Owning Black Masculinity: The Intersection of Cultural Commodification and Self-Construction in Rap Music Videos

In his 2006 documentary Hip Hop: Beyond the Beats and Rhymes, Byron Hurt asserts that Black masculine identity exists "in a box," framed in the mass media in such a way that limits alternative discourses on Black masculinity while reinforcing White ideological stereotypes of Black men. Hurt's claim underscores the tension that exists between Black male identity and its mediated construction, particularly in film and television (Bogle, 1989; Collins, 2005; Dyson, 2004b; Guerrero, 1993; hooks, 2003; Jackson, 2006; Richardson, 2007). The media's role in cultivating Black male identity is no longer viewed as secondary, especially when mediated representations of identity are largely shaped by the economics of mass media and, to a certain extent, by the ideologies of media owners (Huntemann, 1999; McChesney, 1997, 2004; Negus, 1998). As Means Coleman (2002a) notes, "African Americans and Blackness,...