“‘Bish’ Stole My Look!”: Looking at Cultural Appropriation in Hip Hop through Jesse Belvin, Dapper Dan, and Jay Park.
Hip hop is a unique culture of its own, within the more encompassing Black culture.[1] It is frequent that Black culture, including hip hop culture, becomes appropriated into the zeitgeist. This blog post explores such appropriation in hip hop—through deeply rooted appropriation in music and relatively more modern appropriation in fashion and hair, discusses the importance of understanding the impact of such appropriation and identifies the shortcomings of intellectual property (IP) law that allows the appropriation.
Hip hop music goes back to the Black music of blues—“mother of modern musical forms”[2] and Jazz—“mother of hip hop,”[3] —which originated from roots in African-American work songs.[4] Hip hop fashion began in the 1980s in Harlem, New York, when Dapper Dan styled his Black customers—from hustlers to professional athletes and rappers.[5] Hip hop hair is really the natural and protective styles of Black hair, which became the element of hip hop style as hip hop grew wildly and globally popular.[6]
Jesse Belvin, a Black Voice Masked Behind the Mic.
Four hours after the first racially integrated concert in Little Rock, Arkansas, Jesse Belvin and his wife Jo Ann died in a tragic car accident on February 6, 1960.[7] Jesse Belvin, then a 27-year-old African American R&B singer, had a hidden job – vocal coach to Elvis Presley.[8] Elvis Presley, according to Jesse Belvin’s son Jesse Belvin Jr., hoped to learn the vocal technique of Jesse Belvin, but was never able to master it.[9] Ironically, Jesse Belvin was called the “Black-Elvis” and not the other way around, Elvis as the “White-Jesse.”[10] Jesse Belvin is more prominently known for writing “Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine),” originally performed by The Penguins, covered by many white artists including Elvis Presley, and featured in films including Back to the Future.[11]
Belvin reportedly received six death threats before the concert and the concert had to stop multiple times because of angry white Americans who were shouting racial slurs and trying to have the white teens leave the concert.[12] Belvin Jr. reported that the Belvins had to be escorted out from the concert scene.[13] Despite evidence of tire tampering on Jesse Belvin’s car, which seemed to have caused the accident, an investigation of his death was never conducted.[14] Whether the Belvins were murdered because of the attempt to unite the Black and white audience remains unsolved to this day.[15]
Belvin Sr.’s story underlines the two contradicting social climates: idolizing a white rock-n-roll star who was imitating the vocal technique of a Black R&B singer, while loathing the idea of integrated audience which allegedly led to the death of the very R&B singer.
Dapper Dan, the Obscured Inventor of Logomania.
In 1982, Daniel R Day (a.k.a Dapper Dan) opened Dapper Dan’s Boutique, later to become a legendary atelier, on 125th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood.[16] Known as the godfather of hip hop fashion,[17]Dapper Dan got his start customizing the wardrobes of hustlers and drug dealers on the streets of New York City.[18] His clientele grew into celebrities across different cultural domains: rappers, athletes, and an Olympic gold medal winner, such as Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, Mike Tyson, and Diane Dixon.[19] Each custom design featured reused elements of bags and garments from high-end fashion houses, bringing couture to a different market.[20] He connected high-end fashion to his clients, the type of clients high-end fashion would not serve at the time.[21] He was not shy to use the logos on big prints or paint logo patterns all over the garments, which no brand has ever done before.[22] He says “[he] Africanized it.”[23] Thanks to Dapper Dan, logomania was born. Yet high-end fashion houses appropriate logomania to this day.
Ironically, Dapper Dan’s genius creativity was rigorous but short-lived. By using the logo of other brands on his design, Dapper Dan subjected himself to trademark infringement claims.[24] Indeed, in 1992, Fendi’s lawyer, now Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, raided Dapper Dan’s boutique as part of a trademark infringement case.[25] It was an end of an era of hip hop fashion.[26]
Later, high-end brands started to look to the style of Black “streetwear” for creativity and began appropriating it: streetwear became couture.[27] In 2017, the Gucci Cruise 2018 Collection included a jacket that stunningly resembled the design of a jacket Dapper Dan made for Olympic gold medalist Diane Dixon back in 1989.[28] The public, including Diane Dixon, criticized Gucci.[29] Gucci initially responded it was an homage to Dapper Dan despite the fact that the company had never mentioned Dapper Dan prior to this public outcry.[30] Yes, this inexcusable excuse was not enough and Gucci knew it. Gucci and Dapper Dan are now partners in crime of fashion: Gucci’s Dapper Dan Atelier Studio opened in Harlem with an “homage” to the couturier’s original boutique.[31].
One brand recognized Dapper Dan, only after they were called out by the public for failing to do so in the first place. Where is the legal protection for Dapper Dan that Fendi (among other major brands) was once able to enforce on him?
Jay Park, from Dreadlocks to K-Style.
In June 2021, a South Korean hip hop artist Jay Park uploaded a music video for his song DNA Remix.[32] Immediately, he was criticized for sporting a dreadlock in the music video, for appropriating hip hop hair.[33]art of the criticism emphasized that the song was about being proud of Korean heritage while the artist was trying to style as an African American heritage.[34] Park apologized and took down the video.[35] Two months later, on August 15, 2021, Park uploaded a reshot video of DNA Remix to celebrate Korean Liberation Day.[36] The new video featured him wearing a Hanbok, traditional Korean clothing, and scenes of Korean daily lives—without dreadlocks.[37]Park listened to the concerns of the source community of hip hop and came back with a strong message both to the Korean community and the hip hop community.[38] The hip hop community appreciated Park listening to the criticism, and the Korean community appreciated his new video calling attention to the Korean heritage and culture.[39] Two communities and their cultures were brought closer through a classic call and response—and Park remained to appear “hip” in his Hanbok with his natural hair.
Hip Hop Culture, a Sui Generis Regime: Understanding the Power Dynamics.
As seen in the above, hip hop is not just music, but a culture of its own: fashion, hair, and beyond. The historical context, and the emotions of those involved in this culture help to give it structure. For example, hip hop music can trace its roots to the early days of America:
“Slaves were forbidden to learn to read or write, and they had no opportunity for plastic expression. Even their musical efforts were severely circumscribed. . . . The sublimative energies that in different conditions would doubtless have gone into writing, painting, sculpture, etc. were necessarily concentrated in the naked word and the naked gesture–in the field boilers, work-songs, and their accompanying rhythmic movements–in which gestated the embryo that would eventually emerge as the blues.”[40]
From blues, many subgenres were formed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries including R&B, bebop, and jazz.[41] During the Civil Rights Era, the 1960s and 1970s, political element and themes of protest were incorporated into the music of Black community.[42] “These themes, along with their parent [jazz and] blues’ motifs, all eventually made their way into later generations of hip hop and rap.”[43] The rhythmic speech and rhyming lyrics of blues, and the improvisation of jazz became essential aspects of hip hop.[44] Hip hop culture is cultivated from this shared sense of identities: the sorrow, sufferance, and endurance.[45] And when this culture is appropriated, it’s the sufferance being stolen and misused by those who are “non-African descent and whose ancestors’ conduct towards Africans created the blues.”[46]
Hip hop fashion and hair entered mainstream in the 1980s when hip hop artists such as Run-DMC, LL Cool J and Salt-N-Pepa displayed their styles—styled by Dapper Dan, in music videos.[47]The irony is that, since then, the Black creativity repackaged as white has been idolized while the Black creative expression has been penalized.[48] While Zendaya was criticized for appearing to “smell like patchouli oil or weed” wearing her beautiful dreadlocks,[49] the Los Angeles Times announced that “braids are more chic when worn by white people.”[50]While there are still laws prohibiting saggy pants—which led a police officer to shoot a Black man to death because he was wearing saggy pants, Balenciaga, a high-end fashion house, designed a $1,190 pants imitating the saggy pants.[51]
When streetwear becomes couture or when non-African descent commodifies Black hairstyles, without due credit or compensation, all the while when Black creativity is being a subject of penalization, they behave as microcosms for the continued social subordination and extraction of resources from African people.[52] That is why “the wholesale appropriation of [B]lack culture that underpins Western popular culture is not comparable to a [B]lack woman straightening her hair.”[53]
How, then, do we address this in the IP legal regime?
Inequity in the IP Paradigm.
Arts and science are protected by the U.S. Constitution through what is often called an IP Clause.[54] The IP Clause, however, does not provide protection for culture. The three (3) main areas of IP law are copyrights, trademarks, and patents.[55] They protect tangible expressions and inventions authored by an identifiable entity,[56] and protections under these laws become available when certain requirements are met.[57]
Copyright law protects creative works fixed in a tangible medium of expression.[58] Trademark protection, limited to identifying the source of the goods and services, requires visual perceptibility (some sort of tangibility).[59] Patent law, which protects tangible scientific inventions, requires full disclosure of every inventor(s) name in an application.[60] Thus, intangible things created by unincorporated and unidentified group are not protectable.[61] These limitations in the legal and regulatory regime have been huge barriers to the protection of hip hop culture because hip hop culture originated in an intangible form by a group not identifiable by geographical or other form of boundaries.[62]
Moreover, IP protections are limited by certain requirements. Before 1976, copyright protection ensued when certain formalities were met for registration.[63] Copyright registration is still required to enforce one’s right against an alleged infringer.[64] Trademark law protects marks used, or intended to be used, in commerce,[65] and patent application is a relatively complicated process.[66] As discussed above, racial subordination precluded Black community from education and literacy,[67] and their music, fashion, and hairstyle were not subject to commercial use until they were appropriated and commodified by the outsiders. The standard of fixation and formalities, requirement of commercial use, and complicated registration process were designed to disfavor Black community.[68]
Thus, a call for a change in the IP legal system and regulatory measures is ripe to atone this inequity in the IP paradigm. We live in a time where social movements are often more effective than legal measures in correcting the wrong.[69] Until we see a change in the law, we may need the continued assistance of invisible hands behind the computers and cellphones, like those that made changes happen for Dapper Dan and Jay Park.
Footnotes
