Authenticity within hip-hop and other cultures threatened with assimilation

Abstract

This essay examines claims of authenticity within hip-hop, African American culture. In the mid-to late 1990s, authenticity claims have been pervasive within hip-hop music communities, which had previously existed on the margins of main-stream U.S. culture. By mapping the range of meanings associated with authenticity as they are invoked discursively, we can gain a better understanding of how a culture in danger of assimilation seeks to preserve its identity. The use of the conceptual apparatus of semantic dimensions highlights how that culture's most central and powerful symbols are organized and given meaning vis-à-vis authenticity within a discursive system.