When looking at popular music today, it is quite logical to expect hip-hop (or hip-hop influenced R&B) to get massive airplay on the radio, MTV, and in cd players around the country (and world). In fact, a recent look at Billboard’s Top 50 shows that 33 of the top 50 (and nine of the top 10) songs in the United States are of the hip-hop variety. This is a long way from the beginning of the musical movement, which is chronicled in Nelson George’s Hip Hop America. Hip-Hop, George depicts, is, “the story of a society-altering collision between black youth culture and mass media, a story that touches on the themes of drugs, fashion, incarceration, basketball, entrepreneurship, technology, and language,” (back cover). Hip-hop as an art form rose to prominence in the 70s, and, as is apparent in Hip Hop America, has changed, grown, and revolutionized over the past three decades.
George depicts the birth of hip-hop from the ashes of soul and disco—and the ashes of the civil rights movement. He claims, “Hip hop is, as we’ll see, the spawn of many things. But, most profoundly, it is a product of schizophrenic, post-civil rights movement America,” (xiv). To believe that the civil rights movement was a monolithic, short-term event is to undermine the very efforts that George often praises throughout his work. Of course, it must be noted that his main purpose in Hip Hop America, is not to describe hip-hop as a force of civil rights (though he does discuss this, without overemphasizing the point) but instead its emergence as a cultural force. This did not seem likely in the 70s, where hip-hop was thought to be a fad, much as the shrinking disco market was. But hip-hoppers were not finding a replacement for disco, but they were expressing themselves in new ways. After all, “[t]he phase of the civil rights movement led by Dr. King, with its philosophy of nonviolence, its marchers in starched white shirts and narrow ties, was already literally long dead. The succeeding phase of angry, burn-baby-burn rhetoric was itself receding…” (1). In the wake of this shift, hip-hop culture—break dancing, graffiti, and music (both rapping and DJing)—emerged, “as a way of announcing one’s existence to the world,” (14).
The interesting difference between hip-hop and its predecessors is its ability to evolve. Asking the atypical hip-hop fan today (quite possibly of the White, suburban variety) was hip-hop includes, would probably omit break dancing, graffiti, and DJing, by-and-large, from the discussion, but in their place, they may describe fashion or film. Over the past 30 years, hip-hop has evolved from this tagging, break dancing, scratching culture to one that has focused on rapping. Of course, some (perhaps most) would say that this is not an evolution, but perhaps a deterioration—one where focus has been taken off of MC skills, and placed upon the beat or production of the song. This describes the ascension to the top of the charts by acts like Lil Jon—MCs whose prose does not include rhyme, but instead focuses on a danceable beat. This is not to say however that hip-hop has evolved to a state of lyric-less dance tune, but it has not remained static. From 1979’s “Rapper’s Paradise” by the Sugar Hill Gang to 1988’s “Colors” by Ice-T, to Jay-Z’s “Blue Magic” in 2007, hip-hop has consistently evolved over time and landscape (the sectionalizing of America from west-coast to east-coast to southern rap). Perhaps this is why hip-hop has had a continued fan-base for the past thirty years—a time frame much bigger than a passing fad. Though starting in New York City, hip-hop has expanded greatly over the past three decades. Absolutely, the hub of the culture is the same place that birthed it—NYC, but the music has not solely remained there. In the late 80s and early 90s acts like Ice-T and N.W.A. emerged on the hip-hop landscape from the west coast, followed by solo albums by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, not to mention Tupac and Snoop Doggy Dogg, to prove that hip-hop was not strictly a New York movement.
It is quite obvious that hip-hop has evolved and has become a staple of popular culture, but it may be premature to make any sweeping generalization about the overall impact of and direction of hip-hop today. There is no question, that one can look back to the 80s and 90s and see the impact on the national scene. From the “gansta rap” scene, came an outcry of obscenity from a large number of citizens. They articulated a question that linked hip-hop, and all its shortcomings to the Black Freedom Struggle by asking “Had Dr. King given his life so that young men could grab their privates and call women bitches?” (188). There seems to be a sense of disappointment in the leaders of the musical movement by those outside of the hip-hop community because of the lack of political commentary in the music. Perhaps it is out of this frustration that George acknowledges that, “[h]ip hop has actually had surprisingly little concrete long-term impact on African-American politics,” (154). It is hard to blame all hip-hoppers for this lack of a political voice, however. The fact is, there have been politically minded individuals on the microphone, but perhaps their voices were drowned out by the sheer volume of rappers. Chuck D, for instance, set a goal of spawning thousands of Black leaders. Presently, “conscious rap” stars like Common or Talib Kweli also use their stardom to raise political awareness. However, the large majority of rappers do not focus on political activity, which may be due to the fact that “MCs are not social activists by training or inclination,” (154-155). There is a standard of excellence here that seems not to exist in any other genre. It seems illogical to ask a rapper to influence politics—and then be disappointed when they do not—based solely on their profession. However, that seems to be the case, even after Sean (P. Diddy) Combs spearheads the “Vote or Die” campaign. Regardless, MCs cannot be held to a standard that they do not intend to (or are prepared to) fulfill.
This desire for MCs to plug into the political and historical landscape of America may be too much to ask, but that does not mean that current MCs do not look back. In fact, when looking at hip-hop, a reflection to past hits is a staple of the music. Since the 80s, hip-hop has employed the art of sampling—that is, taking snippets of old hits and using them in current songs. The practice has been both criticized and applauded—leading to one important question that George asks: “Is or isn’t sampling an extension of African-American tradition?” (96). George then goes on to answer it by saying “If creating new notes, new chords, and harmonies is what the African-American musical tradition is about, then sampling is not doing that. However, if that tradition means embracing new sounds, bending found technology to a creator’s will in search of new forms of rhythm made to inspire and please listeners, well then sampling is as black as the blues. Sampling has changed the way a generation hears,” (96). Sampling is also an interesting aspect of hip-hop’s perceived place in the music continuum. Hip-hop, as discussed before, was not birthed in a vacuum with no sense of historical context, but instead was created in an era and by a people with a story to tell. Perhaps this same logic is why many listeners lament at the fact that MCs are not as politically or socially minded—there is a historically contextualized story to tell, and sampling—and hip-hop in general have the potential to tell it.
Not everything in Hip Hop America is without flaws, however. In fact, there are two main flaws with it, which make it difficult to take entirely serious. First, because it was written 10 years ago, the timeliness of George’s work is not very accurate. He makes predictions about the music that, since its publication, never did come true, like this: “Many feel [D’Angelo]… is the future of black music,” (211). Obviously hindsight is 20-20, but errors in judgment like this cause the book as a whole to lose some amount of credibility, which would not be there in the first place if this book had been written later (which, of course, is no fault of George). The second flaw of the book is its first-person narrative that, from a historical aspect, lacks importance. There are books that greatly benefit from a first-person style, like Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, for example. George however, takes the first person structure, and uses it to explain his own place in hip-hop culture, or what he thinks about certain groups. Though this form of storytelling can make the work more personal (and enjoyable), from a historical standpoint, it dilutes the main purpose of Hip Hop America: history. With this in mind however, one can take an unintended parallel with Chuck D’s comment that hip-hop is “black CNN,” (187). One hang-up about CNN—or any news channel for that matter—is the fact that coverage is not comprehensive, but rather it pick-and-chooses bits and pieces of the news landscape. The same can be true for Hip Hop America: it is not an all-inclusive look into hip-hop’s music and culture, but instead it is a slice of many aspects (people, locale, time, etc.) within the movement.
All this being said, however, George’s work is one that shows the impact of hip-hop on an international stage. When looking at a fashion magazine or listening to a popular radio station or turning on a television, it becomes quite obvious of hip-hop’s marketability. Though the long-standing impact of hip-hop still has not been determined, it is quite easy to come to the conclusion that it is not a passing fad. Unlike disco, which sparked the hip-hop revolution, it has adapted to the time and geography that it inhabited. Perhaps George said it best when he said, “The truth is that hip hop—in its many guises—has reflected (and internationalized) our society’s woes so evocatively that it has grown from minority expression to mainstream appreciation. Our nation’s clothes, our language, our standards for entertainment, our sexuality, and our role models are just a few items that have been affected by hip hop’s existence,” (211). Though we do not know how long hip-hop will remain, it is evident that hip-hop has had a unique, tangible impact on the world it surrounds.
Works Cited
George, Nelson. Hip Hop America. New York, NY: The Penguin Group, 1998.
Again, before any new material, I have decided to place one previous paper, done for History 326: Black Freedom Struggle, on this site, as it deals with identical subject matter. It will be interesting to see if any thoughts from this paper will continue as I gain knowledge about hip hop.
While discussing the Black Freedom Struggle in its entirety, a simple question is often asked: “Where did the struggle go?” Though there have been a number of different answers, presently, one cannot answer this question without looking at hip-hop. As Professor S. Craig Watkins, author of Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema has said, “Hip hop has become the most visible voice for black culture, and it’s definitely changing the broader social culture,” (“Studying a Hip Hop Nation,” Kay Randall). Hip-hop has evolved into an industry worth billions of dollars, encompassing different generations, races, and is a truly unique culture. What is interesting, however, is this: throughout American history, Whites—having the power structure in their hands—have continually marginalized African Americans. What is countercultural to this historic trend, however, is the White buy-in to the hip-hop culture. From the Beastie Boys to Eminem, White influence—both behind the mic and behind record sales—has been so significant within the culture that it has often been said that it makes up the majority of the listening audience. In fact, “Forbes magazine (‘The Business of Hip-Hop: A Billion-dollar Industry,’ February 18, 2004) reported that of an estimated 45 million hip-hop customers between 13 and 34, 80 percent were white,” (Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, Bakari Kitwana, 82). Though Kitwana calls into question the validity of this percentage, even if it is exaggerated, the fact remains that Whites have a huge stake in a hip-hop movement spurred by the Black Freedom Struggle.
What is interesting, however, is the growth of hip-hop from its perception as a negative, “Black” culture trend, to an acceptable means of entertainment/art. A middle aged White man explained, “When I was in high school, a friend came up to me one day and told me that he had been writing rhymes for about a year, but was afraid to tell anyone. It was normal for that to happen back then. We still got made fun of by some of our friends for being white and into hip-hop,” (Kitwana, 9). But, in his interview, he further explained the profoundness of the hip-hop culture by saying, “Looking back on my formative years, I see that we were trying to create an identity for ourselves that was more substantive than what we were handed in public school, church or any other outlet. We were really fighting for our spirits, fighting to define ourselves outside of mainstream American society by latching onto an oppositional identity and the perceived power in hip-hop,” (Kitwana, 9). It is interesting to see this unique twist to race relations: that White youth looked to Black culture for power. For the suburban, middle-to-upper-class White individual to listen to lyrics like, “Say somethin’ positive, well positive ain’t where I live / I live around the corner from West Hell / Two blocks from South Shit and once in a jail cell / The sun never shined on my side of the street, see?” (“Ghetto Bastard,” Naughty By Nature) is to experience a new culture all together.
It is this spread of Black culture that is so unique in hip-hop. And within the dispersal of Black culture to White America, along with it came the frustrations of growing up Black and powerless. In generations past, the well-educated ministers had been the talking heads of the Black Freedom Struggle, but with the emergence of this hip-hop culture, new voices have surfaced. Interestingly, with this new identity within the movement, the voices being heard were those of the people themselves, bringing to mind essence of what Claudette Colvin said, “who, when asked at the federal trial who the [Montgomery] boycott’s leader was, responded: ‘Our leaders is just we ourself,’” (Freedom’s Daughters, Lynne Olson, 127). The leaders of the hip-hop movement have never been anyone but the common crowd themselves. The parallels of this hip-hop culture and the “Civil Rights Movement” are not coincidental, but instead are similar because both are part of the larger context—the continual struggle toward human rights. When it is said, “Compton is the place that I touched down / I opened my eyes to realize that I was dark brown / And right there in the ghetto that color costs / Brothers smothered by the streets meaning we’re lost / I grew up in a place where it was go for your own / Don’t get caught after dark roaming the danger zone / But it was hell at the age of twelve / As my Compton black brothers were in and out of jail,” (“Raised in Compton,” Compton’s Most Wanted), it is not spoken in a vacuum, but rather is another voice in an ongoing problem within American history: the lack of power of the Black community.
It would be inaccurate to believe that hip-hop culture is synonymous to Black culture, but it is a significant subdivision. Part of this can be explained by its commentary on the history of the Black power struggle. Firstly, “[f]rom the start, the public viewed hip-hop culture and rap music through a racist lens. Rappers and rap fans were often portrayed as menacing Black adolescents, and rap music was vilified as violent and misogynistic,” (“Rap and Race: It’s Got a Nice Beat, but What about the Message?,” Rachel E. Sullivan, 607). As in their history, again Black culture was deemed inferior to that of White culture. But to marginalize hip-hop as a violent and misogynistic genre is to forget that, “rap music has both overt and covert political dimensions: ‘Rap’s poetic voice is deeply political in content and spirit, but its hidden struggle—that of access to public space and community resources and the interpretation of Black expression—constitutes rap’s hidden politics,’” (Sullivan, 607, with quotation from Tricia Rose’s Black Noise). The political aspects of hip-hop, though often overlooked by White America, offer an outlet for many Blacks who feel the frustrations of the ongoing struggle for power. It is in this power struggle that hip-hop has emerged as a way for Black youth to voice their frustrations.
It could easily be believed then, that hip-hop has become a national (and international) force, both in the music business (with commercial success) and in the cultural aspect due to this growing national stage to voice frustrations. This nationalistic trend is not one that has taken place over the past few years, but has been evolving since its birth. This force has long been noted: “Commenting in 1988 on rap’s ‘nationwide’ expansion beyond New York’s Boroughs, Nelson George writes, ‘Rap and its Hip Hop musical underpinning is now the national youth music of black America,’” (“‘Represent’: race, space and place in rap music,” Murray Forman, 68). This idea of it being the national youth music of black America has remained consistent and seems likely to continue into the foreseeable future. In a study of 51 teenagers (21 Blacks, 17 Whites, 7 Latinos, and 6 marking other categories), it was found that hip-hop is still listened to more frequently and enjoyed more by African American youth (Sullivan). Although the White youth examined tended to answer relatively similar to questions about rap, there was still an obvious gap in the relevance of hip-hop to Whites and Blacks. In answering why they listened to rap, this gap was quite obvious. Whereas a 15-year-old Black female answered, “Because it tells the truth about how us Black people live being raised in the ghetto,” (Sullivan, 614), an 18-year-old White male answered, “Because some of the things the rappers rap about is the same type of shit that happens in everyday life to sombody [sic] from the hood,” (Sullivan, 615). This disconnect between the Black response (one that was inclusive) and the White response (that was detached from hip-hop culture) is again reminiscent of the lack of understanding Whites have long had with Black culture.
This disconnect has always existed when it has come to White/Black relations. Perhaps hip-hop cannot be fully compared to the bus boycotts or lunch counter sit-ins of the 1960s, but the goals behind them are the same: discussing the frustrations and problems behind having an inadequate amount of power. Throughout African American history (or for that matter, African history), the continual struggle for human rights has been obvious. From Marcus Garvey to Tupac Shakur, and Martin Luther King to Mos Def, time has eclipsed, but the struggle has remained consistent. It is inadequate to view the “Civil Rights Movement” as a short lived, monolithic, concluded event. The struggle for power—and with it, human rights—has been and continues to exist. Hip-hop—the music and the culture—is a reminder that the goals of the human rights movement have yet to be achieved. And with this, comes the critical point that the United States is still not a “color blind” nation.
Perhaps, Sullivan’s research sums up the state of the younger generation. Her findings “indicate that racial differences in the popularity of rap music are limited. However, further questions reveal that African American youth are more committed to rap music and are more likely to see rap music as life affirming. Although both groups appear to have favorable opinions of rap, their commitment to it and its significance in their lives varies by race,” (Sullivan, 605). Hip-hop culture, though attractive to White youths, is still symbolic of the disconnect in today’s society between Whites and Blacks. Though hip-hop has been “accepted” in the mainstream culture, the true historical significance of the movement has still not been obtained. The objective of hip-hop has not been for “Whites, particularly young women [to listen] to rap because it had a ‘nice beat,’” (Sullivan, 614). Instead, hip-hop was created by a frustrated Black culture to vent their discontent with the status of Blacks in the United States. And although hip-hop has since been accepted, in no way, shape, or form does this represent the acceptance of Blacks into White America, nor does it make a case that the struggle for human rights has been completed. Instead, it is just another chapter in the ongoing struggle for power.
Works Cited
Compton’s Most Wanted. “Raised In Compton.” Straight Check N’ Em Epic/Sony Records, 1991.
Forman, Murray. “ ‘Represent’: race, space and place in rap music” Popular Music Vol. 19, No. 1 (January 2000): 65-90. JSTOR. < http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0261-1430%28200001%2919%3A1%3C65%3A%27RSAPI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8>
Kitwana, Bakari. Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America. New York, NY: Perseus Book Group, 2006.
Naughty By Nature. “Ghetto Bastard (Everything’s Gonna Be Alright).” Naughty By Nature Isba/Tommy Boy Records, 1991.
Randall, Kay. Studying a Hip Hop Nation. January 23, 2006. < http://www.utexas.edu /features/archive/2003/hiphop.html>
Sullivan, Rachel E. “Rap and Race: It’s Got a Nice Beat, but What about the Message?” Journal of Black Studies Vol. 33, No. 5 (May 2003): 605-622. JSTOR. < http:// links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00219347%28200305%2933%3A5%3C605%3ARARIGA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X>
