Documenting Drill Music: Understanding Black Masculine Performances in Hip-Hop

Abstract

When it comes to analyzing stereotypical representations of black masculinity in contemporary media, commercial hip-hop and the imagery associated with many of the artists is filled with caricatures of black men. The images are often a negotiation between the record label who distributes and finances the music and the artists who perform these negative tropes. On one hand the record labels cater to mainstream audiences that are familiar with negative imagery of black men and women. On the other hand, many of the artists are performing tropes of black masculinity that are linked to the social spaces and the codes of black masculinity in their environment. This linkage between hip-hop performances and the social context that perpetuates these performances is often blurred in the commercial hip-hop video. This study will employ drill music videos to analyze the linkage between space and black masculine performances in hip-hop. Drill music videos’ modes of production are similar to those found in documentary films and allows us to draw inferences about artists’ performances in relation to the social space where they are filmed. Bill Nichols’ Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary is used as a key text when contextualizing drill music performances. Along with documentary theory, this study will use concepts presented by Michel Foucault that analyze systems of confinement and their role on producing drill music performances. The study begins with an exploration of what drill music is, a comparison with commercial hip-hop and the social context of Chicago that constructs black masculine performances. These points of emphasis culminate in my case study of one of the most prominent drill music artists, Chief Keef.