Bad Boy and the Spread of Luxurious Bars
A close read of “It’s All About the Benjamins”
One song that best captures the playa rap aesthetic is the certified platinum single “It’s All About the Benjamins,” by P Diddy himself featuring verses from Bad Boy artists Lil’ Kim, The L.O.X., and Notorious B.I.G. Centered around 100 dollar bills — “Benjamins” is used in reference to Benjamin Franklin who appears on the U.S. $100 bill — this song peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-hop chart and quickly became an anthem for the late 90s.
Featuring perhaps the most iconic Bad Boy production, the song opens with vocals from an unidentified woman who seductively repeats in a whisper like tone, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” while P. Diddy’s ad libs and subsequent lines affirm this statement. The use of a woman’s voice for the hook foreshadows another theme that often accompanies luxury in rap music — women. Whether bragging about all the luxurious items that male rappers can buy for women or using their own luxurious lifestyle to entice women, the two themes of luxury and women were often used in conjunction with one another. In fact, playa rap lyrics and imagery reveal that women themselves are often equated to a luxury of sorts, right along with diamonds and expensive brands. In “Hypnotize,” another Bad Boy record, Biggie refers to luxury brands in relation to women crafting some of his most famous lines.
I put hoes in NY onto DKNY
Miami, D.C. prefer Versace
All Philly hoes go with Moschino
Every cutie with a booty bought a Coogi
While West coast gangsta rap had become known for dehumanizing and violent sentiments towards women, playa rap integrates women into a luxurious narrative constructing a view of women that is inextricably tied to capital. Though this still often relegates women to objects of men’s desires, playa rap marks an interesting shift from the male-female relationships typically depicted in Gangsta rap. Antonia Randolph (2006) notes the ways in which “playa rap” constructed a new masculinity that embodies “non-hegemonic masculinity of adornment, consumption, and sensual pleasure” offering insight into rappers’ “experience of both privilege and disadvantage”(202). These themes are further engaged throughout the rest of the song though many may question at what cost.
Now, what y’all wanna do?
Wanna be ballers, shot callers, brawlers
Who be dippin’ in the Benz with the spoilers
On the low from the Jake in the Taurus
Tryin’ to get my hands on some Grants like Horace
Yeah, livin’ the raw deal
Three course meals: spaghetti, fettuccine, and veal
But still, everything’s real in the field
And what you can’t have now, leave in your will– P. Diddy, “It’s All About the Benjamins”
If listeners are at first unsure of the meaning of “it’s all about the Benjamins,” the message is clear by the end of Diddy’s first verse as he paints a picture of the lavish life that Benjamins can buy. This life includes Mercedes Benzes, three course meals, offshore banking, diamond encrusted rings, and beautiful women whose appearances are rated a 10. Such an elaborate lifestyle oriented around wealth and consumption falls squarely within neoliberal ideology. In Why Voice Matters, Nick Couldry conceptualizes neoliberalism as the economic policies that emerged in the early 1980s “to make market functioning…the overwhelming priority for social organization” (Couldry, 2010, p. 4).
The prioritization of market functioning captures the song’s very essence. A luxurious lifestyle is depicted as the only type of life worth living. This market priority marks a departure from other rap subgenres which often engaged themes of struggle, focusing less on the luxuries that come along with success. Randolph notes the ways in which playa rap “not only staged consumption, it frequently obscured work. Instead of focusing on the sometimes violent struggle to make money, playa rappers described larger-than-life ways to spend it” (Randolph, 2006, p. 210). This frequent erasure of the work and struggle mirrors what Couldry identifies as a crisis of voice as the market overshadows opportunities to value expressions of voice not linked to the market. Furthermore, erasing struggle and celebrating market success runs the risk of ignoring systemic barriers which continue to prevent marginalized communities from having access to the “Benjamins” that Diddy raps about.
This is yet another characteristic of neoliberalism. Various scholars have evaluated the influence of neoliberalism on racial discourses and the implications for racialized bodies. Under neoliberalism, racism is both individualized and privatized authorizing the rise of colorblind ideology which denies the claim that race is responsible for alleged injustices that reproduce inequality, economic disenfranchisement and white privilege (Giroux, 198). Instead, such injustices are regarded as unfortunate situations which can be overcome with hard work. Such sentiments are closely aligned with the philosophy of meritocracy which claims that success is achieved through individual will and not impacted by systemic structures. Individuals with marginalized identities who are able to overcome their situations are lauded as “tokens”.
“Within this emerging neoliberal ethic, success is attributed to thriftiness and entrepreneurial genius, while those who do not succeed are viewed as either failures or utterly expendable.” (Giroux, 195)
“contradiction of the invisibility of actual racial segregation and the hypervisibility of a new, mass-media– constructed, multicultural America.” (Collins, 7)
In many ways, a song — performed by artists with Black working class backgrounds — that unapologetically revels in the luxuries of success is an embodiment of neoliberalism and its associated discourses. However, further analysis of the lyrics and culture of playa rap suggest that this conclusion is too simple. A deeper look into this song — as well as other songs like it — reveals a theme that deals with power reclamation particularly among marginalized populations. Working within and in opposition to the neoliberal context, rappers use money to both assert their claim to spaces of luxury and subvert the historical meaning that these spaces have traditionally represented.
In the midst of the luxury brand name dropping, the lyrics in “It’s All About the Benjamins” also establishes a link between money, ownership, and power — something many Black people have never had access to. This is demonstrated in some of Diddy’s first words on the track. His verse opens with a rhetorical question addressed to a collective “y’all.” This serves as a rallying call of sorts which lays the foundation for the next line where Diddy raps: “Wanna be ballers, shot callers, brawlers.” The term ballers in this context refers to money makers, while “shot callers” indicates that “balling,” authorizes the power to lead and essentially call the shots. This is particularly impactful coming from Diddy whose successful career as a music executive quickly earned him the title of shot caller. The theme is continued in the next verse, as Jadakiss raps “I wanna hold figures, fuck bein’ a broke nigga.” Read in conjunction with Diddy’s lines, these aspirational bars construct a narrative in which money and luxury is understood as a gateway not only to a better life but even more so, control. This is even more explicitly communicated in another Bad Boy track entitled “Money, Power & Respect,” by The LOX ft. Lil Kim and DMX.
While such desires may seem capitalistic at their core, the artists’ racialized bodies complicates that notion. This is epitomized in the rise of the Hip hop mogul, who Christopher Holmes Smith (2003) describes as the Black entertainers/rappers turned successful businessmen who simultaneously embody and reject traditional American corporate values. Similar to the ghetto fabulous aesthetic, the mogul represents a montage of both luxury and street life.
In Sheek Louch’s verse on “It’s All About the Benjamins,” he describes his expensive taste for “colossal Picassos,” while in the very next line, he expresses that he wants to “have papi flip coke outside Delgado’s.” Juxtaposing high culture artwork with drug dealing, these lyrics challenge traditional notions around who is authorized to certain spaces. Sheek blurs the line between “high” and “low” culture, and in the process, the meanings of both are altered. This is a typical feature of playa rap, as it’s common for artists to incorporate luxury into the hip hop lexicon. One-hundred dollar bills turn to Benjamins or Benjis, Lamborghini’s to Lambo, SL600 Mercedes Benz shortened to six. While these alterations aid in crafting clever rhyme schemes, what results is an altered understanding of what these luxury items/brands have traditionally represented.
“They are appropriating and rearticulating each and every identity like music samples, cutting and scratching the rigid binaries until they are no longer comprehensible.” (Baldwin, 174)
This isn’t the only way that luxury is used to challenge norms as demonstrated by Lil Kim’s verse. She boasts about stashing “380s in Mercedes,” and goes on to express that she’s the only female in her crew, who’s not afraid to “kick shit like a nigga do.” In this context 380s refer to .380 caliber pistols. Again, we see themes of gangsta rap such as violence mingling with themes of luxury. But in the next lines, we see Kim asserting her claim to a male dominated space using guns and luxury to establish herself as an equal to her male counterparts. Luxury operates as a vehicle through which Kim and other female rappers are able to undermine patriarchal dominance. Lil Kim’s career demonstrates that the playa subgenre is not strictly reserved for male aspiring moguls as Kim argues that just like men, she too makes money and yields power. She works within the confines of patriarchy to undermine the objectification of women.
A close listen to songs like “It’s All About the Benjamins,” reveals that luxury in rap music does more than cater to neoliberalism. It doesn’t fully succumb to neoliberalism nor does it fully resist. Rather, luxury is used as a performative tool enabling artists and marginalized communities to form a unique and layered response to neoliberalism. In Branding the Authentic, Sarah Banet-Weiser (2012) engages the concept of ambivalence to describe the ways individuals navigate consumer culture and neoliberalism. She posits that the interaction between individuals and brand culture “must be understood as a coexistence and intersection between creative activity and exploitation” (220). Within this coexistence there are both limitations as well as opportunities for challenge. This understanding of ambivalence is also valuable for analyzing the role of luxury in rap music, as rappers themselves embody ambivalence in their contradictory relationship to society.
Though at times overlooked, the performative nature of rap music also provides further insight into what the luxury does for the artists as well as the listeners. When marginalized artists boast of a flashy and extravagant lifestyle, it is not so much intended as an authentic representation of the lives of Black people as it is a construction of a unique identity through performance. It is in this performative state, that luxury can exist along side Black working class culture. Since many listeners are unable to physically experience such extravagance, luxurious references in rap songs operates in “third-ness” as it “exists in a negotiated, dynamic relationship with the physical” (Hoover & Echchaibi, 2014).
Rather than finding a politics through positive imaging, the “black good life” seeks a politics through performance and refashions identity through irony and play. (Baldwin, 168)
The role of luxury in rap music has further developed since the 90s, as rappers continue to celebrate their rise to fame by making claims on historically white dominated spaces. The commercialization of hip hop has only deepened this trend. However, through an examination of song lyrics, it is revealed that artists haven’t wholly submitted to neoliberal ideology. Rather, artists work within the hegemony implementing various strategies that simultaneously resist it.
