The Global Business Hip Hop

Abstract

In the past twenty years, hip hop culture has moved from the "margin to mainstream" and transcended traditional segmentation factors such as ethnicity and geography (Stapleton 1998). In fact, National Geographic completed an extensive ethnographic study of the cultural phenomena across the globe, Harvard University's Hip-hop Archive has gained popularity as a scholarly institution, and the Smithsonian in the United States has added an exhibit to honor the history of hip-hop (Motley and Henderson, 2008; Abe, 2007; McBride, 2007). Concurrently, consumer data suggests the growing importance of hip-hop culture in the market approximating 50 million hip-hop consumers in the United States and more than 100 million worldwide (Kaikati and Kaikati 2004). As expected, the growth of the hip-hop consumer segment has increased spending across certain product categories. In particular, Alloy Access (2008) noted the hip-hop consumer market has $90 billion in annual discretionary spending across the entertainment, technology and fashion categories, and it is estimated to grow to $644 billion by 2010 (Brown and Washton 2006; Ferguson 2008). Interestingly, the diffusion of hip-hop culture consumption outside of the United States has been quite prevalent as well (Motley and Henderson 2008; Mitchell 2001). In fact, the consumption in hip-hop fashion, music and values in countries such as Japan and India have began to receive attention in popular press and business articles alongside scholarly works. Motley and Henderson (2008) found that commonalities among members of the hip-hop subculture and suggest that the fundamental nature of hip-hop is shared.