Fiona Quadrideadline 25th January 2019Essay

The Cream Rises

Side note: Fashion Promotion is a vast subject that allows you to create brand campaigns that attract consumers and influencers to brands within the industry. Therefore, I chose rappers, as they have a lot of influence in the Fashion World. Marketing strategies show that nowadays celebrities are crucial in the world of Fashion Promotion.

Nicki Minaj is known as one of the most influential female rap artists and is a very important member in the world of fashion promotion. What people tend to forget is that the singer had to work all her way up, going through poverty, depression and failures. We aim to live in an equal society where everybody has the chance to succeed. Factors like race, sexuality, gender and wealth should not determine our position in society. Instead, our democratic system is based on performance, measured talent, effort and achievement. Nicki Minaj worked hard and finally succeeded. She merited her position in society.But have you ever considered to what extent this idealistic concept fits our modern world?

“Best female rappers “by magazine Tylt: Cardi B or Nicki Minaj

How do you justify Cardi B’s position in our society? She has become a competitor of Nicki Minaj overnight thanks to her ex-husband Offset.

In the following, I will analyse to what extent meritocracy is functioning. Are creative practitioners ascending to prominence due to their ability or because of their money and social position? Lastly, I will unwind the question to what extent luck and talent play a role in a meritocratic system and if this is fair.

Meritocracy is an utopian term. Before being born, we do not cover under Rawl’s “Veil of Ignorance”. Instead, we are either privileged or not, depending on where we are born. Inequality has increased anywhere in the world despite substantial geographical differences, with the richest 1% twice as wealthy as the poorest 50% according to the results of the World Inequality Report 2018. Therefore, the concept of meritocracy needs to be refined and analysed in detail. What do we mean by ‘meritocracy’? What is considered as meritorious can differ with opinions as on which qualities are considered the worthiest, raising the question of which "merit" is the highest? In the introduction, I mentioned Nicki Minaj and Cardi B. Analysing the question through common sense it seems to be clear: Nicki Minaj merited her position more than Cardi B. Nevertheless, does that mean people like Cardi do not merit their position although they gained the same position?

The influential star Nicki Minaj was born in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago, and moved with her family to Queens, New York when she was five years old. Minaj's father was a severe drug addict with a long history of violence. Nicki did not have an easy life and worked hard to become who she is now. Minaj told Details magazine:

Nicki Minaj 20 August 2018 at VMA Video Music Award

“Those early struggles helped me fuel my drive to rise above the life my parents knew. I've always had this female-empowerment thing in the back of my mind."

In the meanwhile, Cardi B worked as a stripper in a night club. She did not have an easy life either but did not put as much effort into her success than Nicki Minaj. Cardi B was lucky to have met the artist Offset in the night club where she worked.

The cog of the political philosophy meritocracy is that it neglects the context of the individual’s life. Privilege is not merited, but is it not also a privilege for Nicki Minaj to have had someone who had merit to accept her talent? Did Nicki Minaj merit her talent to have a good voice? Even though Nicki Minaj had to work longer sooner or later someone recognised her talent just as someone recognised Cardi B’s talent.

Additionally, this can be contradicted by analysing if luck and talent are fair.

Cardi B and Offset 2017

In relation to Meritocracy and luck, we will look at the example of Lil Wayne. The Grammy Award-winning rapper known for his hit albums, mixtapes and singles, including "A Milli" and "Lollipop, grew up in Hollygrove, one of New Orleans' poorest neighbourhoods. He was very talented in rapping and started to perform when he was 8 years old. He later met the brothers Bryan and Slim Williams, the founders of Cash Money Records, who were impressed enough by his talent to give him one of their business cards and later let him hang around the label's offices. Away from the studios, he was living dangerously. He sold crack for a time and accidentally shot himself in the chest, according to an article in Rolling Stone.

Lil Wayne 2018

"It was my mom's gun," Wayne told the magazine in 2008. "It was like a chopper hit me. But the bullet went straight through, and I bounced back in two weeks."

Wayne had a tough childhood, but he was talented. Furthermore, he was lucky to have met the brothers mentioned above. Therefore, to answer the question if meritocracy functions, we have to acknowledge that we should not underestimate luck. We have to think how to counterbalance luck to build a fairer society. Why do we let an asymmetry in wealth exist in our society whereas our talent (such as intelligence) is normally distributed?

Tackling meritocracy, which affects many aspects of our lives and society, we will look at another example which will help us draw a conclusion. Assuming that talent is an inherent trail it would be interesting to see how luck affects the concept of a fair meritocratic society. A banal, but clear example are athletes. In athletics terms, many people associate East Africa with Kenyan and Ethiopian distance running. Intriguingly, the majority of these runners come from three mountainous districts besides the Rift Valley: Nandi in Kenya, the most successful district, and Arsi and Shewa in Ethiopia.

Wayde van Niekerk

The question that arises from this study made by Ben Oakley, who is Head of Sport and Fitness at the Open University and previously worked as the Olympic windsurfing coach, attending the Games in 1988 and 1992, is if the inherited talent is fair?

“Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”

Of course, hard work is more important than talent, as talent will only carry one only to a certain extent. If one is not willing to put in the work to harvest and cultivate their talent, then the talent itself is essentially useless. Nevertheless, you have an advantage of being talented. Metaphorically, you can visualise someone starting 10 meters ahead of you, having the same goal, just because he/she is naturally more gifted in running.In a meritocratic society, it is called unfair if someone achieves because their rich father introduced them to the Hollywood studio director and they immediately got a role in the upcoming film. They did not put hard work into achieving, because their father used his “connections”. Nevertheless, being talented is similar, because you are a step ahead, just because you were lucky to be born with certain features that benefit you.

The solution to the question is simple. Meritocracy is a principle. It can never properly be put into place because the capitalist society that rules the world will never even at its full potential be perfectly equal and just. Meritocracy has promoted

a competitive environment by providing equal opportunities for a driven and ambitious populace to continually strive for excellence and success. This is what meritocracy as a principle should be judged on. As a governing principle, it has created a nation fixated on growth and development.

A good example is the family of Will Smith. Will Smith has three children, although most of us only know two of them: Jaden and Willow Smith. Will Smith has a third son named Trey Smith. Trey Smith, compared to his siblings is not talented at singing, therefore he is not famous. The example of family Smith shows us that even though you are born in a highly privileged position, you haveto work for your merit and success.

Family Smith 2018

If Trey Smith would not be the son of his famous father, he would not even be heard of. The unfairness of our capitalist world made Trey Smith an actor. Nevertheless, he is not a famous actor and has only been put into roles due to his father. Willow Smith and Jaden Smith were in an advantageous position, due to their father’s success. Both were talented musicians but had to work hard to expand their talent and become well-known musicians.

Throughout the essay, we came across various questions that were needed to answer if a meritocratic society is functioning. To answer if a meritocratic state exists, we had to ask ourselves to what extent luck and talent plays a role. Looking at the benefit of being gifted equals in a way the benefit of being born in a privileged position. Nevertheless, we encountered, that our state will never achieve the full potential of perfection, meaning being equal in every way. Focusing on the mentioned rappers, we can underline that all of them were to a certain extent lucky and used their beneficial talent (rapping) to achieve their popularity and success.

Trey Smith and Will Smith

If talent and capital show a positive correlation, we can say that the world is meritocratic; the more talented you are, the more successful you are likely to be. Not in every case will a talented person become successful, as it is always combined with luck if someone becomes famous.

Bibliography:

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