is dead wrong. it confuses overlapping audiences with a single amorphous mass and in doing so obscures real differences (geography, race, class, etc) that still both exist and matter. talking about consumption patterns, access to media, and so forth. as usual noz's insight on the topic is much better than mine tho, so here it is
fair enough, i was being polemical and overly reductive there. i certainly agree that within audiences for any given music (anything really) there are important economic, geographic, political etc etc differences. I would never say that music consumers have dissolved into a "multicultural Tumblr-feed blur."
And, there are many instances (see much of diplo's career) of one-sided appropriation of music produced and fostered in one community taken and cashed in on (culturally and economically) by another more powerful community.
but, with regards to this question, specifically with regards to trap music and it's edm transformation, I just don't see this dynamic. For two reasons, one because the biggest artists associated with trap (waka, gucci, lex) have been firmly installed in popular culture for quite some time now. This is just american/global pop music at this point. If there was an appropriation of trap, it happened well before tnght came along, and brick squad and warner bros. were big parts of it. Two, as I've already argued, regardless of background, the persona of the authentic rapper is a performance that, in order to be effective, speaks a language developed within American mainstream pop culture, it's no more disruptive than being a rebellious rock star was when that was still a viable thing.
Hip-hop is one of the most dominant genres of music in the world. I don't see anything inherently wrong with anyone parodying, ripping off or remaking it.
At the same time, are there complex and very problematic ways in which fantasies of poor, black rebelliousness are being referenced in edm-trap to add to its emotional pull (in a way that Said, Spivak or hooks might have something to say about..)? Absolutely! But the same thing is happening in the ways in which artists like waka and gucci are marketed to, well, everyone. As I discussed in my previous post, there's a long history here, and neither side of trap is outside of it.
Also this is interesting. red bull music academy is kind of a hotbed for edm-trap kinds of phenomena...
Chief Keef headlining with Baauer and rl grime (sponsored by ray ban). what's really really real?:
http://boilerroom.tv/ray-ban