Trap(ped) music and masculinity: The cultural production of Southern Hip-Hop at the intersection of corporate control and self-construction

Black masculinity has been represented and reproduced in hip-hop since its beginnings in the 1970s. However, the production of Black masculinity in rap has relied increasingly on problematic cultural tropes, particularly variations of images such as the thug and the playa. Geographic space is also used in this cultural construction. The cultural industries have long conflated "authentic" Blackness with the Northern urban ghetto, particularly in cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. However, the expansion of the cultural industries in the U.S. South and images of Southern Black masculinity in popular media even rival "the North" in terms of exposure and sales, and Time Warner, Sony and Universal have invested millions in producing Southern-based rappers. To what extent do Southern rappers and their labels engage in a type of cultural production that evokes masculinity in rap and integrates claims of space and place? And how can such constructions in the dialectical push and pull of "keepin it real" in a context of corporate capitalism be understood?The purpose of this study is to examine the construction and production of Southern Black masculinity in hip-hop, with an emphasis on two particular rappers in Atlanta, at the intersection of (1) corporate interests that control the production and dissemination of these representations (2) the ideologies that shape the discourse on Black masculinity and manhood (3) the impact of location as a factor in performance and (4) the rapper's self-conceptualization. How does the convergence of these four factors influence particular representations of Southern Black masculinity in rap music videos? While the first three have been studied in various degrees, the last is arguably as important and is perhaps overlooked by scholars who study the economics and cultural production of rap and Black masculinity. Atlanta -- which has been called the "Motown of the South" -- is a potentially fruitful site because of its centrality as a site of cultural production and as home to numerous rappers who have achieved commercial success over the past decade.This project will be a comparative case study of two rappers (Jody Breeze and Gorilla Zoe), their labels, their subgenre (which has become popularly known as trap music) and their city (Atlanta) as a site of cultural production. It will attempt to show how Jody and Zoe, the city of Atlanta as a site of cultural production, constructions of black masculinity and the various cultural industries converge in the cultural production process.