Identities and Culture A Study on Hip-Hop Movement

Question: Discuss about the Identities and Culture for a Study on Hip-Hop Movement. Answer: Introduction The aim of the essay is to explore idea of De Certeau regarding tactical in character in everyday life. According to the view, many of the every day practices are organised by people to make the culture, rituals, law and languages their own. This book depicts that people individualise these factors, alter them, and use these tactically. This essay tries to analyse the arguments made in theories. Certeau distinguishes between two concepts such as tactics and strategy. Producers and consumers are the central characters of this concept. Current essay highlights the arguments and counter arguments against the concept by using an example. The chosen example is Hip-Hop movement initiated by a generation in United States against violence (Brkich, McBride and Flagg 2012). Analysis of the Ideas The practice of everyday life describes producers are the institutions of power, who uses strategies. Consumers are the character, who uses tactics in order to maximise their utility in the structural environment defined by strategies. Both the consumer and producer are characterised as an individual. Therefore, the society is the locus of all individual with different characters operating in a common environment (Scheer 2012). Every society has its own culture. According to military theory, tactics is the subordinate to the strategy. Certeau argued that these two concepts are appropriately conflicting. Tactics are subsumed into the strategies. Producers use strategies to win over social battle and acquiring social power. Operation is the necessity to win over the campaign required to win battle. The consumers to oppose the strategies use tactics. In this literature, culture, law and order, institutions are producers. Use of social goods and production is the consumption. Tactics are not exactly the subset of the strategies. However, the consumers use the tactics under the given strategic environment (Hayward and Young 2012). Watson (2012) cited that Government and other powerful bodies through using city planning have developed the concept of city. Cultural consumers operate in the environment and use their tactics to articulate their everyday living. City planner may construct roads, streets and bridges. It is the strategy of local or central government to organise the city and control the traffic. However, the use of the streets are the tactics of the taxi drivers that how to use those streets. Hence, tactics give birth of art of doing in daily life. Pierce et al. (2013) argued that consumers are subjected to use the products of society in the way, which is determined by dominant economic order. They have no choice of using their own tactics in a given strategically framework. In the view of Certeau, tactic is opportunistic and defensive in nature. In the view of tactical theorist John Boyd, cultural consumers operate in the OODA loop. They observe the environment, orient, decide and take actions accor dingly. Their tactics work according to the changing environment. This theory of strategy and tactics can be explained by using an example of the hip-hop movement. Hip-Hop movement was started to fight against the ongoing racism and violence. Kool DJ Herc in South Bronx pioneered this movement in 1973 (Mandell and Johnson 2016). This Hip-hop movement was a tactics undertaken by a new generation closer to the black culture to redefine the way of life against the western culture. It is the example of the victory of weak over the strong. Oppressed minority of America directed hip-hop movement. They tried to transform the negative energy into the positive one through the art of culture. Hip-hop style of dance was influenced by the idea of rap and Graffiti. During 1980s, hip-hop movement became popular worldwide. It was a movement against violence in the form of art as people easily accept artistic presentation. The originator and practitioner of this movement present a creative and electric instrument based music, which has a social massage. The first rap record released in 1979 gave a clear message to the society regarding living condition, use of drugs and environment (Clay 2012). The media in the society is the strategy maker. Media present information in their own way and general people are influenced by those information. When Hip-Hop movement arrived in Paris, the radio and television took position against this movement. Media tried to create a ridiculous and impotent image of this movement. However, this art of life was widely accepted by the young generation. The hip-hop and rap was the form of self-expression and thought as a manifestation of the feeling of hopelessness (Brkich, McBride and Flagg 2012). This theme represented the working class of America by showing the problem of poverty, prejudice in the society, racism. The politician tried to stop the music in the charge creating violence (Richie 2015). The upper class white men controlled musical industry treated the minority musicians as commodities rather than artists. However, growing popularity of hip-hop and rap music won over every challenge created by the powerful strategy makers in the socie ty. Hip-Hop movement overcame all the obstacles put by the society. It remained not a mere music. It became household culture and culture of general people. Therefore, hip-hop movement has successfully alleviated the social inequalities and injustice using tactics and not by strategy. They have articulated the way of living through music in order to eliminate social violence. Hip-hop movement is the history of victory of weak section of society over the strong. Conclusion The essay has discussed on the idea of De Certeau regarding strategy and tactic in everyday life. In the traditional theory, the strategy makers are thought to be powerful and strong in the society. The consumers consume here regarded as a character, who uses social goods providing maximum utility. They make tactics only. The strategy makers or the producers control the society. Tactics are the subordinate of the strategy. However, in the view of Certeau, tactics opposes strategy. The strategy makers create an environment, under which the tactics operate. In the example of Hip-hop movement, it has been seen that the strategy makers ruled over their society and creates a environment of racism, social inequality among the black and white group of people. The practitioner of hip-hop and rap music protested against those violence and injustice in a artistic way using music. Their music has a social massage. Huge popularity beyond America especially among the young generation was able to overcome the racial discrimination created by the white group, who controlled the social, political and economical power. References Brkich, C.A., McBride, H. and Flagg, L., 2012. Music as a weapon: Using popular culture to combat social injustice.The Georgia Social Studies Journal,2(1), pp.1-9. Clay, A., 2012.The hip-hop generation fights back: Youth, activism and post-Civil Rights politics. NYU Press. Hayward, K. and Young, J., 2012. Cultural criminology.Maguire, M./Morgan, R./Reiner, R.(Hg.): The Oxford handbook of criminology,5, pp.113-137. Mandell, N. and Johnson, J.L., 2016. Race, class, and sexuality. Pierce, J., Strengers, Y., Sengers, P. and Bdker, S., 2013. Introduction to the special issue on practice-oriented approaches to sustainable HCI.ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI),20(4), p.20. Richie, B.E., 2015. 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