While I am here on campus working on my thesis, I read an interesting article that relates to this course. My thesis is on hip-hop music and I recently read the article "Who(se) Am I? The Identity and Image of Women in Hip Hop" by Imani Perry. While the majority of the article is about feminist lyrics, the objectification of women in Hip Hop, and female stars that are the exception to the objectification, there was an interesting section about the music industry and the authorship of the music.

I wanted to write about the corporate creations of music artists. Especially with Hip Hop music there is a standard image that sells well and that the corporations want their artists to be in order to sell records. In the beginning, Hip Hop was a form of honest self-expression. Before it became an extreme commodity, it was a way for a group of marginalized people to speak out against their oppression. Perry's article describes how the 'realness' of contemporary Hip Hop artists is completely created by the corporation. Teams of people go into creating the image of an artist.

I was perusing the internet looking for things to blog about when I came across this weird article on cnn.com. Apparently, a man from a small town in Wisconsin was running for Sheriff and losing horribly. So rather than accept defeat, he legally changed his name to Andy Griffith. He claims it has nothing to do with the actor Andy Griffith or wanting to capitalize on the name to gain more votes for himself. Sorry guy, I’m not buying that. So now, the real Andy Griffith is suing the guy for violation of trademark and copyright laws. I feel bad for the guy, I mean, he lost went through the trouble of changing his name, but still lost the election and is now being sued. Sucks to be him, but this story does raise some interesting questions. With the increase in file sharing, copyrights are becoming a bigger and bigger issue. It’s interesting to see this copyright paranoia carry over into something like a person’s name. When does a name become more than just a name? When does it cross over into the realm of commodity?