The Black teen explosion: powerful group shapes fashion, music, movies and love

AFRICAN-AMERICAN youths have always been shapers and changers of American popular culture. But an electronic revolution and the emergence of an "electrosex" environment, powered by hip-hop and its offshoots, Black and White, have made Black youths catalysts of a new millennium pop culture that is changing the way we sing, dance, dress, talk and buy.

Not only in rap but also in film, fashion and love, Black youths are changing the name and shape of an addictive new climate that blends fashions, sports, music and sex, an addictive climate that powers the $164 billion youth market.

By all accounts, Black teenagers in central-city areas are the pied pipers, orchestrators and drum majors of this market.

"It starts with us," says 15-year-old Jawona Roberts of Atlanta. It starts, in other words, with the 7 million Black youths between 8 and 18, who represent 7 million opportunities for new ideas and new innovations.

Who are these 7 million youths?

They are Southerners and Northerners, rappers and soul-stirrers, gospel singers and top students and scholars. They are, above all, innovators in music and style. They are the ones who made the chief character on Sex in the City think it was cool to wear gold name plates around her neck. They are the ones who taught the dictionary-makers how to spell "bootylicious." They are the ones who were fashionably chic in velour jogging suits back in the '80s, long before Juicy Couture. They are the Black youths of America, who created rap, hip-hop and almost every other major pop development of the last 20 years, and who exert major influence over the music radio stations play, the movies that get produced, the commercials that air, the fashions on the runways, the songs we sing and the dance moves that White icons like Britney Spears make.

The provocative point here is that Black youth culture has become, in a strange way, the youth mainstream, and that White youths, and White adults, are integrating into that mainstream. Author Nelson George (Hip Hop America) says, "We know rap music and hip hop have broken from its ghetto roots to assert a lasting influence on American clothing, magazine publishing, television, language, sexuality and social policy." It is significant, he says, that advertisers have embraced hip-hop as a way to reach not only Black youths, but all youths.

The economic consequences of all this are immense, for Black teen support can mean the difference between the success or failure of a TV show, movie or CD. In a study of the viewing habits of Blacks and Whites, Kevin Downey found that "although African Americans still favor shows with predominantly Black actors ... African Americans fuel ratings for certain shows, particularly those with a multi-ethnic cast ..."

The same principle operates in big-city movie houses, where long lines of Black teenagers have repeatedly turned small-and medium-budget films into big moneymakers. And if Hollywood has been more responsive on some levels to Black demands, it is in large part because of urban teens who speak the only language movie moguls understand, the language of big bucks at the box office.

Black teen power is especially evident in fashion, where hip-hop moguls like Jay-Z and P. Diddy have become major names in department stores and mall outlets. One reason for this, as the U.S. Urban Youth Market survey reported, is that "purchases of teen boy's and teen girl's clothing are substantially more significant among inner-city African-Americans than other population groups." In fact, the study reported, inner-city African-Americans are 54 percent more likely [than U.S. households in general] to have made purchases of teen boy's clothing and 46 percent more likely to have bought teen girl's apparel." The astonishing point here is that it appears that Black male teens spend more money on clothes than Black female teens.

The individuals in this powerful group are far from monolithic. "I listen to R&B, pop, rap, light rock and gospel," says 16-year-old Paige McDonald of Chicago, who lists Beyonce, Mary Mary and Creed among her favorite artists. Pittsburgh native Cheyenne Robinson, 15, listens to, among others, Nelly, Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake. Neesin Williams, 17, of Bellflower, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, says Nas, Marvin Gaye and Usher are among his favorites. Williams is a young entrepreneur who co-owns a record label named C. R. E. A. M. with three of his friends and is a member of a hip-hop group called Envy. But it would be a mistake to think that all Black teens are defined by music and dance. In school, rap entrepreneur Neesin Williams is president of the "Young Black Scholars."

Shopping, movies and just "hanging out" rank highly as the favorite activities of Black youths. Sixteen-year-old Atlantan Amani Wimberly, a varsity cheerleader, says she, like so many other teens her age, hangs out with her friends almost every weekend. "We go shopping," she says, "and go to movies."

What do these youths want?

They want--if our nonscientific poll is any indication--the same thing Black youths have always wanted--recognition, understanding and an equal chance to fulfill themselves and to make a new world. The only difference perhaps is that they belong to a generation that has already changed one world and is in a position to make a new one.