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Published in the Slovak Republic Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie) Has been issued since 2005 ISSN 1994-4160 E-ISSN 1994-4195 2019, 59(1): 73-85
DOI: 10.13187/me.2019.1.73 www.ejournal53.com
Hip-hop as a Reflection of United States Political Life
V.A. Presnyakov a , *
a Belarusian State Economic University, Belarus
Abstract
The article is devoted to the analysis of the political situation of the United States of America through the prism of the music industry. A structural content analysis of the texts of American hiphop performers is presented, the level of politicization of American music is detected, and a characteristic of the form of politicization of the music industry - the musical-political community is given. To solve this problem, general scientific methods and content analysis of the texts of American hip-hop performers of different music schools were used, which was carried out by categories determined by the purpose and objectives of the research (security, ideology, social policy and military policy). The methodological basis of the research is the theory of media communications, in which special attention is paid to identifying and characterizing the social consequences of network communications on the Internet, factors of the formation and development of media globalization, and assessing the effects of mass media on the audience. It caused attention to the ideas and works of such well-known experts in the area of media research, such as N.A. Antonovich, O.V. Aronson, M. L. DeFleur, A.V. Fedorov, P. Lazarsfeld, C. Osgood, W. Schramm, etc. The article describes the current situation of the hip-hop industry in the global cultural area, identifies the author's classification of hip-hop performers and evaluates this musical genre from the point of view of media fame of its representatives.
Keywords: political life, political communication, hip-hop, Donald Trump, music politization, media culture.
1. Introduction
The relevance of the research topic is determined by the fact that with the development of information technologies, the Internet, social networks and other means of communication, the policy began to fill all areas of society's life, becoming total. New media may well challenge the role or fill some of the gap left by traditionally strong socializers such as family, church, and school. Especially, the role played by parents for their children as key socializers with regard to politics is changing (Bakker, de Vreese, 2011). With the dynamic development of the virtual environment, the politicization of culture and interpersonal communications has created preconditions for the transformation of various scopes of human activity. It is the emergence of social networks that completely changed the system of political communications both in the United States and around the world. Today social networks are instruments for informing, mobilizing and shaping citizens' ideas / opinions. Practically all political institutions use the media platforms such as Facebook, Telegram and Twitter, which resulted in the complete modification of the mechanisms of political communication in all countries at different political and social levels. So, a new way to follow a
* Corresponding author
E-mail addresses: PresnyakoVitaliy@yandex.ru (V.A. Presnyakov)
politician and his political activities has appeared for citizens - a subscription in social networks, through which they receive notifications about any act of a politician or member of his team, as well as his political company in general. In this regard, politicians have a new way of political activity and agitation - "retweet" - a simple opportunity to share a message, including of a political nature, which is directed to the electorate and the mass media.
However, there are not so many formal restrictions and censorship in the media space, unlike newspapers, television and radio and acquiring the status of a subject of a media activity is not difficult, since it does not require from individual the formally confirm from his qualification characteristics. As a result, the sphere of social media creates conditions for the involvement of more and more participants in virtual communities, with which constant discussions come to social networks, the principle of free choice of topics for discussion, constant exchange of opinions, including in the form of unimpeded criticism, for example from competitors. With regard to the political consciousness of the individual, social networks can both reinforce the already existing political beliefs and attitudes, which were formed from his real sociopolitical experience, media and political competences, and create new ones through infection or suggestion.
Today, the ubiquitous Internet is replacing traditional forms of knowledges and wisdom, making us thinking: perhaps the era of television is a kind of "golden age" of a civilization in which people were not under such total control over their lives? Millions of people today go with smartphones and other gadgets, not paying attention to the world around them, and their value orientation has undergone modifications: with "build a house, plant a tree and raise a son," it shifted to personal expression, mass consumption of material goods and the narrowing of public area. In this situation, the media environment and virtual reality play special roles, as they create the necessary infrastructure for the transformation of the communication system (both interpersonal and political).
2. Materials and methods
The methodological basis of the research is the theory of media communications, in which special attention is paid to identifying and characterizing the social consequences of network communications on the Internet, factors of the emergence and development of media globalization, and evaluation of the effects of media on the audience. This led to attention to the ideas and works of such well-known experts in the media research area, such as N.A. Antonovich, O.V. Aronson, M. L. DeFleur, A.V. Fedorov, P. Lazarsfeld, C. Osgood, W. Schramm, etc. As an analytical tool of this study are two historically interrelated communication models: the circular model of communication Osgood-Schramm and the model of communication M.L. DeFleur. They pay special attention to the characteristics of the subjects of communication and the context of communication - the social environment (Dennis, DeFleur, 2010).
The empirical base of the research is the texts of American hip-hop artists presented on American specialized portals and social media, as well as on separate accounts on social networks (primarily on Facebook) adherents of this genre, who have become the object of content analysis. The information basis of the study was articles on musical issues from the magazine about the music industry Billboard, and the newspaper The New York Times, American scientific and academic journals: Journal of Communication, Political Communication, Social Science Quarterly, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The British Journal of Sociology and others.
3. Discussion
Political processes have a character of inclusiveness and universality, its mean that, involvement in the overall picture of the world and presence in all places and at all times. So, politics is carried out at all social levels: from clans and tribes in traditional societies, through modern local authorities and institutions to sovereign states at the international level.
Scientific and technological progress has radically changed the world and expanded opportunities for learning and practice. However, modern man again and again creates an idol/ideal image which he will worship. After several millennia humanity has realized that it is foolish to worship the sun, the stars, the earth and it is rather boring to worship what is carved out of stone, because it is much more «rational» to worship an athlete, musical performer, actor, dancer or politician. Creating an image, a person loses his identity and turns into a one-dimensional person, whose needs is imposed by "idols" (by means of mass media and/or social networks) and is false in its nature.
A special place in the conglomerate of values is occupied by political preferences, beliefs, motives and views. Culture often projects what is happening in politics through paintings, flash mobs, plays, musical works, etc. When people enter new groups they begin to adopt some of the pre-existing patterns of cultural consumption among long-standing members, that is, they experience cultural convergence (Reeves, de Vries, 2018: 218). Thus, new products of cultural, social and political capital are created.
In the current era of information and technology, any type of activity can get a proper level of popularity or become highly significant. Living in an incredibly open world, humanity absorbs information and knowledge from various sources such as mass media, the Internet, and social networks. In connection with this, the perception to the surrounding world is changing and the cultural consciousness and self-consciousness of a person in relation to media culture and the surrounding space in general. Thus, regarding the audience, media culture can be a system of the levels of development of the human personality capable of perceiving, analyzing, evaluating media texts, doing a media creation, and assimilating new knowledge in the field of media (Fedorov, 2015). With the expansion and rise in the study of media culture, it's functional and component components change. Music is a variety of symbols, from cultural, creative and ethical to destructive and immoral. The functional purpose of this music symbolic universe is that it is as S. Malloch believes makes our communal life of shared work of the body and mind creative in more hopeful ways. It restores our common humanity and our connection with all living things (Malloch, Trevarthen, 2018: 17). In most shopping centers, restaurants, parks and other places of public space we can hear all sorts of music, not to mention the personal use of this art form. Tracks of musical performers have different intellectual orientation, bear a diverse cultural imprint and emotional component. Although it is important to note that a study by T. Schäfer has shown that the purpose of listening to music is related to three motives: The regulation of physiological arousal and moods appears to be the most important intention for turning on music, followed, in order of importance, by the aspiration for self-awareness and social relatedness (Schäfer, 2016: 10). Topics covered in musical compositions can range from love stories and life stories to philosophical problems of society and political problems of the state. For example, within the framework of political communication there is such a phenomenon as äwäj is orchestrated sound that is clearly embodied, affective, and simultaneously constitutive of political subjects (Kunreuther, 2018: 24). In other words, these are sounds presented in the form of public noise, signals, shouts, crying, etc., which in such a specific musical format symbolize the life of modern society.
Thus, music is a cultural phenomenon that accumulates around itself a huge number of people from different social strata and having different social status in society, as well as a phenomenon that expresses ideas, forms values, determines the motives and attitudes of society. Today, one of the most popular and "lively" areas of culture and art it is music. In modern realities, the music industry, with all its spiritual and material wealth, cannot create classics that will remain exemplary for decades and hundreds of years. A major labels sign a performer with one song in the repertoire; tracks are created that are forgotten in a week; music tracks no longer have much value; the texts of the songs consist not of rhymes, lyrical digressions and metaphors, but of interjections; music turns into commerce - all this is the modern reality of the music industry. However, there are performers with a sense of duty to the audience, to himself, to the genre. There are also those who discuss in their compositions something socially significant, progressive, able to appeal to a huge audience to solve problems and posing problem questions on the "public court".
During 2017-2018, D. Trump, the 45th President of the United States (hereinafter Trump), became the most discussed person worldwide. He made a significant but ambiguous personal contribution to the social and political life of both American society and the world at the moment. Trump's political views, the informal rules of the new administration, and the actual split in American society regarding the course and policies of the new head of the United States led to an increase in the political polarization of the country's population. Additional factors of this process were the public struggle with in the administrative apparatus and conflicts within the republican establishment, which attracted the attention of the American media under of Trump's burning criticism (for example, the President's egregious attacks on CNN should be noted). Thus, when faced with unfavorable news coverage, politicians of all stripes attack media as a strategy to avoid accountability ... recently this rhetoric has become alarmingly extreme, led by the unprecedented example of a U.S. President regularly accusing mainstream reporters of making up anonymous sources and doing "fake news", and even calling the press the "enemy of the American people"
(Pingree et al., 2018: 2). At the same time, Trump himself is characterized by straightness an extremely controversial decision-making method, and the consequences of these decisions are disputed at all institutional levels of the country. Of course, this situation creates a zone of uncertainty regarding the image of the United States and foreign and domestic policies pursued by the United States administration. It is important to note that in terms of the development of the ideology of human rights and freedoms the Trump presidency is a throwback to earlier times as the proportion of top appointees who bring gender and racial/ethnic diversity to the presidential advisory system has dropped significantly from the recent administrations of B. Clinton, G.W. Bush, and B. Obama (King, Riddlesperger, 2018: 1834).
The actions of the current United States president, as well as his style of doing business, have gained a huge public response, which is reflected in the American music industry. At the same time, the country's music industry at all times was distinguished by its politicization, and with the election of Trump as president, a peculiar "cultural explosion" occurred in the music area. A manifestation of this was the release of AmeriKKKan Bada$$ by Joey Bada$$, Everythings Corrupt by Ice Cube, Revival by Eminem and many other artists or performers. All of them are based on an evaluation in the system of musical coordinates of the ambiguous and controversial policy of the head of state, as well as criticism towards the United States political system.
This is one of the few representatives of the hip-hop community that criticizes the current president of the United States. Many have dedicated their clips to the topic in which mocks the policy of the head of state and Trump's personality. For example, American performer Emilio Rojas in his mediocre musical composition "I Hate Donald Trump", which was written to raise the rating and get the audience, and in the eponymous video clip, mocks Trump's political position, calling him a racist. Wacka Flocka Flame in turn criticizes Trump for his migration policy, saying that building a wall with Mexico it is a modern slavery. The legendary rapper Snoop Dogg released a clip-satire called Lavender, in which Trump is portrayed as a clown, and the performer kills the president. Special attention is occupied by the Hip-Hop King - Eminem, who released a diss to Donald Trump, where he touches the most burning political decisions with particular emotionality: from administrative changes, wars and racism to domestic politics in general.
At the same time, approval or criticism of the United States President on social networks, for example, Twitter. On Twitter, most user accounts are publicly visible and accessible even for non-registered audiences. Its usage is centered around topics and the retweet feature facilitates the diffusion of political information beyond the direct follower network via two-step flow processes (Stier et al., 2018: 54). Obviously that not all representatives of the music industry argue against the occupant of the Oval office. Trump's most prominent "protector" is an American hip-hop artist - Kanye West (hereinafter Kanye or West). For example, in his twitter writes: "You don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don't agree with everything anyone does. That's what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought".
You don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don't agree with everything anyone does. That's what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent
Fig. 1. Twitter 45th President of the United States of America (December 27, 2018): Trump's response to Kanye West passage on twitter
As you can see, Trump personally responded to this passage (Figure 1): "Thank you Kanye, very cool!" Throughout his career, Kanye is directly or indirectly involved in United States politics. In 2005, Kanye criticized the president, saying: "George Bush doesn't care about dark-skinned". A few years later, G.W. Bush recognized this as the worst moment of his presidency. In the compositions Murder To Excellence (2011), Gorgeous (2010), Black Skinhead (2013), Blood On The Leaves (2013), the author discusses racial inequality and violence among Afro-Americans. In the song Feedback (2016), Kanye speaks about police brutality: "Hands up, we just doing what
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the cops taught us / Hands up, hands up, then the cops shot us". The apogee in Kanye's political work is taken up by "Ye vs. The People" recorded with T.I., where he speaking from the people, and Kanye is trying to justify Trump's support.
All this gives reason to think: "Are the current products of Kanye's creativity sincere or is this "order" from the side of competitors?"
However, it is important to understand that he is not a Republican by his party affiliation, he never donated money to pre-election campaigns, the performer calls himself apolitical. G. Bush, B. Obama, D. Trump - they all publicly recognized the influence of K. West on public opinion, making a certain political decisions and the formation of the political mood of citizens. The political mood of citizens depends on the support of the political leader and his decisions, as well as success in politics in general. Trump offers this [political] success as proof that he can "take charge", "cut through red tape", and "negotiate" deals for his constituents, so that together they will "Make America Great Again" (Rudden, Brandt, 2018: 46). So, Kanye tries to justify or remove the negative meaning from the political success of the us President. Thus, he often uses the phrase "Make America Great Again" - a campaign slogan used in American politics that was popularized by D. Trump in his successful 2016 presidential campaign, and its modifications were widely used for designation of his election campaign and politics. In this way the West is trying to deprive the slogan from the negative meaning. Negative overtones slogan received due to attachment to collective narcissism. Trump's revival of classic slogans like "America First" and "Make America Great Again." They suggest that America's greatness has been threatened and needs to be restored. Those high in national Collective narcissist are likely to be mobilized by calls to restore the in-group's greatness because they fear that others do not recognize it—and because they may doubt its greatness themselves. Collective narcissists are also likely to have been attracted to D. Trump's promises of aggressive action against targeted outgroups (e.g., Muslims), given that collective narcissism predicts hostility toward minorities (Federico, de Zavala, 2018: 112). So, Trump is not an idol, but the means by which K. West is trying to gain the trust of the United States political establishment. We observe a slow transition from a musical career to a political career. And here there is a non-trivial question: will the record holder repeat the success of R. Reagan, who successfully transformed from a popular actor into a successful politician, in the number of nominations won?
In the United States there is a huge layer of hip-hop performers, which in turn are divided into two schools: new school and old school. This classification is a division by time frame and sometimes by style of music. In various sources, this division has its roots and different interpretations, but they all suffer temporary changes. We will divide the performers according to their musical career, that is, if the musician began his work earlier than 2000-2005, then we will attribute it to the old school, and performers, later 2005, to the new school.
The subjects of our research will be songs of the new and old school. We will conduct a content analysis of five songs from each school.
Foreign texts of the songs and their translation into Russian were done by the lingvo-laboratory "Amalgama" (amalgama-lab.com).
From old school we took compositions The Storm from Eminem; Ye vs. the People by Kanye West and T.I.; The Story of O.J. by Jay-Z; Mathematics by Mos Def and Reagan by Killer Mike.
From new school, the following compositions came to our research: I Hate Donald Trump by Emilio Rojas; XXX by Kendrick Lamar; Land of the Free by Joey Bada $$; Neighbors by J. Cole and America by Logic.
In connection with the division into schools, it will be interesting to find out: "Do musical compositions of the two schools differ in their content and nature of the political context?". To solve the task, it would be most expedient to use the method of structural content analysis. The method of content analysis allows to determine the content of the text, both quantitative and qualitative. If we use the structural method of content analysis, therefore, we are interested in the qualitative content of the text. But worth noting that in calculating the positive and negative contexts, some procedures from meaningful content analysis were used.
We will express the political context in relation to the policy pursued by the United States and directly by D. Trump, that is, we will find out what shade (positive/negative) in relation to various political situations are the lines of the lyrics.
In our research, we will attribute to the text a negative or positive assessment. So, we will find out in what sense (positive/negative) a particular problem/issue is mentioned (for example,
political situations and decisions, political life and the United States system, and the personality of D. Trump).
To analysis a small array of material, which is typical for our case, we can use a program for qualitative content analysis with elements of a quantitative called QDA MINER. It is important to understand that the program is not able to determine the meaning/context of a particular phenomenon and give it any assessment, therefore the whole calculation was made by the author independently on the basis of the selected criteria.
When we analyzing musical compositions, we must take into account the specifics of our text array. Music is based on rhythm, tempo, etc. The text of music, like a poem, is built in the form of a set of lines that can act as an introduction, couplets, choruses and final parts. Thus, we will encrypt the lines in counts, which will help us in the further analysis. It is important to understand that each count represents one or two lines of text, which is extremely rare. Our goal in parsing the text was to identify the political and negative contexts in relation to the political system in general.
4. Results
The research results are presented in the form of a "tree" (Figure 2). For the most visual representation, we will show the data in the form of a diagram (Figure 3).
Count % Codes
! A Lyrics
• Positive context 14 12,1%
♦ Negative context l°2 87'9%
Fig. 2. The number and level of positive and negative attitudes to political system of the United States in the texts of the songs of the old school hip-hop performers.
Fig. 3. The level of negative and positive attitudes to the political system of the United States
in the texts of the songs of old-school hip-hop performers (%)
So, in the "old school" tracks we chose, 14 counts (116 words) of a positive context and 102 counts (831 words) of a negative context were identified. The total word volume (size) is 2699.
Based on this, we can conclude that the old school performers speaks out in a negative sense in relation to the United States political system, criticizing the actions of the administrative apparatus, especially the inhabitants of the Oval Office - D. Trump, his political decisions and actions.
A similar picture, with a slight difference, we see at the performers of the new school (Fig. 4). For the most visual representation, we show the data in the form of a diagram (Fig. 5).
Fig. 4. The number and level of negative and positive attitudes to the United States political system in the texts of the songs of the hip-hop performers of the new school
100
84,5
15,5
■ Positive context ■ Negative context
Fig. 5. The level of negativity and positive in relation to the United States political system in the texts of the songs of hip-hop songs of the old school (%)
Comparison of data of two schools is presented in Table 1.
Based on the data presented, in the selected tracks of the new school, 11 counts (113 words) of a positive context and 60 counts (595 words) of a negative context were found. The total amount of words is 3100. The amount of negativity to the United States political system expresses less for the performers of the new school (in comparison with the old school). A comparative analysis shows that the difference between the two schools in a positive attitude to the system is practically absent, while the negative attitude differs by 39.6 % (data are presented in Table 1).
Table 1. Comparative analysis of the level of negative / positive in the tracks of the old and new schools (by the number of words)
Context Old school New school
Positive 116 113
Negative 831 595
In order to more adequately look at the real picture of reality and to reveal the reasons for such a negative attitude to the social reality of modern American society, we have identified some problem areas that affect artists - social policy (education, income, migration, unemployment, etc.), security, military policy and ideology.
In social policy, we have included topics related to income, unemployment, social well-being, education, migration, etc., since all of them act as factors of social tension and determine the parameters of social development, affect the relationship between the strata and communities.
Naturally, security, prison, law enforcement agencies and related topics affect the social stability of society, but in the United States the question of law enforcement (for example, unmotivated or unjustifiably cruel use of weapons by police against citizens of the country) is extremely acute, so we have identified it as a separate aspect.
Military / foreign policy - the main topics for discussion among all segments of the population. The United States of America is the country that won the "Cold War" by establishing a unipolar world; this is one of the most powerful and influential countries with nuclear weapons, and the citizens of this country often show extreme patriotism, which forces them to single out military policy as a special factor.
In all cases in the States there was a question about racism and discrimination. In connection with the historical past, the fight against racism and discrimination was in the first place in films, caricatures, economics, political programs of presidential candidates and, of course, in the works of many musicians.
So, let us define how the areas selected by us differ in the works of the old and the new school.
Calculations made by the old school are shown at the Fig. 6.
A Social policy
• Income, poverty, unemployment, social welfare
• Education
• Migration A Security
• Law enforcement, prison A Military' policy
• War, army, foreign policy A Ideology
• Racism and discrnnination
Count
15 3 14 14 10
% Codes
26,8% 5,4% 25,0% 25,0% 17,9%
Fig. 6. Distribution of the number of mentions in certain areas in the works of representatives of the old school
The data tells us about almost equal mention of problems in the field of security (14 counts = 144 words), military / foreign policy (14 counts = 138 words) and social policy (18 counts = 122 + 19 = 141 words). The less affected topic is racism and discrimination (10 counts = 80 words). It is interesting that the topic of education was not mentioned in any way in the tracks which we studied of the representatives of the old school.
For convenience, we present the data in the form of a bar chart (Fig. 7).
Fig. 7. A mention frequency in certain areas in the works of representatives of the old school (%)
When analyzing the tracks of the representatives of the new school, we obtained the data, which presented at the Figure 8.
Count % Codes
A Social policy
• Income, unemployment and poverty
• Education
• Migration A Security
• Law enforcement agencies A Military policy
• War, army, foreign policy A Ideology
• Racism and discrimination
11 19,0%
4 6,9%
7 12,1%
17 29,3%
1 1,7%
18 31,0%
Fig. 8. Distribution of the number of mentions in certain areas in the works of representatives of the new school
The calculation of the music compositions of the performers of the new school provided data showing almost equal mention of the problems of social policy (22 counts = 164 words), security (17 counts = 130 words), racism and discrimination (18 counts = 135 words). Particular attention should be paid to the area of foreign / military policy, where the result (1 counts = 8 words) is extremely low compared to other areas.
For convenience, we will present the data in the form of a circular chart (Fig. 9).
1,7%
31%
O
38%
29,3%
■ Security
■ Racism and discrimination
Military policy
Social policy
Fig. 9. The frequency of mentions in certain areas in the works of representatives of the new school (%)
If we compare the two schools in these categories, we can make the following conclusions: the most affected topic in the texts of the songs is safety. As we indicated earlier, under the code "security" we defined issues related to law enforcement, imprisonment, use of weapons by children, etc.in the United States there are often cases of police brutality, that is, abuse of power, which consists in the unjustified and excessive use of force by law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties. These actions of the us police are often accompanied by the use of batons, tear gas, stun guns, sabotage grenades, etc. It should be noted that this is the only category that is affected almost equally in the two music schools. Thus, the results provide evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average (Ross, 2015: 1).
The categories "migration", "racism" and "discrimination" are mentioned in the texts of the new schools by 19.8 % more often than among old schools. The explanation for this, in our opinion, is the decision of D. Trump to build a wall on the border with Mexico to secure borders and immigration control. Every month the situation in the border areas and directly in the United States is heating up. December 22, 2018 because of the wall of Mexico-USA, there was a shutdown, that is, a case when the president refused to sign a bill providing for the allocation of funds for the upcoming financial year, thereby limiting his activities to the government or completely institutions. The categories "racism" and "discrimination" are often used in connection with the personality of D. Trump and the policies which he pursues. The current United States president is blamed of racism towards Muslims, black-sckinned and Hispanics. More details about Trump as a racist were written by American journalists and columnists D. Leonhardt and I. Prasad Philbrick in The New York Times (Leonhardt, 2018).
The economic aspect in the tracks of representatives of two schools is encoded in the categories of "income", "unemployment" and "poverty", and the military-political category - in the category of "war", "army" and others. So, representatives of the old school affect these topics more often than performers from the new school. Recently, the United States has several problems in the economic sphere: one concern of course is that low-wage workers appear to have lost access to good jobs at high-wage firms, increasing overall aggregate inequality. Another concern is that firms play an important role in providing employee health care and pensions, so rising worker segregation could very well spill into rising health care and retirement inequality (Song et al., 2018: 47). So, old school affect the topic of wars and military service is 31.1 % more than a new school does. This can be explained by the fact that old school tracks have their own peculiarity, which consists in a deeper semantic load and selection of more socially significant topics, which can be explained by great creative experience and professionalism. In other words, the old school creates tracks on topics that affect on the American nation as a whole, and the new school pays attention to the important problems of certain sectors of society that indirectly affect on the American people or topics that are popular at any current time. For the most illustrative presentation, a comparative analysis of references to social problems by the selected categories is presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Comparative analysis of references to social problems in selected areas (by the number of words).
Category Old school New school
Income, unemployment and poverty 122 85
Education 0 39
Migration 19 40
Security 144 130
Foreign / military policy 138 8
Racism and discrimination 80 135
In order to determine how politics and music are related, we will calculate the "specific weight" of semantic categories. The most common formula in the calculation of this indicator is the formula proposed by the author A. N. Alekseev, which in a simplified form is offered in the manual N. A. Antonovich (Antonovich, 2017):
mi7nn the number of units of analysis that fixing this category
swsc =
total number ofunlts of analysis (size of the analyzed texts}
where SWSC - it is a specific weight of semantic categories.
In our case, the number of units of analysis of the category "politics" and related topics in the texts of the songs of the old school performers is 947 words (see table 1) of 2,699 words. Thus, in the tracks of the old school, the specific weight of the semantic category "politics" is 35 %.
In a similar way, we make a calculation with the texts of the songs of the performers of the new school, the total size of the text of which is 3,100 words, and the units of analysis connected with the category "politics" are 708 words (see Table 1). Thus, in the tracks of the representatives of the new school, the specific weight of the semantic category "politics" is 22 %.
When combining the tracks of the old and the new school, we get an array of data in 5799 words, and the number of units of the "policy" category is 1655 words. As a result, the specific weight of the semantic category "politics" in the tracks of the old and the new school is 28.5 %.
From our data, we can say that the level of politicization of hip-hop music is 28.5 %. However, for the old school this level is estimated at 35 %, and for the new school - at 22 %.
From the above, we can observe a fine line between politics and culture, in particular the music industry. We can also assert that popular music, in this case hip-hop, can form political appointments that are hidden in music tracks, thereby motivating fans to debate and public debate, and also become a catalyst for mass discussion through mass communication, social media and virtual communities in social networks. Listeners/fans of musicians see in their performer an ideal image that infects the consciousness of listeners with their ideas, statements, tracks and other products of their work. So, based on the concept of a two-stage communication flow of P. Lazarsfeld, the essence of which is that ideas often come from radio and print media to opinion leaders and from them to less active segments of the population (Lazarsfeld, 1948), musicians play the role of opinion leaders. As a result, musical performers can "infect" with ideas, control the actions and behavior of listeners, and influence public on the consciousness. Scholars have traditionally considered opinion leaders as citizens who condense useful items of information and substantiated viewpoints from their (news media) sources and pass them on in their discussion networks (Mangold, Bachl, 2018: 915). In relation to American reality hip-hop and politics have a different setup and benchmarks. As a rule, this musical genre criticized the power, but also was guided by the desire of those in power, with the goal of improving public area and harmonizing relations in society. Rap, rock and hip-hop have always been before the genres of the music industry, in which there are defining components, thanks to which people "wake up", become susceptible to the problems of society and looking for ways to solve them. As a result, we can define hip-hop as an attempt to get attention to the insider in order for him to listen to their situations,
requirements and problems. All this is very similar to public organizations and associations, initiative groups, analytical centres and so on.
In this case, it is necessary to present an influential or popular person (leader), who has his own team: lawyers, PR managers, organizers, security service, etc., there is a group (large/small) of people who follow him, follows his lifestyle, copies his values and attitudes.The leader also has a real opportunity to influence on people's minds and promote their view of life or any situation in the country/society. Who are we talking about? Political figure or musical performer? It is difficult to answer unequivocally, because he and the other match all the criteria, which means that the line between the politician and the musician is erased.
In this regard, we can talk about a new phenomenon - the musical-political community, which can be treated as an informal cultural-political organization consisting of the fan base of a cultural or art figure. Like any political organization, the musical-political community can act directly or indirectly, be positive or negative in relation to the politics pursued by the state. List of participants is distinguished by its easiness, obedience and obsession regarding his idol, his statements are "correct" and can in no way be refuted. Fans follow their "deity", copying its political, moral, religious and other attitudes, motives and values. There is no clear structure, no funding, no regulation in the music-political community. The community is based on faith, commitment and love for the idol, as well as the enthusiasm of the participants.
A figure of culture or art can influence on his fans with various psychological forms, for example, suggestion as a direct, unreasonable and often eccentric influence of a suggestor on a suggerend or group. Often this exposure happens during concerts or shows. Every live performance is idiosyncratic such that events unfold organically and unpredictably, unlike when listening to a recording in which there is no possibility for an audience to directly affect what a performer has already created (Swarbrick et al., 2019: 2). For example, during a performance on stage, the American singer Waka Flocka Flame outraged and defiled an undershirt with the image of United States President D. Trump (Kaufman, 2017). Part of the audience burst into applause from the action of the musician, the rest from the unusual to the strangeness of the act. But another thing is important that he captured his action in the memory of both the public and those who read this news later in the news portals, instilling this "dirty" act of desecration to the masses, in order to associate the individual with the rapper's act. Another form of impact is imitation. Imitation is the taking manners from another person and the reproduction by the individual a sample of behavior demonstrated by someone. Imitation may be unconscious or not intentional, but then it will be called an infection. So, at one of the concerts, the most influential and popular hip-hop artist Eminem addressed to his audience with the request: "When I say "F * ck", you say "Trump!" (Holterman, 2017). The full hall of fans, without hesitation and without delay, completed the request of the performer. Also, there is identification, as a form of influence on a group, which is an emotional connection with another person. Emotional connection can be expressed in the form of buying products manufactured by the creator of art, dedication to the performer of a poetic work, decorating the room with posters of his idol and more. All this proves the influence of a musical performer on fans or members of the musical-political community. Musicians, in this case, act as leaders of opinion, so they are followed, they are listened to, they are honored. Thus, we are presented with a picture in which musicians who have a significant musical and political community can influence on the public life of the people and the political system of the country as a whole. In the modern world there is still no awareness that an artist can be or is already a subject of politics.
5. Conclusion
Summarizing all of the above, we can say that in recent years in the USA tendencies to the governmental crisis are being outlined, which manifests itself in distrust from the side of population, and it is also reflected in the music industry. Music is a mirror that projects current events in society, and hip-hop it is an attempt to get attention to the problems of society and their resolution. In the resolution of social issues involved many musical creators, who can be divided into performers of the new and old schools. Each school say "pros and cons" to the policies of D. Trump or the political life of the United States in general. For example, in the music tracks of old schools, the share of the "politics" category and related topics is 35 %, while the same category in the new schools is 22 % and the overall level of music politicization is 28.5 %. The line between the musician and the politician is gradually erased and it is already difficult to determine the statement of a political figure from a line in the text of a musical artist. In connection with it, a certain area
appears in which politics and music are harmoniously connected - this area can be given a definition as a musical-political community. It is difficult to evaluate the contribution of culture and art to the life of society or to determine the level of influence on the decisions of the administration, but it can be said with confidence that music is an emotional component of the country's political life the impact of which in case of the development of the Internet will only increase.
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