Entry 1
Enculturation; the constant give and take interaction between forms of media and the audience. The act of listening to (consumption) and immediate feedback of a listener to a song acts as a form of enculturation. A song getting re-requested and making it onto the charts such as the below track 212, asserts the 3 minutes audio clips entry into pop culture, consequential influence on other artists and listeners. Gans and Burton talk about public and private culture(1977, page 6); public being content readily available to the public and private, that of consumer created culture such as parodies, covers, ratings etc.
212 is accepted as being a song due only to social conventions that tell society that the length of sound is such, and should be vocally mimicked and danced to in accordance with a genre code: Dance-cross-rap. Genres tend to derive authenticity, subject matter and audience from their associated subcultures (Souvignier, 2003). The track is a cultural product of Harlem New York, '212' being the area code artist Azealia grew up in, her and her geographical locations life experiences, aspirations and attitudes. Within her lyrics she makes references to the "f*** ya gon' do?" attitude she and her brothers and sisters from Harlem hold, which aligns with rap culture in the sense that youths of the lower class neighbourhoods stick together in defence to the alleged biased authority figure, or the 'other'(Hatfield, 2002).
To break down this specific lyric further, the signifier would be identified as the sound coming from her mouth, the signifier the willingness of the artist to do as she wishes acknowledging that the audience or the 'other' won't stop her, and the referent, her rebellious Harlem attitude. The style in which Azealia delivers her spoken word takes the form of the established culture that is rap, which itself has a variety of style depending on setting, audience, social context and function (Kochman, 1969). The function of the debut single could be compared to the act of modern day peacocking (Urban Dictionary, 2014).
To engage with the song listeners must accept the arbitrariness of language and agree that for three minutes implied meanings of words are as they say. For example 'the 212' would not have been recognisable prior to listening to the song, however after three choruses the listener understands that the artist is referring to Harlem of area code 212. Rap has this tendency to assume prior knowledge such as slang and jabberwocky in its delivery.
Resources
Gans, H. and Burton, D. (1977). Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste. Wiley Online Library.
Hatfield, C. (2002). Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta-Rap, 1830-1996 (review). The Lion and the Unicorn, 26(2), pp.265--270.
Kochman, T. (1969). “Rapping” in the black ghetto. Society, 6(4), pp.26--34.
Souvignier, T. (2003). The world of DJs and the turntable culture. 1st ed. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corp.
Urban Dictionary, (2014). peacocking. [online] Available at: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=peacocking [Accessed 23 Aug. 2014].