Building on Sarahlou's post about changes in hip hop from "representing the struggle" to consumerism, I wanted to talk about something which puzzles me.
Bling.
There appears to be a general aknowledgement of the correlation between hip hop and bling (sparkling jewellery). I'm not exactly sure what bling is supposed to be. It seems you can buy huge sparkling things from $2 shops and places like Supre pretty cheaply (in comparason to real diamonds).
Here's the thing though. This doesn't appear to be the same stuff that is flaunted in hip hop videos and in rap lyrics. It seems inconsistant for rappers to rhyme about fancy cars and expensive champagne then cheap jewellery.
However, if the bling is infact real, then it could be possible that rappers are promoting the diamond industry. An industry which has a long history of human rights abuses against Africans.
So rappers want rights for African Americans and want to make their stories known, but at the same time they are brandashing the produces of an industry that insults their racial origins.
If they (rappers) knew about this, surely they would dissaprove.
What's with that?
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I actually read on Wikipedia (not the most reliable resource, I know) that Akon denies the existence of conflict diamonds saying that no-one knew about them until that movie 'Blood Diamond' came out six months ago. What an idiot, oh yeah, he also owns a diamond mine in South Africa.
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