Diamonds as a symbol of poverty

Diamonds are a commonly accepted and historically ancient symbol of wealth. However, modern reality, as presented by rappers, widens the semiotics of diamond adornments.
Rap is a style of popular dance music, which emerged in the 1970s in Afro-American urban areas. Rap is one of the most popular musical styles of modern youth.

This is not accidental, because it attracts not only by true-to-life and homely texts of songs, but by dazzling diamond splendor. Although being a rapper genuinely does not mean to wear loose robes (like low-slung pants, long T-shirts, flat peak caps and a heap of trinkets) - rap is a way of life.

Speaking of rappers, we often picture some sort of good lookers with impressive iced out pendants on their chests, who wear unheard-of-sized rings, sparkling clips and sometimes even diamond crownwork on their teeth. You may ask why so many modern rappers are littered with diamonds from top to toe? Virtually, this has become a sort of rapping brand, a challenge to society, a demonstration to the entire world that they can afford all the best and most expensive, although as back as yesterday they were just mere punks, jailbirds and freaks. This is precisely why they are cult figures to thousands of teenagers, who parrot them because they feel that rappers are their dead ringers and they find painfully up-beat overtones of everyday life in their songs. They want to sing like rappers, to live like rappers, to rise from the gutter and to become the richest people in the world like for example Jay-Z, who is on top of the Forbes list of the wealthiest rappers. The rating was based on the performers’ income data for 2006. The magazine estimated the fortune of 39-year-old Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, at 83 million U.S. dollars. The fortune of 50 Cent is worth 33 million and that of P Diddy 23 million dollars.

The original aim of rap style music was only “to rev up” listeners by rhymes composed on the fly to the tune of minus reggae. The modern idol is a later rap, which appeared in 1984, when Run D.M.C. blew up the rap stage with their new ways, gold chains and sportswear, creating an individual street style. During their artistic career, they played their music not only at stadiums of large cities and even at the Kremlin walls, but were one of the first groups not to frown at the backyards of Negro ghettoes, thus giving a good example to follow for many others. This was not accidental, taking into account that all the three members of Run-D.M.C. had been born in Quince, one of the hot-spot areas of New York, which had a great impact onto their further lives. At that time, their lives actually could be channeled along one way only – twiddling in the street, drugs, gangs, jails, enemy bullets and again and again around this circle. The great basketball saved only a few of them and this chance was rather an exception. Nevertheless, they managed to break out of this circle and to reach some high goals in their lives.

They blazed the trail for many modern hip-hop performers, such as Trevor Smith (better known as Busta Rhymes), Curtis Jackson (50 Cent), Shawn Corey Carter alias future Jay-Z and many others. Virtually in any clip of these performers, we can see luxury, beautiful girls, diamond glitter and expensive cars. It would seem there is nothing so cool in such a scenic image. It would not attract that much attention if it were limited by the stage and would not turn into a way of life.

Every rap performer not devoid of self-esteem is obliged to buy expensive diamond adornments one after another, doing it often and regularly. Thus, recently, famous rapper Puff Daddy bought a unique time piece in the shape of a shark studded with diamonds and worth 1.5 million dollars, while 50 Cent made a present of a 200 000 dollar neck cross to his son.
Their love of luxury and expensive jewellery, akin to pendants, crosses, etc., may be easily attributed to what they lacked in their childhood and what makes some people spend their lives to compensate for such gaps of their early years. Some go in for it so eagerly that it is virtually impossible to stop them even if they reach utmost daydreaming heights. Many rappers spend their last money to buy sparklers just because they have to back up their image and look cool. All this is done to show off their significance. For the most part, in their songs rappers tell of their anything but simple destinies, their difficult childhood and their way to wealth. One may notice a regular pattern: the more unfavorable was some rapper’s childhood, the more diamonds he wears.

For comparison: 50 Cent is probably the most inveterate addict of all glittering and expensive things but his childhood was far from raising someone’s envy. His family was a real dynasty of drug dealers; the boy was growing without parents and at that time, living together with his grandma and his grandpa, he could not even imagine he would have that much of money as he has now. “I bought magazines and looked at Lamborghini and Ferrari. I never thought that all these wheels would be in my shed. Now I have houses in Farmington, Conn., Baltimore and Long Island. I have 1,000 jogging shoes and all this is of great significance at the place where I was born,” the singer confessed.

Eminem, a no less famous artist, can be mentioned as a rare exception since his clips do not contain all that usual rubbish and because he does not wear pounds of chains and crosses smothered with diamonds. However, he did not spend his childhood in criminal urban hotbeds.
There is yet another opinion to this effect: diamonds (crosses, chains and bracelets) more attract genuine Gangsta, i.e. Negro rappers, who are more often mad about fofarraw, while white singers are not (although they are minority in the history of rap) for they used to win the audience by their talent.

 Eminem may be again taken as an example. Not once he told in his interviews that he “did not like all those sparklers… these were not his likes…” and that songs and their meaning brought to his listeners were more important for him. In other words, it may be said that many performers are trying to cover their lack of talent by their outer shell. It is not accidental that they are anxious to outstrip one another by the amount of fancy cars, adornments and houses. To be rated as the richest rapper in the world one has to put in quite a lot of effort and sometimes their carrier is more focused on grabbing more millions of dollars using any means and not on arts. People see a competition of purses, not talents.

 Almost any new hit of the rap industry boils down to the same thing telling what a cool life they are living and that money is everything – in this way rappers win the attention of girls and friends and the love of their fans. The well-known album “Get Rich or Die Tryin” by 50 Cent is the best to translate the fundamental principle of life as it is conceived by the modern rap industry. Have a fat bunch of money – this is the main idea of any current rap hit.
Modern performers are also trying to attract as much attention as possible by their defiant outfit challenging the society. They are always in conflict with the police. Thus, Snoop Dogga in his early days was several times arrested for keeping cocaine, while Tupac Shakur was charged with a rape, not to mention multiple entries in police rap sheets due to his illegal weapons keeping and participation in many shootouts. However, such personality as 50 Cent deems these ways of self-expression trivial and tedious and recently he again attracted attention because of his conflict with church people. As it is known, he was one of the trendsetters for massive crosses bestrewn with diamonds now worn by every second self-respecting rapper. Despite all the church assaults, he is not going to give in, although he is advocating a way of life not only being far from Christian but virtually anti-Christian. “He is defaming the cross and committing blasphemy by wearing it while he raps about killing people for no reason because he’s a big bad ‘gangster.’ I think a large diamond studded platinum satanic pentagram would be a little more fitting for him,” says Dice, a spokesman for California based Christian organization, The Resistance. Due to this conflict, the artist has once again won his share of media attention and subsequently some more admirers.
Thus, there are four reasons for such glamour of Gangsta rap: in the first place, unhappy childhood of rappers and their attempts to compensate hundredfold for everything they were deprived of; in the second place, their chic appearance and pageantry serve to disguise their lack of talent; in the third place, a certain inter-class struggle is going on among them along with money chasing and a race for the “coolest” rapper rating; and finally, just a simple desire to attract people’s glances (no matter whether admiring or disdainful) and become a model to follow or an idol to worship.
Rough&Polished