Hip-Hop as Philosophical Text and Testimony: Can I Get a Witness (original) (raw)

MARCHING IN UNISON: HIP HOP AND CRITICAL RACE THEORY'S QUEST FOR

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of Hip Hop in translating the distress and anger experienced daily by African Americans in the United States during the last decade and how this culture has also been used as a vessel for gifted black youth to reach to the masses. As such, this paper is an attempt to shed light on the influence of rap as a musical genre to divulge, on one hand on societal white privilege that eventually leads to institutional racism and police brutality against people of color; while on the other hand, on interracial racism that ultimately induces violence and "black-on-black crime". Therefore, covering both institutional and communal aspects will be carried out through critical examination of the lyrics and interviews of two progressive Hip Hop artists-Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar; two major representatives of African Americans with two different approaches to reach different audiences as well as by diving into the ways both artists have been using their platform to positively impact black lives in America. Lyrics and styles of both artists will be framed through major concepts of Critical Race Theory emphasizing color disparities and oppression in American society.

"Hip-hopolitics": Oppression, resistance, and the soundtrack to the struggle.

Hip-hopolitics: Oppression, resistance, and the soundtrack to the struggle. 'The cliché that everything is political occludes how things are political. It does not tell us what makes an event political' (Dean. J, 2000:6). Similarly, simply ascribing political significance to music does little in the way of developing an understanding as to how music is implicated in the terrain of politics. In order to avoid such oversight, for the purposes of this essay I will be adopting a broad understanding of politics as pertaining to the exercise of power; expanding traditional conceptions of politics to encompass the multiplicity of agents involved in the contestation of power (Street, 2012:6-7; Hay, 2007). Drawing upon Tia DeNora's understanding of music as 'a powerful medium of social order' (DeNora, 2000:163), I will discuss the various ways that music is implicated in the exercise and contestation of power, constructing the argument that music embodies the political through both its resistive and oppressive qualities; reverberations of which carry through to the everyday organization of social life. For the purposes of tackling such a broad question, I have taken the decision to narrow the focus of analysis to one particular genre of music: Hip-hop.

"Conscious" Hip-Hop Takes on Two Forms: Protest and Respectability Politics

I have been eager to expand into the political with my writing and the recent divide among hip-hop's conscious leaders has been an important discussion to engage in. Most liberal folk can agree that the media is biased, corrupt, etc. but these racist narratives are showing up in hip-hop more and more. As Tricia Rose articulated, "why are we turning youth (through attacks on rap and I add, attacks on the black community) into the agents of their own demise, seeing black kids as the source of violence in america while denying the extraordinary violence done to them?" The media loves to emphasize black on black crime in order to minimize police brutality, institutional racism, envrionmental violence and simultaneously perpetuate the idea that white people don't kill white people. But who put the guns in the communities anyways?

The Pedagogy of Hip Hop: Underground Soundtracks for Dissecting and Confronting the Power Structure

Underground hip hop provides us with a soundtrack that is laced with historical context, deep analysis, and valuable knowledge - all of which should be applied while moving forward. The "psychic fuel" that Mumia Abu-Jamal points to in his brief commentary on Revolutionary, Volume 2, which "generates the anger that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry" is far from misguided, and extends far beyond cathartic release. While in the mainstream, the Black Radical Tradition continues to be tragically mocked by identity politics , activist-celebrity tweeters pimping corporate brands , black liberation-themed credit cards , high-dollar-plate events, non-profit organizations, and the Democratic Party, its torch remains lit through the lyrics burning on underground hip-hop tracks. And this underground reflects the pulse of the streets, where tens of millions experience daily life in the underbelly of instability - not on Twitter, Facebook, or fundraising dinners at the Marriott.

(Re)Building the Cypher: Fulfilling the Promise of Hip-Hop for Liberation

In this chapter we describe a pedagogy for building hip hop communities that can fulfill hip hop's liberatory potential. This pedagogy is based on the work of Project HIP-HOP (Highways Into the Past, History, Organizing, and Power), a Boston-based youth organization that trains young black and Latino/a hip hop artists as cultural organizers who can use their art to catalyze social change in their communities. Using the metaphor of the hip hop cypher, we show how Project HIP-HOP works to link young people to deep reservoirs of cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) by connecting them to their peers, their past, and their purpose. To envision the kind of hip hop communities we need in order to realize hip hop’s liberatory potential, we offer the metaphor of the cypher. The hip hop cypher, in which individual artists take turns performing and supporting one another in friendly competition, embodies hip hop’s roots as a form of individual and communal expression. Hip hop today, at least in its most widely disseminated forms, is out of balance. Building—and in some ways, rebuilding—the cypher means balancing hip hop’s tendencies toward individuality, competition, and boastfulness with the increasingly marginalized values of community, collaboration, and representing. It means supporting individual artists, while rebuilding the circle around him or her.