hold my gold: a white girl's hip hop guide

hold my gold:: satire on hip hop//race//gender//culture

50 cent is revolutionizing pop culture as we know it. Through his music and image, the well-muscled rapper has taught hip hop connoisseurs and novices alike important lessons, like how to spell PIMP... and how to stunt. His persona has even inspired a book meant to guide hip hop envious white girls out of their wack-ass worlds and into a crunk life-- enter Hold My Gold: A White Girl's Guide To The Hip Hop World.

Hold My Gold is a satire on the marketing/pop culture trend that is hip hop from the perspective of two white girls, Amanda McCall and Albertina Rizzo. Amanda is a Central Park West chic that once worked for The Late Show with David Letterman and Albertina has been an editor and publicist. In an interview with Yale Daily News, the two explained how the 2003 MTV Music Awards, during which 50 Cent poured from the heavens out of giant, jewel-encrusted pimp cup and a love affair with gangsta rap made them realize that this book was a necessity. "I realized that I love [50 Cent] and hip-hop so much that I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to helping white girls like myself to love hip-hop, " Amanda asserts. Whether she's serious, I can't tell, since the rest of the interview is filled with silliness, but their book definitely takes a light-hearted approach to what mass media insists is urban epitomized: Cristal, flossin, chronic, thuggin, and of course, G-Unit.

Through chapters on Da Basix (hip hop influenced vocab words), social etiquette, accessorizing, the art of looking like a video ho, and a history of hip hop, the authors aim to show any suburb dwelling quasi-socialite how to dewackify her house, replace her Sex & the City martini with Hennessey, and add some bling to her J Crew cardigan.

The book's publisher, Simon & Schuster (send any angry mail to them, please, and not me), is a large publishing house that rarely backs anything that won't sale. So what makes them think this book has an audience, and why did this book happen in the first place? Because commercial hip hop has become ubiquitous. It's undeniably the biggest selling genre for many music labels, such as Universal Music Group. And being able to make money for the industry giants means being worthy of becoming a marketing trend. And becoming a marketing trend makes you cool as hell.

But, things can only be marketed if they're compacted into easily defined images and catchphrases. Which is where the trouble starts.

It happens with everything, from the success of Viacom/Bravo's Queer Eye landing Tom a Pier 1 contract, to Bratz dolls having competing toy manufacturers scrambling to sell playthings to tween girls. So, why shouldn't two white girls be able to make a little dough off the ridiculousness that America accepts as hip hop culture? It's deliciously unexpected.

For many critics and hip hop purists, these are sad days for hip hop. The subject of women's objectification, homophobia, violence, anarchy and various other hip hop buzz words have been discussed ad nauseum, so I won't do that here. But bottom line, commercial hip hop is about to change and become more like underground hip hop. Tired of being laughable and formalistic, it's starting to incorporate Afro Punk sounds, return to consciousness and fun, and love itself again.

But maybe we can giggle at the past along the way.

TT: hip hop, music