The recent New York Times article “Cracking Down On Mixtape CDs” exemplifies the way in which today’s large media conglomerates work with and simultaneously fight against small media producers. Sales of rap music are often based upon the “street cred” of the artist, and so the major record labels with whom the most famous rappers have signed contracts court, even finance, the mixtape producers that can provide that credibility. Yet the same record labels that back mixtape production simultaneously hope that the mixtape is not overly successful for fear that its artists may not sell as many “official” label releases.

The mixtape itself is a highly charged media of representation, communicating specific social and economic ideas through its packaging and content. A mixtape CD, unless funded to such an extent that its producers can afford the most sophisticated means of production, cannot have the professional polish of a record label release in either sonic or visual quality (though it can certainly come close). Moreover, it is advertised not with television and print media ads but through word of mouth. As a media form that operates at street level rather than at a corporate level, the mixtape challenges the idea of the label release, providing an alternative that, though it is less polished (and precisely because it is less polished), is more “authentic”, more “street”.

The phenomenon portrayed in the New York Times article is not limited to the world of rap music; it is common in political media as well. For example, one might imagine a major television news station that relies on cell phone camera footage for its own “street cred” yet might clandestinely fight independent Internet news outlets, seeking to quash competition, that feature that same cell phone footage. There is a trend in all forms of media of increased access to high-tech media production capabilities—whether low-cost, high-quality recording studios and cheap CD burning services or small camcorders that provide the immediacy that often eludes the mainstream cameras—followed by an attempt by major corporations to harness and limit that increased access in an attempt to continue dominating their media.

I am a senior concentrating in IR (Global Security) and Music (Theory and Composition); I work in the musical theater as a composer and music director. I can bring to the table not only knowledge of international relations but also an understanding of pacing and dramatic storytelling from my theater experience; a documentary must tell a story, just as a work of fiction might, or it will never hold the interest of an audience. Moreover I am interested (though inexperienced) in film scoring, and would like to explore, perhaps by composing music for one of the class’s pitch reels, how music might influence audience perceptions of the ideas of a political film as well as alter and enhance the storytelling aspect of political media.