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"They come in threes: Limp Bizkit have signed with Cash Money records. Korn just released remixes by Skrillex of their song \u201CNarcissistic Cannibal.\u201D Insane Clown Posse are performing at South by Southwest. These facts don\u2019t quite herald a return of rap rock. And even if they did, you could dismiss that as a faint, final pulse of \u201990s nostalgia. But here\u2019s the real question: Why dismiss it?Tweeting confirmation of his band\u2019s signing, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst made the following observation: \u201CRock shit doesn\u2019t rock anymore! They say the whole game done went pop so I\u2019m back in this ho!\u201D He\u2019s not wrong: We\u2019re living in a Foo Fighters world now, and few will argue that it rocks. But while his statement may be vapid, its language carries a certain power. The Durstian mode \u2014 that instantly recognizable style of what we\u2019ll call hysterical appropriation \u2014 conjures up a debate that the \u201990s, for all their awesomeness, never settled: At what point does a white man\u2019s reverence for some imagined idea of black culture become ridiculous \u2014 even racist?That\u2019s a thorny question \u2014 far thornier than any raised by a rock band in recent memory. (Music from the \u201990s is good that way: The last big debate over mainstream rock that we recall derived from Jonah Weiner\u2019s completely reasonable defense of the Christian-gesturing Creed, who formed in 1995.) The antipathy toward Durst and rap rock in general has something to do with genuine questions about appropriation. But what makes this borrowing improper? A white person might fear that there isn\u2019t sufficient respect shown for a tradition. Then again, a white person might simply fear black culture itself. We never understood the ease with which people used the word \u201Cwigger\u201D in the \u201990s. It\u2019s not only a rebuke to people who don\u2019t seem satisfactorily white, but also an excuse to complete the \u201CN-word.\u201DThat Limp Bizkit have been signed by Cash Money Records, home of Lil Wayne \u2014 regarded as one of the greatest working MCs, his own foray into rap-rock notwithstanding \u2014 won\u2019t likely transform the band into a more \u201Cauthentic\u201D-seeming product. They\u2019ll remain outsiders. And so will Korn and the Insane Clown Posse, despite collaborating with a new commercial powerhouse and performing at a tastemakers\u2019 festival, respectively. And this has to do with more than the hysterical appropriation of hip hop culture \u2014 both bands represent other constituencies that many people would rather not have to think about. Insane Clown Posse have cultivated a rural, working class audience; Korn\u2019s Jonathan Davis has written lyrics about being sexually molested.Which doesn\u2019t mean Korn\u2019s rage, ICP\u2019s cartoonish violence, and Limp Bizkit\u2019s aggro-male posturing (and role in the disastrous Woodstock \u201999) aren\u2019t problematic or even repellent. But puzzling out why these bands capture certain people\u2019s imaginations sure is a lot more interesting than listening to Dave Grohl sermonizing about the sanctity of music recorded in a garage. And if Limp Bizkit really do make a comeback, the issues they raise will be a lot harder to ignore.[content:shareblock]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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