated subculture. Apparently, even though these youths admired the genre and culture that surrounded it, because of their lack of contact with black youth and their reality, these youths created a pretty homogeneous definition of what it meant to be black. These definitions were drawn from clues seen on MTV and other music sites that presented only a small percentage of African Americans that are a part of this subculture. On the other side of the spectrum, Hayes also interviewed whites who did not like rap music. They, like their rap-liking peers, also created the same stereotypes when describing why they didn't like rap music. Both rap fans and non rap fans seemed to have a fear of the "black world". Rap fans especially, although completely fascinated by the perceived danger of this black world, were both jealous of those who could participate in it, and glad that they lived in a "safer place". Hayes concludes by saying that if these non-black rap fans were able to put their interest in this culture to above the superficial liking of the music and the misguided description of what they believed as black taken from mass-media, real political changes on how blacks are seen and treated could happen.

We recently discussed a case that could be seen as the opposite of this: afropunk. Afropunk developed into a movement. Do you think the same would be possible in this case? Why or why not? And if not, what are the major differences between African Americans joining the white dominant punk sub-culture and non-urban whites joining the black dominant rap subculture?