The Edge of Ladyspace: Ladi6 and the Political Limits of Self-Branding

Authors

  • Annalise Friend Independent scholar

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11157/medianz-vol15iss1id127

Abstract

Musicians connected through online and offline networks make use of a personal brand to represent themselves and their work.  This self-branding must be recognisable, repetitive, and ‘fresh’ if it is to cut through the deluge of contemporary media content. The brands of politically engaged performers’ – referred to as ‘conscious’ – often revolve around themes of political critique, ‘oneness’, and personal and spiritual uplift. The circulation and consumption of personal brands may not necessarily however, preclude the impact of apparent political critique. This article will explore how the Samoan Aotearoa-New Zealander vocalist Ladi6 plays with the role of ‘lady’ in her brand. Ladi6 draws on genre resources from conscious hip hop, soul, reggae, and electronic music.  Her assertion of female presence, or creation of a ‘ladyspace’, is both ambiguous and reflexive.  However, I argue that her personal brand, found in videos, lyrics, photos, online presence, merchandise, and live performance, operates according to the logic of global capitalism, where consumption restricts alternative ways of engaging with others.

Author Biography

Annalise Friend, Independent scholar

Annalise is revising her doctoral thesis, titled The Political Limits of the Conscious MC Brand: Urthboy, Ladi6 and K'naan.  She is a performer and teacher of rhythm, movement and words, and is interested in popular music studies, feminism, and digital humanities.

References

Andersen, Birgitte, and Marion Frenz. 2010. "Don’t Blame the P2P File-Sharers: The Impact of Free Music Downloads on the Purchase of Music CDs in Canada." Journal of Evolutionary Economics 20 (5): 715-740. doi: 10.1007/s00191-010-0173-5.

Andsager, Julie. 2006. “Seduction, Shock and Sales: Research and Functions of Sex in Music Video.” In Sex in Consumer: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing, edited by Tom Reichert & Jacqueline Lambiase., 31-50. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum

Armstead, Ronni. 2008. "Las Krudas, Spatial Practice, and the Performance of Diaspora." Meridians 8(1):130. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

Arvidsson, Adam. 2005. "Brands: A Critical Perspective." Journal of Consumer Culture 5 (2):235. doi: 10.1177/1469540505053093.

Bob Marley and the Wailers. 1984. “One Love / People Get Ready”. Exodus. Tuff Gong.

Cashmore, Ellis. 2010. "Buying Beyoncé." Celebrity Studies 1 (2): 135-150. doi: 10.1080/19392397.2010.482262.

Clay, Andreana. 2003. “Keepin’ It Real: Black Youth, Hip-Hop Culture, and Black Identity.” American Behavioral Scientist 46(10):1346–58. doi: 10.1177/0002764203251475

Coates, Norma. 1997. “(R)evolution Now? Rock and the Political Potential of Gender.” In Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, edited by Sheila Whiteley. London: Routledge. 50-64.

Colchester, Chloë. 2003. “T-Shirts, Translation and Humour: On the Nature of Wearer-Perceiver Relationships in South Auckland.” In Clothing the Pacific, edited by Chloë Colchester, 167-191. Oxford: Berg.

darnsexysecondhand. 2011. "Velvet Maidens of the Pacific...." Last modified September 21, 2015. Accessed March 1, 2012. http://darnsexysecondhand.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/velvet-maidens-of-the-pacific/.

Douglas, Susan. 1994. Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Ellis, Juniper. 2006. "Tatau and Malu: Vital Signs in Contemporary Samoan Literature." PMLA 121(3): 687-701. doi: 10.1632/003081206x142823.

Fernandes, Sujatha. 2003. "Fear of a Black Nation: Local Rappers, Transnational Crossings, and State Power in Contemporary Cuba." Anthropological Quarterly 76(4): 575. doi: 10.1353/anq.2003.0054.

Fernando Jr., S.H. 1994.The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture and Attitudes of Hip-Hop. New York: Doubleday.

Filmshop New Zealand. 2011. Velvet Dreams (1998). YouTube video. Accessed April 25, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umiv-Dqh0dE.

Flores, Juan. 1996. "Puerto Rocks: New York Ricans Stake Their Claim." In Droppin' Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, edited by William Eric Perkins, 85-116. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Gilchrist, Shane. 2008. "Beauty and the Geek." Otago Daily Times. Last modified November 1 DATE. Accessed April 24, 2009. http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/music/29863/beauty-and-geek.

Gill, Rosalind. 2008. "Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising." Feminism and Psychology 18 (35): 35-60. doi:10.1177/0959353507084950.

Gill, Rosalind. 2012. “The Sexualisation of Culture?" Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6 (7): 483-498. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00433.

Glucina, Rachel. 2014. "The Diary: Ladi6 Heads on African Journey." NZ Herald. Last Modified October 10, 2015. Accessed August 08, 2015. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11340402.

Goldman, Robert, and Stephen Papson. 2006. "Capital's Brandscapes." Journal of Consumer Culture 6 (3): 327-53. doi:10.1177/1469540506068682.

Harris, Frederick C. 2014. "The Rise of Respectability Politics." Dissent 1: 33-8. doi:10.1353/dss.2014.0010

Hearn, Alison. 2008. "Meat, Mask, Burden: Probing the Contours of the Branded Self." Journal of Consumer Culture 8 (2): 192-217. doi:10.1177/1469540508090086.

Hearn, Alison. 2011. "Confessions of a Radical Eclectic: Reality Television, Self-Branding, Social Media, and Autonomist Marxism." Journal of Communication Inquiry 35 (4): 313-321. doi:10.1177/0196859911417438.

Henderson, April K. 2006. "Dancing Between Islands: Hip Hop and Samoan Diaspora." In The Vinyl Ain't Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, edited by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, 180-99. London: Pluto Press.

Higginbotham, Evelyn B. 1993. Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Hobson, Janell, and R. Dianne Bartlow. 2008. "Introduction: Representin': Women, Hip-Hop, and Popular Music." Meridians 8 (1): 1. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/meridians/v008/8.1hobson01.html.

Hunter, Margaret. 2011. "Shake It, Baby, Shake It: Consumption and the New Gender Relation in Hip-Hop." Sociological Perspectives 54 (1): 15-36. doi:10.1525/sop.2011.54.1.15.

Hunter, Margaret, and Kathleen Soto. 2009. "Women of Color in Hip Hop: The Pornographic Gaze." Race, Gender & Class 16 (1): 170. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41658866.

Kopytko, Tania. 1986. "Breakdance as an Identity Marker in New Zealand." Yearbook for Traditional Music 18: 21-8. doi:10.2307/768516.

Ladi6. 2008. "Walk Right Up". Time is Not Much. Question Music.

Ladi6. 2010. The Liberation Of... Bounce Records.

ladi6.com. 2009. “About”. ladi6.com. Accessed September 22, 2009. http://www.ladi6.com.

Lauryn Hill. 1998. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Ruffhouse Records.

Lavernce, Christin, and Kristin Lozanski. 2014. "'This Is Not Your Practice Life': lululemon and the Neoliberal Governance of Self." Canadian Review of Sociology 51: 76-94. doi:10.1111/cars.12034.

Lazzarato, Maurizio. 1996. “Immaterial Labour.” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, edited by Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt, 133-47. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Levy, Ariel. 2005. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free Press.

Lieb, Kristin. 2013. Gender, Branding, and the Modern Music Industry: The Social Construction of Female Popular Music Stars. New York: Routledge.

Lo, Adrienne, and Angela Reyes. 2004. "Language, Identity and Relationality in Asian Pacific America: An Introduction." Pragmatics 14 (2): 115-126.

Mead, Margaret. 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Study of Adolescence and Sex in Primitive Societies. Harmondsworth: Penguin

The Macquarie Dictionary Online. 2010. "The Macquarie Dictionary Online." Macquarie Dictionary Pty Ltd. Accessed April 3, 2010. http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/anonymous@9c9A71970339/-/p/dict/index.html.

Mitchell, Tony. 2000. "Doin' Damage in My Native Language: The Use Of ‘Resistance Vernaculars’ in Hip Hop in France, Italy, and Aotearoa/New Zealand". Popular Music and Society 24 (3): 41-54. doi:10.1080/03007760008591775.

Mitchell, Tony. 2001. "Kia Kaha! (Be Strong!) Māori and Pacific Islander Hip-Hop in Aotearoa-New Zealand." In Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA, edited by Tony Mitchell, 280-305. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

Mitchell, Tony. 2006. "The New Corroboree." Meanjin 65 (1): 9. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost.

Ouellet, Jean-François. 2007. "The Purchase Versus Illegal Download of Music by Consumers: The Influence of Consumer Response towards the Artist and Music." Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences 24 (2): 107-119. doi:10.1002/CJAS.16.

Perry, Imani. 2004. Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Durham: Duke University Press.

Peoples, Whitney A. 2008. "‘Under Construction’: Identifying Foundations of Hip-Hop Feminism and Exploring Bridges between Black Second-Wave and Hip-Hop Feminism." Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 8 (1): 19-52. https://muse.jhu.edu/.

Persis Murray, Dara. 2015. "“This Is What Was Birthed”: Motherhood and Postfeminist Self-Branding in Tyra Banks’ Brand." Journal of Communication Inquiry 39 (3): 232-248. doi:10.1177/0196859915576373.

Pough, Gwendolyn D. 2004. Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere. Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press.

Reynolds, Simon. 2011. Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past. New York: Faber and Faber.

Rommen, Timothy. 2006. "Protestant Vibrations? Reggae, Rastafari, and Conscious Evangelicals." Popular Music 25 (2): 235-263. doi:10.1017/S026114300600081.

Rosi, Pamela. 2007. "Shigeyuki Kihara: Subverting Dusky Maidens and Exotic Tropes of Pacific Paradise." Art Asia Pacific. Winter 7(51): 72. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost.

Samy Alim, H. 2007. "Introduction to the Special Issue: Critical Hip-Hop Language Pedagogies: Combat, Consciousness, and the Cultural Politics of Communication." Journal of Language, Identity & Education 6 (2): 161-176. doi:10.1080/15348450701341378.

Solaa feat. Ladi6. 2006a. "Sylphlike". Steps In Time. Solaa Productions Ltd.

Solaa feat. Ladi6. 2006b. “Oneness”. Steps in Time. Solaa Productions Ltd.

Spady, James G., Samir Meghelli, and H. Samy Alim. 2006. Tha Global Cipha: Hip Hop Culture and Consciousness. Philadelphia: Black History Museum Press.

Tha Feelstyle. 2004. Break It To Pieces. Can't Stop Music.

theladi6. 2008. Ladi6 – Walk Right Up. YouTube video. Accessed December 10, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKuUMPGwhuM.

theladi6. 2012. Ladi6 – Dark Brown. Last Modified 24 March 2012. YouTube video. Accessed December 10, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqwePwhPrJE.

Thomas, Nicholas, Anna Cole, and Bronwen Douglas, eds. 2005. Tattoo: Bodies, Art, and Exchange in the Pacific and the West. London: Reaktion Books.

Webb, Peter. 2007. Exploring the Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures. New York: Routledge.

Wendt, Albert. 1999. "Afterword: Tatauing the Postcolonial Body." In Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific, edited by Vilsoni Hereniko and Rob Wilson, 399-412. Rowman & Littlefield.

Winter Games NZ Trust. 2015. "Ladi6 Free Concert." Accessed September 23, 2015. http://www.wintergamesnz.kiwi/ladi6-free-concert/.

Zemke-White, Kirsten. 2001. "Rap Music and Pacific Identity in Aotearoa: Popular Music and the Politics of Opposition." In Tangata O Te Moana Nui: The Evolving Identities of Pacific Peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by C. Macpherson, P. Spoonley and M. Anae, 228-42. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press.

Zemke-White, Kirsten. 2005. "'How Many Dudes You Know Roll Like This?': The Re-Presentation of Hip Hop Tropes in New Zealand Rap Music." Image and Narrative: Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative10. http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/worldmusica/kirstenzemkewhite.htm.

Downloads

Published

2016-02-27