Introduction

    Between Miley Cyrus' massive popularity, the chaotic consumerism of "Black Friday," and the disfunction that is The Jersey Shore it is not uncommon to hear complaints about the state of society and modern culture.  Raymond Williams was confronted with such complaints about the masses half a century ago, and he insisted that "a dying culture, and ignorant masses, are not what [he had] known and [seen]" (86).  I respond similarly today, for the evolving dynamics of cultural participation and production are changing the face of popular culture.  A major facilitator of this shift in popular culture is a growing connectivity and development of online communities.  It was the online community of YouTube through which I was able to discover another community across the Atlantic Ocean with which I share a great passion.
    Hip hop in the United Kingdom is something which does not often reach the cultures of Canada or the United States.  While the hip hop scene in the UK has been around since the late 1980s, it has not been integrated into the mainstream popular culture as much as hip hop in the United States.  The more traditional structure of the music industry in the UK has proved to be harder for hip hop artists to penetrate.  More recently, an increasing amount of hip hop music in the UK is being produced by independent artists unaffiliated with major record labels.  Through more independent modes of production which encourage the participation of consumers and fans, producers of hip hop culture use techniques such as self-branding, community participation, and spreadability in the creation of a flourishing underground hip hop scene.  I will post a series of entries focusing on three aspects of underground hip hop in the UK which demonstrate the social and cultural implications of this emerging style of cultural production.  The three aspects I will address are rap battling, video production, and social networking.  All of which will be discussed in relation to cultural production.
    The practice of rap battling is important to underground hip hop in the UK as a way of creating community, gaining and exchanging cultural capital, and applying marketing techniques such as self-branding to turn that cultural capital into economic capital.  The second aspect of the underground UK hip hop scene I will discuss is the production of videos including music, documentary, and promotional videos.  These make use of Henry Jenkins' idea of spreadable media through mediums such as YouTube that make use of the discriminating nature of fandom.  Lastly, I will address the proficient use of social networking to encourage fan participation, employ techniques of self-branding, and capitalize on social mobility.

Works Cited

Jenkins, Henry, Xiaochnag Li, Ana Domb Drauskopf, and Joshua Green. (2009). "If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead." (part 1-8).