In all the years I have lived I have never asked anyone if they like rap music. In the same amount of time I have lost track of how often I have pointedly been told: I don't like rap music. This unsolicited information has been offered to me so many times that it became a source of curiosity to me. The only other genres of music I sometimes hear people claim not to like are jazz and classical music, less frequently, country music. I began to ask randomly why it was they disliked these various genres. With classical and jazz I was most frequently told: I don't understand what I am listening to. Fair enough, that can be taught and for some, music without words is daunting. With country it was too often perceived as the music of the uneducated and sarcastically for those that needed to pine over lost lover in a bar. But when it came to rap music folks just dismissed it, en masse, as not worthy of their time. This seemed odd to me as a singer and lay musicologist. Possibly because I am a singer I understand that all music has value in a way a lay person might not. But because I write about race issues, culture and representation I think it's weird that only people who identify as white dismiss a genre of music that is dominated by people of African descent. White women who claim to be feminists use the excuse that Rap music is degrading to women, white men just, "don't like it".
(Honestly I woke up this morning wondering why I never seem to have the time to write about Popsicles and fluffy stuff and I sat down at my computer with a kooky expression on my face muttering: Because people keep saying the damnedest things). And off I go again...
If you were one of the fortunate ones to have guided readings in school of an array of African American literature or know anything about pan African culture, rap music might thrill you or at it's least you would be able to find some pieces which gave voice to some of your very own feelings you've experienced. Academics, as it was for most of us, steered African American studies into 'ethnic studies' (ignoring the fact that white culture could be argued for and studied as an ethnicity too, which it now is), and white students sidestepped or were steered away from it thus receiving the message that it is of no interest to their lives. This travesty is all the more grave because when we are taught, however sublely, that the 'other' is strange or unimportant we become alienated from one another. The 'other,' and by default, unknown, becomes frightening. This is true when we fear eating the food of other cultures, hear languages spoken other than our own, that provoke anxiety in us, or view people doing things that we believe shouldn't be done because it is not what we would do ourselves.
One of the greatest moments of my life came about in college. There was a moment in time, in a classroom, when the light bulb over my head glowed bright. It was a moment when I came to understand that the book being written, and the painting being painted gets created when specific things are happening in the world. That art is created in a direct opposition or in conjunction with the political atmosphere of its time. That 19th c. paintings of realism bloomed alongside the invention of the camera. That it all operates, going seemingly along willy-nilly, in a cyclical canonical manner. Nothing is isolated from the other. Nothing is completely original except for the 'first time' it was Everything after is building upon the original. That Stephen King can be, because Edgar Allen Poe was. That War and Peace would never have been written without the Russian Revolution. That the movement away from polytheism brought us towards concepts of punishment and shame. That modern psychology may suggest that neurosis is an internal conflict with the outside and that shame and punishment are not the concepts one should be dealing with for a joyful life.
My dear friend Bob and I had a day long conversation, a wonderful conversation, and one of the questions he posed to me was why do African Americans sometimes give themselves such lofty names? I could answer that quickly but not as thoroughly as Dr. Herbert Woodward Martin does in his excellent lecture on the history of The African American Oral Tradition. It's a lecture that should leave its listener informed and better equipped to re-listen to the works of Duke Ellington, Lady Day, Nat King Cole, and listen in the context to the world these artists were living in when they created their music. When you see names like Queen Latifah, Miss Eighty 6 or Lady Sovereign you may understand what is at play in the African American tradition and hopefully you will understand that it is a nod to those that came before us.
From a cursory glance women rappers tend to use this honorific title tradition more so than their male counterparts. This may be because female rappers have had to fight their way into the field and once having arrived countering, some of the ideas and concepts of their male counterparts. That all by itself is part and parcel of what rap is about. Rap can't, by definition, stand alone with men. Women have to rap to contradict what men are rapping about. That's how rap works. You say some shit and I say some shit right back at you, and by audience approval we decide who wins. Another layer on top of the Apollo Theatre. To hear White women, who identify as feminist, claim that rap music is insulting or degrading to women is insulting to the women who pioneered in Rap. It's a blanket dismissal of their work, their efforts, the fight time they put in to get where they are and insulting to their intelligence as women. They are not like hookers trapped in a profession pimped out by men. The women who dominate Rap are fierce women who are not taking a single thing laying down. I suspect that those that believe rap is degrading to women read that concept somewhere and have never actually looked at rap and if they did, had no clue what they were actually viewing.
I've never seen a degrading rap video in my life. But I also don't go out of my way to find the few videos that fit the bill. Honorific titles are just a part of a tradition and they may be used more with female rappers than men because when women fight they always have to fight longer. Some rap is not of my liking but some songs by the Rolling Stones are not of my liking either. One can argue that the music of The Stones is misogynistic and racist (and been around just as long if not longer), but I don't notice people having much to say about that. I suspect the strong presence of women in Rap has caused many of their male counterparts to be better men. Sometimes men need to be put in their place as only women can do.
I have listened to and watched thousands of Rap music videos. I love Rap. I love its humour, its lessons, its innocence, its vulnerability and its long time coming. I like the 'street' and I adore its going-to-the- movies-with-an-all-black-audience party-like atmosphere when I watch the videos. Sitting in Merida, I can go 'home' and get my fix for awhile. I respect it because I am watching the canon of Pan African history. Rap music is the music of revolution. It nods to Africa, but its roots are in America but the revolution has gone global. Those African American roots, shining through slavery and Jim Crow has touched the nerves of people all over the world who see that the dreams they have been fed by their governments, that the landscapes of their immediate place is not the vision they wish to see. Revolutions and change are made by the angry. By the subaltern, and it is only the subaltern that can make things better for all.
I understand why some White people don't like Rap music. I feel for you because I know what it feels like to be left out. Rap music is not about you. This music is because of you but you are not invited to this party; you don't even get to be the token at the party. It's language is written in code, it's the new 'steal away' language and it's not meant for you to understand. It holds up, and makes fun of, all you hold dear. It's Black with no apologies. It leaves you out and makes you feel alienated in the same way we are left out by White society. You don't apologize so we aren't either. It is the children whose parents fought and died in the Civil Rights Movement who still have to see their parents, in old age, have their churches burnt down. It is the American Dream hosted and run by a subculture that was dismissed as not relevant. It has created its own rules and its own perimeters. And all you can say is: I don't like that. You have no power to do anything other than say, just that. You are in the position of impotence and this position does not allow you to find words beyond: I don't like it.
50 Cents' In Da Club can't say it any clearer: We Going To Party Like It's Your Birthday (my italics). At your birthday you want the best gifts and the happiest time but we are not invited. So we are going to have our own party and party like it is your birthday and you're not invited. We party and play by our own rules. We are not listening to what your liberal nature thinks is good for everyone (us). It allows us to laugh when there is nothing funny to be seen even on the horizon. It lets us make fun of how ridiculous and throat choking the power of privilege really is but mostly it allows us to work out the rage in privacy and without apology. It is the music of the subaltern. And more and more white people are showing up at the table to perform rap, I think, because increasingly, world wide, people are noticing their dreams are illusions and will never come true. Privilege expects the best. But the best is always gotten by ill means: on the backs of the subaltern.
The symbolism in Rap videos is staggering, the nods are endless. If I had to write down everything I see, the list would be endless. But I guess the most important thing I want to stress is how incredibly funny some rap videos are. And the funniest videos with some of the most important messages are coming from rap stars who scare people the most. Black culture is scary only when you don't know what you are looking at. Because you had the misfortune of being steered away in school, in your neighbourhoods, in your churches you never got a chance to stop seeing us as 'the other'.
I'm inviting you in now.
I have a dear friend who is a world renowned African America feminist and author. In the past she has written a few pieces suggesting that Beyoncé may be a new type of feminist.This position personally boggles my mind. Boggles it. I understand gender studies and I am just going to hope for the moment that this is really where she places Beyoncé but for me when I think of the role of feminism, twerking is not a part of the equation. Placing our genitals in the faces of strangers, while I understand the concept, is really only something the young can get away with and for me feminism is for all our sisters, the young and the old, and too, I think feminism needs to respect its elders. Respect is not the same, and should not be construed as, being silenced or self-silencing. Feminism is equal pay for equal work. It is not White women talking for women of colour because they think their rules are applicable to all. Twerking is another generations idea of sex when my generation got to fuck like bunnies without fear of contracting HIV. It is not worse and I am not better, it is just another creation created in the atmosphere in which it was born.
My personal definition of feminism, me as a woman writing now, is being able to say, 'no' and that being the end of the sentence. It is choosing who I want to be with rather than you telling me what I should be doing. It is standing up for myself, just like a man might and does, and not apologizing for having an opinion. Beyoncé does not speak to me in this regard. When I look at female rappers I see women I want by my side at the revolution. These women don't give a flying fuck what you think and that is the kind of woman you want at your side when the shit goes down. Beyoncé will be looking for her matching shoes to take aboard her matching plane. That said she and Jay Z are at the pinnacle. And everyone wants what they have but they acheived it through Rap. Don't ever forget that. And their Blackness is not getting any Whiter with every dollar they make. No apologies there. Kim Kardashian and her husband Kanye rub Rap in our faces every single day and it drives some people to distraction. Rap rubs your miscegenation nightmares in your face. It's thumbing its nose at you actually and there is not a thing you can do. Kanye West is particularly amusing to me because almost every single picture he takes looks like the pictures White newspapers dredge up when they need black people to really mean 'thug'. He is a thug laughing all the way to the bank. I think also, that his middle class privileged background leaves people scratching their heads why he chose to Rap instead of take up Whiter sensibilities. You keep asking yourself those types of questions and I am going to keep explaining to you why you weren't invited to the party.
The title of this blog entry comes from a piece that is perhaps the earliest rap song I can remember. Even White people of a certain age remember this one because it was a song of revolution during the Vietnam War coming out with a bang in 1974. I think it is important to view rap videos with the lyrics handy. The lyrics will only serve to deepen your understanding of what you are seeing.
The references are all over the place and everyone is paying homage to someone else. Everyone is acknowledging someone that came before which as African Americans, in the African tradition, it is what we do with pride. Most people think of Flavor Flav and they don't see how he might influence anyone. They would be hard pressed to say they understood him. Top hat and tails, a giant clock around his neck, sometimes he is seen with a viking helmet on his head. To the untrained eye you miss what he is doing. Does it make more sense after viewing this video from Tibet? Some of the best rap music borrows licks from classical music or instruments. Sometimes it borrows from
Everyone raps but some of the best rap music is coming from places with the most to revolt against. Rap does not come from privilege and this may be the very reason it is not understood. While most people would not consider Marvin Gaye or William De Vaughn rap performers they certainly, without a doubt, have a legacy that places them at the beginning with musicians that began to write songs that specifically recounted the African American experience. What's Going On and Mayfield's soundtrack for Superfly helped change the course of African American music. They were singing songs aimed at our ears, documenting our experiences and refusing to sanitize or self censor for other audience.
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Unfortunately I can not find a clearer copy of Hawaiian Sophie but The Jaz, who launched Jay Z's career did this video which is very funny. It's cute. Nothing scary here. Fresh Prince's Parent's Just Don't Understand launched Will Smiths career into the stratosphere. It also, in a humorous manner and put to a beat, is an experience which is universal. Pockets of people have had similar experiences to African Americans and have reworked rap to fit their unique experiences. Chicano Rap talks of the Mexican American experience. Of having a wall erected with family on one side labeled as undesirable while you stand on land stolen from the undesirables.
The Lowrider has been around in music for ages, (WAR, Diamonds in the Back/Be Thankful For what You Got), The car (the means to leave, to get out) is an important image. It's symbolic. To have a car that curtsies, bows, and dances is just a continuation of the top hat and tails, the symbols of privilege. Taking the tools of the ruling class and making it our own with humour, laughing at what you deem important. You got a classic car? I got a classic car that sings three arias. You own evening wear? You're having a party? Can I come even if I only have my gym clothes and a hoodie? But they are designer gym clothes… My friends don't care what I wear… And we knew from the get go the invitation wasn't sincere.
To illustrate its competitive beginnings, and how it was a one up-man-ship, who can do it better format, here is a completely ridiculous rap song taken to an extreme.
Next: Rap Goes Elsewhere
(Honestly I woke up this morning wondering why I never seem to have the time to write about Popsicles and fluffy stuff and I sat down at my computer with a kooky expression on my face muttering: Because people keep saying the damnedest things). And off I go again...
If you were one of the fortunate ones to have guided readings in school of an array of African American literature or know anything about pan African culture, rap music might thrill you or at it's least you would be able to find some pieces which gave voice to some of your very own feelings you've experienced. Academics, as it was for most of us, steered African American studies into 'ethnic studies' (ignoring the fact that white culture could be argued for and studied as an ethnicity too, which it now is), and white students sidestepped or were steered away from it thus receiving the message that it is of no interest to their lives. This travesty is all the more grave because when we are taught, however sublely, that the 'other' is strange or unimportant we become alienated from one another. The 'other,' and by default, unknown, becomes frightening. This is true when we fear eating the food of other cultures, hear languages spoken other than our own, that provoke anxiety in us, or view people doing things that we believe shouldn't be done because it is not what we would do ourselves.
One of the greatest moments of my life came about in college. There was a moment in time, in a classroom, when the light bulb over my head glowed bright. It was a moment when I came to understand that the book being written, and the painting being painted gets created when specific things are happening in the world. That art is created in a direct opposition or in conjunction with the political atmosphere of its time. That 19th c. paintings of realism bloomed alongside the invention of the camera. That it all operates, going seemingly along willy-nilly, in a cyclical canonical manner. Nothing is isolated from the other. Nothing is completely original except for the 'first time' it was Everything after is building upon the original. That Stephen King can be, because Edgar Allen Poe was. That War and Peace would never have been written without the Russian Revolution. That the movement away from polytheism brought us towards concepts of punishment and shame. That modern psychology may suggest that neurosis is an internal conflict with the outside and that shame and punishment are not the concepts one should be dealing with for a joyful life.
My dear friend Bob and I had a day long conversation, a wonderful conversation, and one of the questions he posed to me was why do African Americans sometimes give themselves such lofty names? I could answer that quickly but not as thoroughly as Dr. Herbert Woodward Martin does in his excellent lecture on the history of The African American Oral Tradition. It's a lecture that should leave its listener informed and better equipped to re-listen to the works of Duke Ellington, Lady Day, Nat King Cole, and listen in the context to the world these artists were living in when they created their music. When you see names like Queen Latifah, Miss Eighty 6 or Lady Sovereign you may understand what is at play in the African American tradition and hopefully you will understand that it is a nod to those that came before us.
From a cursory glance women rappers tend to use this honorific title tradition more so than their male counterparts. This may be because female rappers have had to fight their way into the field and once having arrived countering, some of the ideas and concepts of their male counterparts. That all by itself is part and parcel of what rap is about. Rap can't, by definition, stand alone with men. Women have to rap to contradict what men are rapping about. That's how rap works. You say some shit and I say some shit right back at you, and by audience approval we decide who wins. Another layer on top of the Apollo Theatre. To hear White women, who identify as feminist, claim that rap music is insulting or degrading to women is insulting to the women who pioneered in Rap. It's a blanket dismissal of their work, their efforts, the fight time they put in to get where they are and insulting to their intelligence as women. They are not like hookers trapped in a profession pimped out by men. The women who dominate Rap are fierce women who are not taking a single thing laying down. I suspect that those that believe rap is degrading to women read that concept somewhere and have never actually looked at rap and if they did, had no clue what they were actually viewing.
I've never seen a degrading rap video in my life. But I also don't go out of my way to find the few videos that fit the bill. Honorific titles are just a part of a tradition and they may be used more with female rappers than men because when women fight they always have to fight longer. Some rap is not of my liking but some songs by the Rolling Stones are not of my liking either. One can argue that the music of The Stones is misogynistic and racist (and been around just as long if not longer), but I don't notice people having much to say about that. I suspect the strong presence of women in Rap has caused many of their male counterparts to be better men. Sometimes men need to be put in their place as only women can do.
I have listened to and watched thousands of Rap music videos. I love Rap. I love its humour, its lessons, its innocence, its vulnerability and its long time coming. I like the 'street' and I adore its going-to-the- movies-with-an-all-black-audience party-like atmosphere when I watch the videos. Sitting in Merida, I can go 'home' and get my fix for awhile. I respect it because I am watching the canon of Pan African history. Rap music is the music of revolution. It nods to Africa, but its roots are in America but the revolution has gone global. Those African American roots, shining through slavery and Jim Crow has touched the nerves of people all over the world who see that the dreams they have been fed by their governments, that the landscapes of their immediate place is not the vision they wish to see. Revolutions and change are made by the angry. By the subaltern, and it is only the subaltern that can make things better for all.
I understand why some White people don't like Rap music. I feel for you because I know what it feels like to be left out. Rap music is not about you. This music is because of you but you are not invited to this party; you don't even get to be the token at the party. It's language is written in code, it's the new 'steal away' language and it's not meant for you to understand. It holds up, and makes fun of, all you hold dear. It's Black with no apologies. It leaves you out and makes you feel alienated in the same way we are left out by White society. You don't apologize so we aren't either. It is the children whose parents fought and died in the Civil Rights Movement who still have to see their parents, in old age, have their churches burnt down. It is the American Dream hosted and run by a subculture that was dismissed as not relevant. It has created its own rules and its own perimeters. And all you can say is: I don't like that. You have no power to do anything other than say, just that. You are in the position of impotence and this position does not allow you to find words beyond: I don't like it.
50 Cents' In Da Club can't say it any clearer: We Going To Party Like It's Your Birthday (my italics). At your birthday you want the best gifts and the happiest time but we are not invited. So we are going to have our own party and party like it is your birthday and you're not invited. We party and play by our own rules. We are not listening to what your liberal nature thinks is good for everyone (us). It allows us to laugh when there is nothing funny to be seen even on the horizon. It lets us make fun of how ridiculous and throat choking the power of privilege really is but mostly it allows us to work out the rage in privacy and without apology. It is the music of the subaltern. And more and more white people are showing up at the table to perform rap, I think, because increasingly, world wide, people are noticing their dreams are illusions and will never come true. Privilege expects the best. But the best is always gotten by ill means: on the backs of the subaltern.
The symbolism in Rap videos is staggering, the nods are endless. If I had to write down everything I see, the list would be endless. But I guess the most important thing I want to stress is how incredibly funny some rap videos are. And the funniest videos with some of the most important messages are coming from rap stars who scare people the most. Black culture is scary only when you don't know what you are looking at. Because you had the misfortune of being steered away in school, in your neighbourhoods, in your churches you never got a chance to stop seeing us as 'the other'.
I'm inviting you in now.
I have a dear friend who is a world renowned African America feminist and author. In the past she has written a few pieces suggesting that Beyoncé may be a new type of feminist.This position personally boggles my mind. Boggles it. I understand gender studies and I am just going to hope for the moment that this is really where she places Beyoncé but for me when I think of the role of feminism, twerking is not a part of the equation. Placing our genitals in the faces of strangers, while I understand the concept, is really only something the young can get away with and for me feminism is for all our sisters, the young and the old, and too, I think feminism needs to respect its elders. Respect is not the same, and should not be construed as, being silenced or self-silencing. Feminism is equal pay for equal work. It is not White women talking for women of colour because they think their rules are applicable to all. Twerking is another generations idea of sex when my generation got to fuck like bunnies without fear of contracting HIV. It is not worse and I am not better, it is just another creation created in the atmosphere in which it was born.
My personal definition of feminism, me as a woman writing now, is being able to say, 'no' and that being the end of the sentence. It is choosing who I want to be with rather than you telling me what I should be doing. It is standing up for myself, just like a man might and does, and not apologizing for having an opinion. Beyoncé does not speak to me in this regard. When I look at female rappers I see women I want by my side at the revolution. These women don't give a flying fuck what you think and that is the kind of woman you want at your side when the shit goes down. Beyoncé will be looking for her matching shoes to take aboard her matching plane. That said she and Jay Z are at the pinnacle. And everyone wants what they have but they acheived it through Rap. Don't ever forget that. And their Blackness is not getting any Whiter with every dollar they make. No apologies there. Kim Kardashian and her husband Kanye rub Rap in our faces every single day and it drives some people to distraction. Rap rubs your miscegenation nightmares in your face. It's thumbing its nose at you actually and there is not a thing you can do. Kanye West is particularly amusing to me because almost every single picture he takes looks like the pictures White newspapers dredge up when they need black people to really mean 'thug'. He is a thug laughing all the way to the bank. I think also, that his middle class privileged background leaves people scratching their heads why he chose to Rap instead of take up Whiter sensibilities. You keep asking yourself those types of questions and I am going to keep explaining to you why you weren't invited to the party.
The title of this blog entry comes from a piece that is perhaps the earliest rap song I can remember. Even White people of a certain age remember this one because it was a song of revolution during the Vietnam War coming out with a bang in 1974. I think it is important to view rap videos with the lyrics handy. The lyrics will only serve to deepen your understanding of what you are seeing.
The references are all over the place and everyone is paying homage to someone else. Everyone is acknowledging someone that came before which as African Americans, in the African tradition, it is what we do with pride. Most people think of Flavor Flav and they don't see how he might influence anyone. They would be hard pressed to say they understood him. Top hat and tails, a giant clock around his neck, sometimes he is seen with a viking helmet on his head. To the untrained eye you miss what he is doing. Does it make more sense after viewing this video from Tibet? Some of the best rap music borrows licks from classical music or instruments. Sometimes it borrows from
other music with a nod to other greatness. Not all rap music is created equal. There is a reason the great ones have sustained themselves for so long. Because it is doing something that is not only visually, but acoustically complex. The clothing - a tendency towards name brand track suits, hoodies, baseball caps, and prison wear- and the hand gesturing are universal. Not knowing the language spoken one can still understand the feeling behind the words. Rap music conveys imagery of: I'm strong, I'll get over you, peace, government malpractice, revolution, gender equality, turn off the bullshit coming from your mouth, and the experiences of the subaltern made funny.
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In the past African American music has had to fit the criteria and tastes of white audiences. This was a turning point.
Do Wop, up in The Bronx, was a bunch of Italian guys standing on a corner rapping. Just a bunch of guys trying to make their voice sound as good, and harmonize with, the guy standing next to him. They are earlier than rap but it has the same roots: poor guys in the hood trying to get the fuck out of the hood and using their talent to do so. Rap music was a bunch of guys trying to say something funny, profound, whimsical and not miss a beat literally. In its earlier stages none of it was scripted. It was a contest, a one up-manship. It was fun and nobody on the planet did it better than African Americans. It was new and fresh, and it caught everyone off guard. The Sugar Hill Gang out of The Bronx came out of thin air. Everybody knew the lyrics to this song and I'm going to bet practically everyone moved their ass on a dance floor to it as well. It was alive like music hadn't been in ages and we couldn't get enough. In the past African American music had to fit the criteria and tastes of white audiences. This was a turning point.
To illustrate its competitive beginnings, and how it was a one up-man-ship, who can do it better format, here is a completely ridiculous rap song taken to an extreme.
Despite its extreme portrayal it's a social commentary on Americans and how were are perceived by other people. There are groups of people, met too frequently, that think Chinese people are the scorn of the earth. But there are equal numbers of people who feel the same about Americans. Rap allows people to say horrible things while showing you how ridiculous it is to say them, to feel these things; to harbour these perceptions. I would say that more than any other genre of music Rap has lent its influence to more artists that would not be considered in that vein. Madonna, Söhne Mannheims, Celie Dion, Christian music, even Pavarotti got in on the action. its influence is far reaching and unknown. Rap fails in the hands of the privileged as it demands to be in the hands of the authentic. Rap makes no sense to the privileged class because they can't use it for anything. It so thoroughly snubs its nose at the privileged that the privileged is scared it's seeking revenge. Artists such as Eminem, Iggy Azalea are constantly accused of cultural appropriation. It's a fine line and one I am not qualified to address but I can speak to talking the talk if you've walked the walk and sometimes shit just doesn't ring true.
Next: Rap Goes Elsewhere
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