Becky Blanchard
Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race
While rap's history appears brief its relation to the
African oral tradition, which provides rap with much of its current
social significance, also roots rap in a long-standing history of oral
historians, lyrical fetishism, and political advocacy. At the heart of
the African oral tradition is the West African idea of nommo. In
Malian Dogon cosmology, Nommo is the first human, a creation of the
supreme deity, Amma, whose creative power lies in the generative
property of the spoken word4. As a philosophical concept, nommo is the animative ability of words and the delivery of words to act upon objects, giving life. The significance of nommo in the African oral tradition has given power to rappers and rap music within many African-American communities.
Rap's common designation as "CNN for black people" may result from the descendence of rappers from griots, respected African oral historians and praise-singers. Griots were
the keepers and purveyors of knowledge, including tribal history,
family lineage, and news of births, deaths, and wars5. Travelling griots spread
knowledge in an accessible form--the spoken word--to members of tribal
villages. Similarly, in the United States, many rappers create songs
that, through performances and records, spread news of their daily
lives, dreams, and discontents outside of their immediate neighborhoods.
Rappers are viewed as the voice of poor, urban African-American youth,
whose lives are generally dismissed or misrepresented by the mainstream
media. They are the keepers of contemporary African-American
working-class history and concerns.
Additionally, rap's potential for political advocacy
stems from the function of its predecessors, African-American rhyming
games, as forms of resistance to systems of subjugation and slavery.
Rhyming games encoded race relations between African-American slaves
and their white masters in a way that allowed them to pass the scrutiny
of suspicious overseers. Additionally, rhyming games allowed slaves to
use their creative intellect to provide inspiration and entertainment.
For example, by characterizing the slave as a rabbit and the master as a
fox, "Bre'r Rabbit tales" disguised stories of slaves outwitting their
masters and escaping plantations behind the facade of a comical
adventure. Hip-hop journalist Davey D connects the African oral
tradition to modern rap: "You see, the slaves were smart and they talked
in metaphors. They would be killed if the slave masters heard them
speaking in unfamiliar tongues. So they did what modern-day rappers
do--they flexed their lyrical skillz." Rap has developed as a form of
resistance to the subjugation of working-class African-Americans in
urban centers. Though it may be seen primarily as a form of
entertainment, rap has the powerful potential to address social,
economic, and political issues and act as a unifying voice for its
audience.8
Rap shares its roots with other forms of
traditionally African-American music, such as jazz, blues, and soul. Rap
may also be closely linked to reggae music, a genre that also developed
from the combination of traditional African drumming9 and the music of
the Buropean ruling class by youth of limited economic means within a
system of African economic subjugation. In an ironic circle of
influence, Jamaican reggae was played on African-American radio stations
in New York in the 1960s. DJs used rhymes to introduce reggae songs.
These AM stations could be received in Jamaica, where listeners picked
up on the DJs' rhyming styles, extending them over reggae songs to
create "dub"--another forerunner of rap10. Kool DJ Herc, before
introducing his innovative turntable style, brought his dub style to New
York, but it failed to gain popularity. He concentrated on developing
his DJing skills, which later allowed for the acceptance of MCing and,
eventually, rap.
The development of rap and reggae has been an
intertwined path of two different styles, which have grown from and have
thrived, in similar circumstances. Finally, just as reggae has been
under attack for some artists' seeming advocacy of violence to solve
social, political, and economic problems, rap has become the scapegoat
of the American musical fabric, as it, too, has faced mass popularity
and commercialization. Just as reggae is now under threat of losing its
power as an art form and a social voice" after being appropriated by
those outside of the Rastafarian culture, rap struggles to survive
adoption and commodification by those outside of the world of hip-hop.
In the last decade, hip-hop music has followed the
path of commercialization that destroyed African-American radio stations
in the 1 970s. Whereas prior to commercialization, African-American
owners, programmers, and DJs had the freedom to use their stations to
serve the specific needs of their listeners --New York's working-class
African-American community. They were able to promote local artists and
events and to address news events and social concerns as members of the
same community from which they drew their audience. However, as
corporations owned by businesspeople outside of the community
consolidated power by purchasing local stations, African-American AM
stations were forced out of the market by more economically-powerful
stations owned and controlled mainly by members of the white
upper-class. African - American DJs lost their power as the modern-day griots of their communities and as the presenters of hip-hop music and culture.
Similarly, with the "discovery" of hip-hop artists by
corporate record labels, rap music was stolen from its community,
repackaged by money-minded businesspeople looking to create a wider
appeal by erasing hip-hop's historic function, and sold back to the
streets through marketing ploys such as music videos and Top-40 charts.
By the I 980s, hip-hop had become a business and rap music was a
valuable commodity'3. However, according to journalist Christopher John
Farley, rap's commodification has also disenfranchised it as a form of
resistance:
Corporate America's infatuation with
rap has increased as the genre's political content has withered. Ice
Cube's early songs attacked white racism; Ice-T sang a song about a cop
killer; Public Enemy challenged listeners to "fight the power". But many
newer acts are focused almost entirely on pathologies within the black
community. They rap about shooting other blacks, but almost never about
challenging govemmental authority or encouraging social activism.
Though not new themes, many of the aspects of rap
that have been pointed out by politicians as "objectionable"--violence,
misogyny, and homophobia in the lyrics and lifestyles of some
rappers--may be seen as a function of rap's commodification. While
rappers struggle to "keep it real"--a term which reminds those inside
hip-hop to be true to their roots--some admit that many rappers do as
their record labels wish--simply, they write lyrics that se1115. In an
audience which has become increasingly ethnically and economically
diverse' 6, business-minded rappers have been pressured to take on the
limited roles that have proven profitable for young, African-American
male artists--that of the "pimp", the "gansta", and the "playa."
According to African-American musician Michael Franti, "In order to be
real, we don9t all have to be the same. Through the commercialization of
today's music, there is a lot of pressure for young black men to
conform to very specific roles."
The commodification of rap has allowed large
paychecks and platinum records to erase the historical, social, and
economic contexts, out of which rap has emerged, from public
consciousness. According to Davey D, "The business of music has
bastardized rap." From its roots as resistance against slavery to its
connection to the reggae movement in Jamaica to the appearance of
rappers as modern-day griots, rap has traditionally been the
music of the subjugated African-American working class. While it is
important to celebrate hip-hop culture today as inclusive of vastly
diverse ethnic and economic groups, it is equally important to recognize
and preserve the function that rap has served for its original
community. In order to understand the themes and forms of rap music, it
is important to follow the history of African-Americans from their
beginnings in West Africa, to their enslavement throughout the early
history of the United States, to their struggles against racial
prejudice and segregation after Emancipation, to the continuing battles
against de facto economic segregation and reclamation of cultural identity of many African-Americans today.
If rap music appears to be excessively violent when
compared to country-western or popular rock, it is because rap stems
from a culture that has been seeped in the fight against political,
social, and economic oppression. Despite the theatrics sometimes put on
for major-label albums or MTV videos'9, for many artists, rapping about
guns and gang life is a reflection of daily life in racially- and
economically-stratified inner-city ghettos and housing projects.
Violence in rap is not an affective agent that threatens to harm
America's youth; rather, it is the outcry of an already-existing problem
from youth whose woridviews have been shaped by experiencing deep
economic inequalities divided largely along racial lines.
The nihilistic approach to violence and criminal
activity for which rap is often criticized is defended by some artists
as the understandable result of the disparities that face
African-American communities, from which rap originated and remains
rooted. America's most recent census reported that African-American
youth are the most likely group in the nation to live in poor households
and neighborhoods, to be unemployed, to be the victims of homicide or
AIDS, or to spend time in prison at some point in their lifetimes .
According to Cornel West, a professor of Religions and Afro-American
studies at Harvard University, "It's no accident that one would see
various [rap] songs and various lyrics that revolve around death. ,,
Perhaps some of the popularity of the "thug life" celebrated in the
"gangsta rap" sub-genre is the opportunity it may provide for economic
and social power in neighborhoods where hope has been lost. For many
poor, inner-city youth, the gun, which has had a central role in the
lyrics of many gangsta rappers, represents a way to empower oneself
and gain respect within continuing cycles of racial and economic
prejudice.
Additionally, some rappers defend the presence of
violence in their lyrics as the manifestation of Anierican history and
culture. Journalist Michael Saunders writes: "[T] he violence and
misogyny and lustful materialism that characterize some rap songs are as
deeply American as the hokey music that rappers appropriate. The fact
is, this country was in love with outlaws and crime and violence long
before hip-hop."25 Specifically, the African-American experience has
been shaped by the legacies of slavery, segregation, and economic and
political subjugation, and has been marked by institutions and incidents
of violence. Rapper Chuck D thinks that much of the violence and
nihilism in rap music is the legacy of the hate that minorities have
faced in the United States: "We [African-Americans] were a product of
what hate produced. We were taught to hate ourselves, so a lot of
[intraracial conflict] is breemed off of ignorance."
Further, these rappers claim that it is not only
African-Americans who are gangsters, but rather that American history,
also, has been characterized by conquest, rebellion, and bloodshed.
Rapper Ice Cube points to the hypocrisy of politicians, who use bombing
campaigns to kill on a worldwide level, to blame gangsters for violence
in American culture: "We do things on a small level, but America does it
on a big level. It ain't just us. White people do everything we do.
Politicians and groups searching for easy
solutions to America's struggle with youth violence have tried to blame
rap music for desensitizing teenagers to the effects of guns, drugs, and
gangs and inciting violent incidents, such as the recent shootings in
Littleton, Colorado. They have attempted to present the "objectionable"
aspects of some songs as a universal aspect of the rap genre. Groups
have attempted to set up musical rating systems, parental advisory
warnings, and outright censorship of albums that contain lyrics or
images that could be harmful for young people .
Yet, is music regulation worth the censorship of
artists, especially when it targets certain genres, such as rap? It
would be virtually impossible to implement a system of regulation that
could be entirely objective and free of cultural bias regarding the
definition and execution of blanket-definitions of obscenity and
potential for harm. In the end, a system that would regulate the lyrical
content of music would hurt rappers and their audiences and further
weaken rap's ability to reflect and express the true concerns of
inner-city working-class youth.
It seems that an increasing number of public figures
have attempted to capitalize upon remaining cultural biases and fear of
African-American uprising to vilify rap music as the causative agent in a
recent string of incidents of youth violence . Although some rap
songs may appear to focus on themes of violence, they are reflections of
preexisting political, social, and economic disparities. In a statement
to the Senate Hearing on Lyrics & Labeling, the National Campaign
for Freedom of Expression wrote:
Discussions about direct correlation
between media messages and actual acts of violence distract us from
getting at the real causes of mediated violence [...] The discussion
distracts us from the real causes of crime: things like child abuse,
poverty, parental neglect in care and time spent with their child.
Violence in rap, and in other forms of
self-expression, is the manifestation of a feeling of hopelessness and
discontent in America's working class, especially working-class minority
communities. By pointing to rap as the cause of violence, politicians
attempt to erase from the consciousness of their constituents the
history of oppression that has given birth to hip-hop culture.
In order to truly change the looming presence of
violence in American society, as symptomized by violence in movies,
television, and music, the remaining problems of poverty and prejudice
in America's cities must be aggressively addressed. Ironically, many of
the same politicians and groups who cry out against violence in rap
music are also leading the attack on Welfare, Affirmative Action,
funding for education, and proposals for universal health care. It is
disparities in economic and political power, not hip-hop music, that
create violence in American society. Cutting programs that provide
social services to help alleviate the unequal opportunity to jobs,
resources, and social mobility will only serve to aggravate problems.
Voters must not allow themselves to be fooled into believing that
censorship can safe-guard children from the ramifications of violence in
American culture; they must not play into the problem by cutting
programs that provide hope for escape from economic and political
discrepancies that feed into the cycle of violence.
Instead, those who truly wish to put an end to the
problems expressed by some rappers in their lyrics and lifestyles, must
focus on providing services and opportunities that will combat the
feeling of nihilism in many of America's communities today. Social
services must be supported, expanded, and reorganized to more
effectively administer programs for those who have been economically and
politically disadvantaged. It is necessary to address the basic needs
of the urban working class--affordable housing, health care, and
food--before there can be any attempts to eliminate violence in
America's cities.
Additionally, it is necessary that working-class
adults are able to earn a living wage before they may begin to be
expected to have hope for their future or the future of their children.
Minimum wage, as it exists today, is not an adequate family wage, and,
as a result, many parents have been forced to work several jobs, keeping
them away from the home, in order to provide for their children and
relatives. Finally, in order to prevent violence and crime before it
begins, federal, state, and local funding should be diverted from law
enforcement and prison systems into public education and youth programs.
Youth cannot have hope unless they have access to a useful, relevant
education that can provide them with the opportunity to choose the path
of their futures. I believe that few youth, given sufficient resources,
respect, and support, would choose violence. However, for many youth
today, options are limited by a disparity of access to the resources
that provide that choice.
For many youth the heroes and success stories of the
inner-city are rappers. The popularity of rap and the spin-offs of
hip-hop culture--fashion lines like FUBU and Tommy Hilfiger33, movies
such as Boyz N Da Hood and Friday, and television shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and In the House--have had
a major impact on American marketing trends. The appeal of hip-hop
culture has pushed out of urban areas and into the suburbs. Hip-hop has
had a tremendous influence on mainstream fashion, television, movies,
advertising, and language .
Hoping to follow the success of rappers like LL Cool
J, Will Smith, Sean "Puffy" Combs, and Wyclef, many youth see the music
industry as one of their only opportunities to achieve the notoriety and
money to escape the hopelessness of the inner-city. However, those who
attempt to succeed in hip-hop music face a difficult challenge. In an
industry controlled by mainly by upper-class white men, young, urban
minority musicians are often treated as commodities, not as artists.
They must balance a need for artistic control and "keepin' it real" with
the limitations and pressures from record companies interested in
generating sales and massive appeal. Often the message and artistic
integrity of rappers can be lost amidst national marketing campaigns and
concern for approval by important commercial allies such as Wal-Mart
and MTV. In the growing success of the hip-hop market, musicians have
struggled to maintain rap's potency as a form of resistance and
empowerment.
In order to preserve rap's cultural function and,
simultaneously, to promote artistic and commercial progress, the
communities that have traditionally been the ones making the music
should be the ones that control its production and distribution. Hip-hop
must be recognized as a musical form and not merely a commercial
trend. Hip-hop, including its history, its forms, and its social
importance, should be taught in school music curriculum alongside
classical music, folk music, and jazz35. The inclusion of rap in music
education programs may also allow students and teachers to have an open
discourse on related issues such as the relationship between rap and
gangs, the presence of violence, misogyny, and homophobia in some rap
songs, and the debate over musical rating and advisory systems. Hip-hop
should be embraced in public school music programs as an American
innovation and a way to relate student interests with curriculum.
Additionally, rap could be integrated into English and language arts
curriculum as a form of both poetry and drama. Allowing students to
write and perform their own rap encourages them to think critically, to
practice writing in the narrative form, to increase vocabulary, and to
develop an understanding of rhyme and rhythm.
Inner-city youth organizations, such as the Boys
& Girls Club or the YMCA, can implement programs that promote an
interest in hip-hop music. These organizations give youth the
discipline, self-confidence, leadership, and other tools necessary for
success in the music industry. They may be able to work with local radio
and television stations and record labels--especially those started and
owned by African-Americans, such as Def Jam and Bad Boy--to provide
opportunities for internships, tours, and job shadow days that give
youth experience in the music industry. They may allow youth to
organize, promote, and perform in hip-hop concerts held regularly at the
club. Involving youth at all levels of planning provides valuable
experience that empowers them in the music industry and other facets of
business. Ultimately, by allowing youth to see and experience the way
that hip-hop is shaped, negatively and positively, by the business of
the music industry, they have the knowledge to make informed musical
decisions and, possibly, to make change in the workings of the music
industry.
In conclusion, despite the blame placed on rap for
the prominence of violence in American society, hip-hop music is a
symptom of cultural violence, not the cause. In order to understand
hip-hop, it is necessary to look at it as the product of a set of
historical, political, and economic circumstances and to study the role
it has served as voice for those subjugated by systematic political and
economic oppression. If the issue of violence in rap music is to be
effectively addressed, the root of the problem--disparity in resources
and opportunities for urban minorities--must be aggressively dealt with.
Rap music is a form of resistance to the systems of subjugation that
have created class discrepancies in the United States. In order to put
an end to violence, we must focus on alleviating the burden of the
inner-city working class. In order to put an end to the cycle of
nihilism present in the contemporary culture of inner-city minority
youth, we must provide them with the resources and opportunities to view
the future with hope.
Ethics of Development in a Global Environment (EDGE) | Poverty & Prejudice | Media and Race
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