In this article
Criminal realism and cultivation theory
In the article The Art of Criminal Realism, we showed how Albanian society constructed an artistic model opposed to the “American Dream”, drawing on standardised examples from the criminal world. In this next article, we analyse how this genre and the media change audiences’ perceptions of illegality, and how the illegal becomes normal.
Criminal realism is what we call the somewhat realist stylistic current generally used in hip-hop and its subgenres. It seeks to disseminate a code of values and views of life based primarily on the street and, in some cases, on crime. Artists who follow this genre do not always tell the truth, but they do not always lie.
In the ’70s, while studying television’s effects on audiences, George Gerbner noticed that television operated by constantly repeating portrayals and messages that were essentially the same, and that other media also applied this formula.
Gerbner argued that prolonged exposure to this constant repetition could change an audience’s perceptions and ideas about reality.
The theory, which Gerbner called cultivation theory, showed that, through repetition, the media instil standardised models of ideas, behaviour, perceptions and contemporary trends, which audiences absorb and internalise in proportion to their exposure to the media product.
Without going further into this theory of mass communication, let us focus on the characteristics of repetition and the cultivation of standardised perceptions, and analyse them through a specific case of criminal realism.
Messages in songs and music videos
In recent years, the trend has been full of musical hits that praise gangster behaviour, carrying guns, drug trafficking or an ultra-luxurious life. One of the artists who stands out most for these messages is Noizy (Rigels Rajku), who has more than 1.3 million followers on Instagram and more than 740 million views on his YouTube channel.
Recently, he released a new collaboration, New Benz (a new Mercedes-Benz), with the Greek artist Sink (Dimitris Giannoulis). In one passage, after reminding listeners that he has an expensive watch worth 100 thousand euros, Noizy rhymes this with a line about moving shipments by sea.
This is the latest version of a recurring motif in his songs, implying money earned through drug trafficking.
Also with Sink, in another collaboration titled Gango, Noizy contrasts his past on the streets, in the company of gangs, with his current trips for shopping in Zurich and his extravagant spending.
There are many songs in which Noizy directly mentions or implies criminal activity, but 100 kile [100 Kilos], besides being hugely successful, is also among those most loaded with such messages.
After boasting in the plural about large-scale trafficking, Noizy invokes the gang’s internal code, implying drugs through the words “purity”, “100 kilos” and “white or green”. In the song, he also mentions weapons such as the “Beretta” (a type of Italian pistol), rhyming it with the word black in “black businesses”.
Noizy goes even further, insinuating that he himself is part of the criminal world. He invokes online searches of his name as a way to look beyond his public identity as a singer.
Not everything in the songs of Noizy is true, but not everything is false.
The watch, car and luxury he displays in the videos are real.
In the video for 100 kile, Noizy shows his Ferrari 488 GTB for the first time. In another song, he presents material success as independent of schooling, and boasts about luxury-car ownership (Gango).
This is the visual element the audience accepts as real and overlays on this artist’s narrative, a narrative that mainly describes or implies criminal activity.
Repetition and audience perceptions
Narcotics, gangs, guns and big money are the main messages of dozens of songs by Noizy, songs viewed hundreds of millions of times.
Through this constant repetition, the audience has been stripped of its initial perceptions and ideas about these activities.
Although carrying weapons is prohibited, and tax evasion, drug trafficking and organising gangs are serious criminal offences, thanks to the art of criminal realism, audiences have begun to accept these phenomena as normal and as examples to follow.
Noizy personifies his gun: he presents armed intimidation as swagger in Gunz Up (Guns Up). Noizy’s boys pursue profit relentlessly and intimidate those who stand in their way in The baddest (The Worst)
The constant repetition of the message that drug shipments bring in enough money to buy a Ferrari makes the audience believe in and covet this way of getting rich quickly.
Impunity and influence on social media
In the narrative of criminal realism, the example conveyed through constant repetition shows absolute impunity. Neither Noizy nor other artists ever say they were stopped, arrested or imprisoned by the police.
This is the other indirect message to the audience: impunity. While news reports may frequently inform audiences of criminals being arrested, traffickers caught with large quantities of drugs or people whose assets are seized, this never happens in the art of criminal realism. Punishment or suffering have no place in it.
The large number of followers and the extraordinary influence social media have on people allow figures such as Noizy to dictate or determine what is current and what is not. Noizy himself is aware of this, presenting familiarity with his work as a measure of keeping up with the times (Grande [Great]). So Noizy dictates the trend of what is current and what is not.
1.3 million followers see beyond the music videos, seeing aspects of Noizy’s everyday life. Although these contain just as much acting as the videos, audiences perceive them as his real everyday life and build points of reference based on his example.
The end justifies the means, and if the aim of Albanian society is to fulfil the Albanian Dream, about which we have written before, this explains why audiences are no longer scandalised or shocked and do not condemn these manifestations of criminal realism at all.
Because, after continuous exposure to the repetition of such messages, what is illegal has now become normal in the perception of Albanian audiences.
Previously published in Exit.al