Digital No-Face

The online presence and sounds of the Swedish rapper Benjamin Reichwald, known as Bladee, encapsulate the facelessness of the digital age. Bladee is a member of the Drain Gang, a group of Swedish rappers, and is associated with Sad Boy music which was started by his fellow Swede, Yung Lean. His rap also falls into the “Emo rap” category, which is a notoriously emotional and nihilistic--and white--iteration of the rap/hip-hop genre. What stands out about Bladee (and other Swedish rappers) is the way in which his music and images not only dislocate rap as a genre, but the very history of all the material and symbols we associate with rap and gang culture.

In his selfie (header image), Bladee’s face is completely obstructed by the brightness of the iPhone flash—the modern technology which he uses to display himself to the world through the internet. He holds stacks of money in his hand and wears a hoodie, and the combination of these things immediately falls into the racially charged history of hip hop and the images we associate it. The white rapper, who grew up with a mother who worked as a school teacher and father who worked in restaurants (Angell), is certainly not a gang member nor is he a part of the Black culture in which hip hop fashion originated, which continues to perpetuate this idea of the digital age’s ability to completely dislocate genres and meanings; anyone can mirror any culture with the proper materials and technologies to do so. Bladee is well aware of the way in which expression through images and words can obstruct or distort rather than reveal one’s “true” self. His use of the selfie allows him to be identified as somehow foreign and American, white and race-less, highly visible and invisible, all due to the faceless, genre-defying identity construction he presents in the image, preventing the viewer from falsely viewing his selfies as granting some sort of access into a true, specific self.

Bladee has no desire to be limited in terms for himself and his music to be placed into a category; he would much rather be everything at once. In an interview for Fader, when Bladee was asked if he believes in genre, he states, “It’s definitely a bit outdated. Now with the Internet, everything is one thing basically, and everything is inspired by another thing. All music today takes inspiration from hip-hop. Genre is limiting yourself,” (Angell). Bladee’s assertion that, at this day in age, all music takes inspiration from hip-hop illustrates the very dislocation of the genre from its history and community, as it originally was associated with Black culture and now has been made into an almost faceless, constantly shifting style of fashion, sound, image, and lyric. By wearing a large hoodie and posing with money, which is almost a trope of the rapper or gang member, Bladee's image seems to fit into this hip-hop category while having no cultural or historical relation to it.

In his selfie, Bladee’s presents his self so ambiguously, he could almost be anyone; the generic background of white tiles, the inability to see his actual face, and the filter on the image makes it so that he could potentially belong to any race, class, location, and gender—potentially culturally and historically aligning him with hip-hop more than he is in reality. Yet the fact that he is holding Euros and not US Dollars reminds the viewer that this does not fall into the category of the American hip-hop image as much as it may at first appear to. The image is a representation of how one can use materials and digital expression to create a sense of affiliation with so-called genres, cultures, or identities (such as race or class background) due to the associations we have with various materials, poses, quality of images.

Bladee’s refusal to show his face in many images represents more than just a lack of specificity or refusal to be cleanly identified. It may also be an indication of his discomfort with presenting himself to the world in such an inauthentic manner, particularly through the format of a selfie. Bladee practically points out the irony of the selfie as a self-portrait by intentionally hiding himself. In many pictures (see images 1 and 2 on page 5) with enigmatic captions, such as “Disease” and “Dog heaven,” Bladee allows artificial light to wipe himself out completely. He constantly uses flash and other materials to keep his face from being viewed (see 3 and 4). Bladee is also a lover of art and graphic design, and uses softwares such as photoshop and illustrator to make digital constructions (such as blur or crafted shapes) to hide his face (see 5 and 6). All of these images, which were posted on his Instagram, create this sense that Bladee simultaneously wants his face, and more deeply his self, to be viewed without being unseen. The face is typically a key identifier for the individual, not only in selfies but in the world, but for Bladee, lighting, clothing, and other materials tend to stand in for this crucial identifier.

In his interview with Fader, Bladee somewhat enigmatically calls himself a “trash star,” then follows up the statement with, “This material world and material things — it’s all trash. The only true worth is what’s inside you, man,” (Angell). Perhaps Bladee’s conflict with the material world and things is what causes him to hide his own face in the selfies he posts. To portray himself through image, Bladee may argue, is already such a falsity that it is not worth attempting. As there is no way to display one’s true worth, which lies in the inside, Bladee gives the viewer no false conception that he is fully in view through the digital image one can hold in their hand. Instead, he gives us everything which he uses to construct his self and his identity, such as clothing, art, digital photography and, more broadly, his aesthetic. It’s almost as if he’s creating some kind of commentary on the way we use selfies to show ourselves in the least authentic, most posed, conscious, and crafted ways. His selfies seem to say: Selfies are so constructed and rely so heavily on materials and aesthetic, why even bother to show oneself at all?

While Bladee is a frequent selfie poster and clearly spends a great deal of time crafting the images of himself (and other images) he choses to put out to the world, he is keenly aware of the interpretability of both words and images which causes them to lack their true meaning and thus fail to allow for authentic expression of oneself. On the topic of social media, he states, “I don’t like Twitter or Instagram to express myself, because every time I tweet something people reply and they missed the point of what I’m trying to say,” (Angell) which shows his discomfort with his messages (whether in the form of image or words) being misinterpreted and misunderstood. He recognizes that these technologies lack specificity or distinct, intentional meaning once they are out in the world to be distorted and interpreted by the viewer. Further, Bladee is also aware of the way he doesn’t fit into any particular genre since genres have begun to lost their meaning, as the digital age and specifically the internet has allowed anyone to discover, connect with, and make things which previously belonged to one culturally specific genre into something which no longer belongs to that particular culture and location.

As Julie Bettie states in “Women without Class: Chicas, Cholas, Trash, and the Presence/Absence of Class Identity,” “The expression of self through one's relationship to and creative use of commodities (both artifacts and the discourses of popular culture) is a central practice in capitalist society,” (Bettie, 14). Bladee's representation of himself through hip-hop fashion and aesthetics with a modern, self-obstructing twist through image is indicative of his ability to use materials and digital mediums to portray a self which simultaneously falls into a genre and destroys how we think of genres as culturally laden categories. His consistent facial obstructions represent his awareness of the digital wall which lies between his true self and the self he presents to the world, preventing the self from ever really being in full view. His selfie embodies the modern phenomenon of the construction of oneself based on symbols (such as poses or tropes) and materials which make identity and genre much more flexible, and almost meaningless, categories within the images.

References

Angell, Jack. “Being Bladee, a Rare Interview with the Drain Gang CEO.” The FADER, The FADER, 18 Sept. 2019, www.thefader.com/2019/09/17/bladee-interview-drain-gang-trash-island.

Bettie, Julie. Women without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity. 1st ed., University of California Press, 2003. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pnz3q. Accessed 25 Oct. 2020. 

McCoy, Austin. “Rap Music.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, Oxford University Press, 26 Sept. 2017, oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/ 9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-287.