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Cited by 17Music History and CultureYouth Culture and Social DynamicsGender, Feminism, and Media

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

“We [mostly] carry guns for the Internet”: visibility, labour, social hacking and chasing digital clout by black male youth in Chicago's drill rap scene

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Evans, Jabari·2020·Global Hip Hop Studies
DOI 10.1386/ghhs_00019_1
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Abstract

Much negative attention has been given to the ‘drill’ music genre, a subgenre of gangsta rap that was born in Chicago’s underground hip hop scene in early 2010s. Previous scholarship has highlighted how social media has shifted how gang-affiliated youth in Chicago carefully manage their street reputations, communicate with peers and fuel gang rivalries through platformed creation. Yet still, in the context of drill, I argue that social media self-branding practices also provide these youth a way out of containment and sequestration to gain visibility in the music industry and empower their neighbourhoods. Based on interviews with drill recording artists and their support workers, I explore the content and character of their work, the centrality of work ethic to their racial identity construction and the way they use social media work to build and maintain status, authenticity and cultivate connections with fans, friends and other cultural producers. Bridging traditional theories of urban sociology with emerging new media scholarship, I suggest this group of artists is a representative case of how the digital practices of disadvantaged Black youth have typically gone mischaracterized in the literature. This study offers new insights into ‘capping’ as an important tenet to hip hop’s visibility labour on social media and how the ‘always on’ nature of digital labour adds another dimension to the typical utilization of street authenticity in narratives of hip hop music. This article concludes by illuminating the many deep contradictions and misconceptions about technological ingenuity, Black youth agency, hip hop culture and street credibility in urban communities.

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Citations

Cites

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Metadata

Authors
Evans, J.
Affiliations
University of South Carolina (US)
Corresponding author
Evans, Jabari
ORCID
Evans, Jabari
Venue
Global Hip Hop Studies
Publisher
Intellect
Published
2020-08-01
Volume
1
Issue
2
Pages
227-247
ISSN
  • 2632-6825 (ISSN-L)
  • 2632-6833
DOI
10.1386/ghhs_00019_1
OpenAlex
W4210739586
Cited by
17
References
34
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 1
FWCI
10.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
Global Hip Hop Studies (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Music History and Culture
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Youth Culture and Social Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Feminism, and Media
Keywords
drill music, Black male youth, digital labor, capping, hip-hop culture, youth agency

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