....The rise of Cadillac in hip-hop culture begins with the American bluesmen of the mid-20th century at a time when the name Cadillac was the definition of excellence and the cars were automotive totems of the ruling class. Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy and Lightnin' Hopkins were itinerant artists, working a vast territory from Chicago to Texas to the Mississippi Valley, and so a fine car was a very practical aspiration.
....Flash-forward to 1968 and the birth of funk, with James Brown's black identity anthem "Say it Loud." The blues' covert sexuality gave way to funk's explicitness, as in Brown's "Sex Machine." Afros, dashikis, platform shoes and brilliantly colored suits became standard stage wear for bands like Sly & the Family Stone.
The exuberances of funk fashion morphed into the dandified "pimp" style favored by the crushed-velvet, gold-toothed sex entrepreneurs we would now call "players."
And Cadillac was along for the ride.
....by the early 1970s, the Cadillac brand found itself riding around with a trunk full of stereotypes - pimpmobile, welfare Cadillac. For the next three decades, the marketing department at Cadillac avoided any association with the African American demographic. When Cadillac general manager LaNeve says the division didn't "target" hip-hop culture, he is artfully shading the story.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century: Pimpin' went mainstream.
....You might start the clock running in 1988, with N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton," the epitome of gangsta rap and a kind of psychic template for hip-hop to come. Gangsta rap is an amplification of funk's sensibility, except that instead of political empowerment for many, its energy is derived from the self-glorification of the narrator, the ruthless criminal-as-hero, the gangsta, the "playa" in ostentatious jewelry, cars and clothes.
Gangsta was also "street": The most credible artists rapped about their own experiences. One of rap's most influential figures - and the one, by my reckoning, most responsible for popularizing "pimp" - is Ice-T.
....He is also the new Godfather of Pimp. Ice-T added the celebrity voltage to Brent Owens' debauched pimpumentary "Pimps Up, Ho's Down" (1999) set against the backdrop of the annual Players Ball.
....According to the Specialty Equipment Manufacturing Assn., the trade group for automotive aftermarket suppliers, the market for dubs - custom wheels - represents over $3 billion annually.
Article comments
1 - Rondeau
Gansta rappers are modern day minstrels
Please take the time to review my thoughts on the impact of the gangsta rap/prison culture on the black community.
Best
Don L. Rondeau