Making Money Moves
In 1993, Sean Combs was fired from Uptown Records and within two weeks, established his own record label, Bad Boy Entertainment.With Christopher Wallace — a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie — as its leading act, Bad Boy Entertainment would go on to contribute significantly to the 90s rap scene and make a lasting impression on the genre’s trajectory.
A living and evolving art form, rap music is characterized by constant shifts and developments as artists make their personal mark on the genre. This has been an attribute of rap music and hip hop culture since its inception. Like the genres from which it evolved — African American spirituals, Blues, Rhythm & Blues, etc. — hip hop has served as a tool enabling marginalized communities to interpret and give voice to their experiences. In this aspect, the 90s rap scene was no different than the scenes that came before it. Similar to hip hop’s founding artists of the 70s, rappers of the 90s used this art form to express their lived experiences in a way that was familiar and relevant to them. However, the subject matter, imagery, and current events which defined 90s rap music suggests a departure from rap scenes of previous time periods. Largely shaped by the influence of Sean Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment along with other notable artists during the time period, 90s rap music popularized a focus on luxury in a way that previous variants of the genre did not.
From this…
To this…
This shift was neither linear nor all encompassing. As with any art form, rap is a collaborative process ebbing and flowing to the various trends that arise. While some trends come and go rather quickly, one trend that arose in the mid 90s has managed to stick around 30 years later — luxury. Whether diamonds, Persian rugs, mink coats, or Mercedes Benz’s, luxury goods and brand references found a home in 90s rap music and haven’t left since. While the trend of name dropping brands in hip hop lyrics wasn’t a new concept, what was different about the brand references that emerged in mid 90s rap music was the level of luxury. It seemed that rappers had graduated from the more affordable everyday brands to a lifestyle that embraced the finer and more exclusive things in life. Brands like Versace, Gucci, DKNY, etc. had become commonplace in the lyrics and imagery of rap music and hip hop culture more broadly. This legacy of luxury brand references has extended into modern hip hop culture as evidenced by entire songs dedicated to luxury such as “Versace” by Migos and “Fashion Killa” by A$AP Rocky.
While it’s easy to reduce this focus on luxury brands and goods to the materialism that has resulted from the commercialization of hip hop, this reasoning doesn’t leave room for a critical engagement of why luxury has become such a staple in rap music and what it represents for the artists and listeners. The presence of luxury in a genre produced by members of a population of which most don’t have access to such luxury is worthy of further interrogation. I argue that the proliferation of luxury brand references in rap music over the past few decades provides a unique space to analyze the contradictory ways that marginalized communities negotiate their identities in a neoliberal landscape. Through an analysis of luxury brand references throughout rap music lyrics of the late 90s, this blog aims to understand the factors that have motivated this trend and put it in conversation with larger societal factors affecting marginalized communities.
