The noise in the air was getting louder and louder as stage time was approaching. Sitting with anticipation, fans in the crowd recited lyrics to popular melodies by this artist, reminding him of the musical dynasty he built. While soaking in the atmosphere, he prepared for the performance by putting on multiple gold chains, his set of “grills”, and a Louis Vuitton belt to complement his sagging designer jeans worth $600. He then entered the stage, and greeted the crowd, “WHAT’S GOOD HARTFORD?! WE FINNA TURN UP! YA READY?!” The sold-out stadium exploded as Chief Keef performed “Love Sosa”, a song which references misogyny, violence, drugs, and materialism, elements of most popular Hip-Hop today. Probing for an exciting occasion, adolescent suburban white kids paid to see yet another black man make a mockery of himself and his own race as Keef …show more content…
Actors (mainly white) dressed up in ridiculous garments, decorated themselves in stereotypical ways (extremely dark skin and red lips), and behaved in a primitive way which was associated with black fellows. Onlookers were amused, as black men were getting embarrassed against their will. There are individuals who believe that the symbols of African-American men in society helped develop a system in which blacks were “marginalized and helped to shape white perceptions around blackness for more than a generation.” In his book From Jim Crow to Jay Z: Race, Rap, And The Performance of Masculinity, Miles White believes that minstrelsy has been prevalent for quite some time.
“Minstrelsy represents the first sustained cultural project in which the agency of the black male body and black subjectivity are usurped by white actors as fetishized commodity. The effects of this particular racial counterfeit have been critical in the construction of black masculinity in the white imagination up to the present day.” (White