David Hayes argues that white rap fans in Scottsville, a suburb of Toronto, have a skewed (and potentially ignorant) interpretation of race relations because of their involvement in and incorporation of hip-hop culture. He sets up Scottsville as racially homogenous, a mostly white area with a nebulous cultural definition. The kids Hayes interviews appropriate hip-hop styles and attend hip-hop concerts. He uses his subjects' failure to acknowledge other hip-hop scenes as a way to argue that they are wholly unaware of the meaning of hip-hop. The Scottsville youth focus mostly on gangsta rap, though "they embrace the street narratives of gangsta rap without interrogating those claims through sources of information" (71). The youth view themselves as post-racist, and as a result, eliminate the systematic racism that hip-hop rose in opposition to. They romanticize "locales prominent in many rap texts because these spaces are characterized by traits their town lacks" (72).
Discussion Questions:
How important is it that Hayes' interviewees are Canadian? It seems to me that Hayes is assumptive of a continuity between American and Canadian culture in relation to hip-hop, is that the case? Can hip-hop be understood as North American? Or is it an intrinsically American form?
The rap fans in Scottsville set up a clear dichotomy between East and West coast rap, leaving other American hip-hop hubs out of the equation. Is it fair for Hayes to set up this opposition between Biggie/Tupic and other rappers like Chingy, Ludacris, and Nelly when his subjects little mention of them at all? Can Nelly really be viewed as a member of the "wider field of hip-hop" (69)?
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