Setting Off Politics through Gangsta Rap and Aesthetics

In the film Set It Off, hip-hop culture is intrinsic to the plot, aesthetics, and representations portrayed through the visual narrative. Gangsta rap is a central theme coursing through the veins of ghetto action films of the 80s and 90s, as the thematic elements of the visual cinematic representations correlate with the lyrics of gangsta rap. Kara Keeling introduces the concept of ghettocentricity to her discussion of the film, understanding the term as “a conception of the world consolidated by and circulating in gangsta rap and its related products and practices” as well as “a historically specific reaction to and articulation of a cinematic social reality (the postindustrial city’s ghetto) produced at the juncture between globalizing capitalism and contemporary US racism” (Keeling 120). A pervasive theme of gangsta rap relies on citations of the “criminalization, surveillance, incarceration, and immiseration of black youth in the postindustrial city” (Keeling, 120, citing Kelley). This concept of ghettocentricity, constructed through music, provides an important lens for recognizing the social reality portrayed in many ghetto action films, including Set It Off.

Mass produced and commoditized forms of auditory entertainment, namely gangsta rap, are marketed through gangsta film. The use of such music as a crucial element to the soundtracks of such films is the established link between the widely consumed music and the visual references offered by the cinematic representations. The music is therefore associated by that which is visually expressed through the films, such as hip-hop culture in a post-industrial city and the social realities faced by bodies in urban spaces. Since urban spaces are highly racialized, gangsta rap music therefore becomes a reference to the places that set the scene for the gangsta films that represent these locations.

These references are not devoid of political connotations, and this is made explicitly clear by many of the references made in Set It Off. The notion of a post-industrialized city offers a cultural critique of the social qreality posed for the many urban dwellers once depending upon the manufacturing jobs provided by the factories that were once in operation. Looming in the background is a large, shut down factory that interrupts the horizon and leaks nostalgia for a time that predated outsourcing of labor. The pursuit of economic opportunity and the realities of poverty are studded alongside the empty plant. It is the presence of this factory, juxtaposed with the narratives of financial struggles of the four female protagonists that offer commentary on the affects of globalization on real lives. The skeleton of manufacturing is contrasted by the fruition of consumerism, and this is reflected in the Los Angeles car culture, which is intrinsically linked to the music that characterizes gangsta films. Black male masculinity is also positioned along lines of politics through music, as exemplified by one particular scene in the film.

When Stony’s college-bound brother visits his bank robber friend in the Acorn Projects, gangsta rap plays in the background. Upon leaving the apartment, the pinnacle moment of his death in the parking lot as a result of misguided police brutality reminds viewers of the societal assumptions of violent black males, the tendency toward a short lifespan for bodies wearing racialized masculinity, and the state apparatus pitted against men of color. Preceded by gangsta rap music, the politics and aesthetics become tangled in that which is released by the speakers. Similarly, Cleo’s death sequence alludes to the politics of the fate of black masculinity, as her body is coded as masculine. The aforementioned notions of police brutality, racialized violence inflicted by the state, car culture, and white viewership from a distanced as evoked by the anchorman’s voiceover are reinforced in the scene of her death. Cleo’s established relationship with music through the earlier parts of the film links gangsta rap to the aesthetics and politics embodied in her violent death scene. Played by hip-hop artist Queen Latifah, her body itself provides a cultural reference to the music typified by gangsta films. Dr. Dre’s role of Black Sam holds a similar point of reference that links the music of the film to gun culture and black masculinity, highlighting the intersections in operation. Also wearing black masculinity in her body, Cleo further reinforces this connection when she insists upon listening to the music that she “rides to” (Keeling 123). Cleo’s relationship with cars and the music she allows to be released from the speakers is evocative of the link between gangsta rap and ghettocentric culture. Ghettocentricity and its correlation with the gangsta rap subset of hip-hop culture is indivisibly linked to the aesthetics and politics culminated in the post-industrial urban setting in which the events of Set It Off are played out.

Underground hip-hop artist Dead Prez (among other socially conscious rappers) seeks to rework conceptualizations of urban landscapes through lyrical deconstruction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c_UdWo4Zek&feature=related