tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/hip-hop-36435/articlesHip-hop – The Conversation2023-09-21T23:32:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122662023-09-21T23:32:49Z2023-09-21T23:32:49ZFor the people in the nosebleed section: the Hilltop Hoods’ The Calling at 20<p>On September 22 2003, Adelaide hip-hop group the Hilltop Hoods released The Calling. </p>
<p>They had been making music for over ten years, but this, their third full-length album, would be their first to have mainstream success.</p>
<p>They hoped to sell 3,000 records. Those expectations were quickly eclipsed.</p>
<p>The album was launched with a sold-out show at Planet nightclub. Two tracks (The Nosebleed Section and Dumb Enough) gained significant radio play. The Hoods used this publicity to grow their fanbase through touring. </p>
<p>They became the first Australian hip-hop artists <a href="http://hilltophoods.com/discography/the-calling/">to reach</a> gold status, selling 35,000 copies. By 2006, it was platinum: 70,000 copies sold. Since 2003, all of the Hoods’ albums have reached platinum or higher. </p>
<p>Twenty years since its release, The Calling is still a <a href="https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/50-all-time-greatest-aussie-hip-hop-tracks/">mainstay</a> on “best of” Australian hip-hop lists.</p>
<p>Rapper Briggs <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/classic-albums/hilltop-hoods---the-calling/10273916">describes</a> the album as “the icebreaker”:</p>
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<p>This opened the door for the possibilities. It wasn’t a piss-take, it wasn’t anything but real hip-hop music.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hip-hop-at-50-7-essential-listens-to-celebrate-raps-widespread-influence-211298">Hip-hop at 50: 7 essential listens to celebrate rap's widespread influence</a>
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<h2>Bringing hip-hop to Australia</h2>
<p>Today, the Hoods are one of the most successful music acts in Australia. </p>
<p>In 2022, they were the <a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/spotify-wrapped-australia-most-streamed-local-artists-songs-2022-3358173">third-most-streamed</a> Australian artist on Spotify behind The Kid Laroi and the Wiggles. This year, they have toured Australia, the UK and Europe with many shows selling out – as have all their upcoming shows in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=838153687672551&set=pb.100044337824283.-2207520000&type=3">Aotearoa New Zealand</a>. In January, they had their <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/hilltop-hoods-make-hottest-100-history-most-entries-ever/101903244">23rd entry</a> into the Triple J Hottest 100 – taking the mantle for most entries ever from Powderfinger and the Foo Fighters.</p>
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<p>Rewind to the 1990s. The Hoods were performing at parties and small venues as part of Adelaide’s underground hip-hop scene. Hip-hop was decidedly unpopular. Australians (especially white Australians) who produced or consumed it were often the target of jokes both from peers and in the media. </p>
<p>Hip-Hop was created by people of colour in New York in the 1970s. The genre had a short boom in Australia in the early 1980s, when young people learnt about it through American media, travel and migration. </p>
<p>Australians were introduced to hip-hop culture as a package made up of the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q8J72oNLZY">four elements</a>”: <a href="https://blackmusicscholar.com/mcing-the-art-of-hip-hop/">MCing</a> (or rapping), DJing, breaking and graffiti. Breaking and graffiti were immediately taken up in Australia, but it took more time for young people to start recording music. </p>
<p>Still, the culture was often defined by the media <a href="https://www.weslpress.org/9780819566386/phat-beats-dope-rhymes/">as a novelty</a> and dismissed as “too American”.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Def_Wish_Cast">Def Wish Cast</a> from western Sydney was established in 1989. They were one of Australia’s first major hip-hop groups and their pioneering music inspired others – including the Hilltop Hoods when they formed in suburban Adelaide in 1996.</p>
<h2>Forging a path</h2>
<p>By the early 2000s, there were signs the cultural cringe connected to Australian hip-hop was lessening. The first ARIA awards for hip-hop music went to 1200 Techniques’ Karma <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/classic-albums-1200-techniques-choose-one-australian-hip-hop/13905768">in 2002</a>, two years before the ceremony had a category for Best Urban Album. </p>
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<p>But hip-hop music still struggled for support from major record companies, radio producers and the general public. Artists had to hustle to promote themselves. Hip-hop practitioners took on roles as managers, journalists and record label owners to create their own opportunities. </p>
<p>The Calling was the Hoods’ first release through independent label <a href="http://obeserecords.com/obs/releases-obr001-050/">Obese Records</a>. It ranges from politically conscious to party anthems. The title track compares hip-hop to a religious vocation: the lyrics suggest the Hoods have been called to be hip-hop artists in the same way that other people are called by their faith.</p>
<p>Other tracks on the album are more light-hearted. The battle-rap-inspired Dumb Enough calls out anyone “stupid” enough to challenge the Hoods; The Certificate is a rowdy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_cut">posse track</a> involving the Hoods and other members of Adelaide collective <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/204073-Certified-Wise">Certified Wise</a>. </p>
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<p>The Hoods’ breakout song was The Nosebleed Section, which came ninth in Triple J’s Hottest 100 in 2003 and 17th in the Hottest 100 of All Time <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/hilltop-hoods-make-hottest-100-history-most-entries-ever/101903244">in 2009</a>. </p>
<p>Producer and DJ Rob Shaker <a href="https://ozhiphopshop.com/australianhiphopnews/exclusive-rob-shaker-lists-his-top-10-australian-hip-hop-albums/">said</a> the song “changed the landscape of hip-hop in this country”. Mark Pollard, founder of Australian hip-hop magazine Stealth, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/hilltop-hoods-the-calling-9781501392672/">told me</a> the Hoods were “national icons” who “helped turn an amateur industry into a cottage industry into a professional industry”.</p>
<p>As well as paving the way for future artists, the song and the album were an entry point for new fans, who then learnt about other local artists, such as Muph & Plutonic, Bliss n Eso, Layla, Drapht and Downsyde. </p>
<h2>Following the calling</h2>
<p>The success of The Calling meant the Hoods could quit their day jobs and concentrate on music full-time. In turn, other artists were able to imagine a future where hip-hop was their career.</p>
<p>But the band wasn’t without controversy. For some commentators, their success signalled how hip-hop was being connected to a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/hilltop-hoods-the-calling-9781501392672/">white patriotic Aussie identity</a>. Radio host and record producer <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/king-9781761046308">Hau Latukefu says</a> this new wave of hip-hop fans did not “understand – and respect – that hip-hop is a Black art form”.</p>
<p>Australia’s hip-hop industry has also been called out for <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/hip-hop-a-poor-cop-in-a-white-mans-world-20130712-2pvej.html">racism within the scene</a>. It is only now that hip-hop artists from diverse backgrounds – who have always played a key role in Australia’s hip-hop community – are achieving more mainstream success. </p>
<p>The industry is changing in other ways. Journalists and artists themselves are now having open conversations about the historical marginalisation of <a href="https://acclaimmag.com/music/its-time-to-listen-to-more-diverse-voices-in-australian-hip-hop/">women, non-binary and trans artists</a>. </p>
<p>In the past few years, new <a href="https://beersbeatsandthebiz.com/">podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/hip-hop-and-hymns-9781761042065">autobiographies</a>, <a href="https://puzlepress.com/">graffiti books</a> and <a href="https://www.sensibleantixx.net/burn-gently-documentary">documentaries</a> have emerged telling hip-hop stories from different perspectives. </p>
<p>Members of the scene are looking back on the past and thinking about what the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/tkay-maidza-remi-sampa-and-the-changing-face-of-australian-hiphop-20161024-gs9f1e.html">future of hip-hop in Australia might be</a>. The Hoods themselves continue to release new music, including songs like Show Business that reflect on their experiences in the industry. Hip-Hop culture in Australia continues to thrive as new generations are answering the calling. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hip-hop-learned-to-call-out-homophobia-or-at-least-apologize-for-it-202819">How hip-hop learned to call out homophobia – or at least apologize for it</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dianne Rodger is the author of the book The Calling (Bloomsbury 33 1/3).</span></em></p>The Calling, the Hilltop Hoods’ third album, would be their first to reach mainstream success.Dianne Rodger, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034962023-08-25T12:27:24Z2023-08-25T12:27:24ZHow some Muslim and non-Muslim rappers alike embrace Islam’s greeting of peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542497/original/file-20230814-40119-gg4ymy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C1022%2C680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Phife and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest perform in 1994.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/phife-and-q-tip-of-a-tribe-called-quest-news-photo/524328162?adppopup=true">Tim Mosenfelder/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever since the United States’ “war on terror” began, American media has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-muslims-are-portrayed-negatively-in-american-media-2-political-scientists-reviewed-over-250-000-articles-to-find-conclusive-evidence-183327">rife with stereotypes</a> of Muslims as violent, foreign threats. Advocates trying to push back against this characterization sometimes emphasize that “Islam means peace,” since the two words are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZeiUG8KemM">derived from the same Arabic root</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, the traditional Muslim greeting “al-salamu alaykum” means “<a href="https://www.wnyc.org/story/islamic-roots-hip-hop/">peace be upon you</a>.” Some Americans were already familiar with the phrase, thanks to an unexpected source: hip-hop culture, which <a href="https://theface.com/music/hip-hop-islam-religion-french-montana-rapsody-krept">often incorporated</a> the Arabic phrase.</p>
<p>This is but one example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/knowledge-of-self-how-a-key-phrase-from-islam-became-a-pillar-of-hip-hop-208559">Islam’s deep intertwining</a> with the threads of hip-hop culture. In her groundbreaking book “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479894505/muslim-cool/">Muslim Cool</a>,” scholar, artist and activist <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/ac/people/faculty/drsuad.html">Suad Abdul Khabeer</a> shows how Islam, specifically Black Islam, was a crucial part of hip-hop’s roots – asserting the faith’s place in American life. From prayerlike lyrics to tongue-in-cheek references, Islam and other religions are woven into hip-hop’s beats. </p>
<p>That’s the focus of <a href="https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/religion-and-hip-hop-margarita-guillory/">a class we teach at Boston University</a>. One of us is a <a href="https://www.bu.edu/religion/faculty/margarita-guillory/">professor of religion, history and pop culture</a>, while the other is <a href="https://www.bu.edu/religion/faculty/jeta-luboteni/">a graduate student in Islamic Studies</a>.</p>
<h2>More than ‘hello’</h2>
<p>In Muslim cultures, “al-salamu alaykum” is more than a way of saying hello. It points to the spiritual peace of submitting to God – and not only in this life. Saying “peace be upon you” is a prayer that God will grant heaven to the person with whom you are speaking. Many Muslims believe that “salam” is also the greeting heard upon entering heaven. </p>
<p>The Quran instructs Muslims that “when you are greeted with a greeting, <a href="https://quran.com/en/an-nisa/86">respond with a better greeting or return it</a>.” This means that the proper response to “al-salamu alaykum” is, at a minimum, to respond in kind: “wa alaykum al-salam.” </p>
<p>This exchange has been adapted by several rap artists – including Rick Ross, who does not identify as Muslim, and turns the phrase’s meaning on its head. Ross uses the greeting in the hook of his song “By Any Means,” referencing <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/speeches-african-american-history/1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity/#:%7E:text=We%20declare%20our%20right%20on,existence%20by%20any%20means%20necessary.">a famous speech by civil rights leader Malcolm X</a>, who was a minister of the Nation of Islam for many years until shortly before his assassination. In 1964, Malcolm X declared African Americans’ right “to be respected as a human being … by any means necessary.”</p>
<p>Half a century later, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQrZDL8x5tk">Ross rapped</a>,</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>By any means, if you like it or not
Malcolm X, by any means
Mini-14 stuffed in my denim jeans
Al-salaam alaykum, wa alaykum al-salaam
Whatever your religion kiss the ring on the Don
</code></pre>
<p>Ross’s use of the phrase, right after he mentions Malcolm X, appears to insinuate that if one wishes him peace, he will wish them the same. However, if one wishes him violence, he will not hesitate to respond in kind.</p>
<h2>‘Peace to all my shorties’</h2>
<p>Other hip-hop artists have used “al-salamu alaykum” in many different ways, including lyrics that show broader familiarity with the laws of Islam. For example, it is sometimes contrasted with pork, which is prohibited in Islam, and by extension, the police – the “pigs,” in derogatory slang – though it is more common for non-Muslim singers to use it in this way.</p>
<p>“Tell the pigs I say Asalamu alaikum,” Lil Wayne says in “Tapout,” a song that has little else to do with Islam. Joyner Lucas likewise raps, “I say As-salāmu ʿalaykum when I tear apart some bacon,” in the song “Stranger Things.” Combinations of the sacred and the profane <a href="https://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/journal/volume/12/piece/507">are present throughout hip-hop</a>, not limited to references to Islam. </p>
<p>Finally, many rappers, particularly those who are Muslim, use the greeting in a more straightforward manner. In their 1995 song “Glamour and Glitz,” A Tribe Called Quest raps:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>Peace to all my shorties who be dying too young
Peace to both coasts and the land in between
Peace to your man if you're doing your thing
Peace to my peoples who is incarcerated
Asalaam alaikum means peace, don't debate it
</code></pre>
<p>Here they affirm and assert that the core of the greeting is one of peace and harmony – not only between people, but between all of God’s creations. </p>
<h2>Shared identity</h2>
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<span class="caption">French Montana performs during the premiere of ‘For Khadija,’ a documentary about his family, at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.</span>
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<p>But even if Muslims come in peace, society may not see them that way – and that experience of discrimination often comes through in some lyrics. Rapper French Montana, who immigrated to the Bronx – <a href="https://theconversation.com/hip-hop-at-50-7-essential-listens-to-celebrate-raps-widespread-influence-211298">the birthplace of hip-hop</a> – from Morocco, raps in his 2019 song “Salam Alaykum:” </p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>As-salamu alaykum,
That pressure don’t break,
It don’t matter what you do,
they still gon’ hate you
</code></pre>
<p>It’s a harsh recognition that whatever one’s actions, whether violent or peaceful, they may still result in racism – a realization he shares with some fellow Muslim rappers in Europe. A comedic take on this is done by Zuna and Nimo in their 2016 song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xRsDnKgHZc">Hol’ mir dein Cousin</a>,” where at the start of the song, Nimo states he has a shipment of “haze–” marijuana, but at the end of the video, it turns out the shipment is of “Hase–” bunnies. Yet, throughout the song the rappers speak about violence and drug trade, painting a conflicting picture of innocence versus guilt. </p>
<p><a href="https://fas.yale.edu/book/new-ladder-faculty-2021-2022/humanities/fatima-el-tayeb">Fatima El-Tayeb</a>, a scholar of race and gender, calls hip-hop a “diasporic lingua franca” <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/european-others">in her 2011 book “European Others</a>,” highlighting how an art form created by African Americans, and speaking to their experiences, has become one of the main ways minorities around the world speak about their struggles and successes. Some young Muslims in Europe, for example, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315884813-18/hip-hop-muhammad-amir-saeed">use hip-hop</a> as a key way to assert their sense of belonging in societies.</p>
<p>In hip-hop, “al-salamu alaykum” is not treated as though it were part of a foreign culture. These rappers’ beats create a space where it’s OK to be Muslim – a space in which Islam is not merely tolerated, but recognized as a valuable part of pop culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In many parts of the world, hip-hop has become a way for Muslim artists to assert their belonging and identity.Margarita Guillory, Associate Professor of Religion, Boston UniversityJeta Luboteni, Ph.D. Student in Religion, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2118112023-08-23T12:26:04Z2023-08-23T12:26:04ZHow a hip-hop mindset can help teachers in a time of turmoil<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543937/original/file-20230822-19-fzf2o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C20%2C6679%2C4426&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Confidence is a critical component of hip-hop culture.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/confident-black-woman-in-classroom-royalty-free-image/1298999131?phrase=high+school+teacher+black+woman&adppopup=true">Manu Vega via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While hip-hop has created a lot of good memories, good music and good times, the culture has gifted society much more than just entertainment.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7BZ3GM8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researcher who specializes in hip-hop culture</a>, I know that one of hip-hop’s greatest gifts is a <a href="https://www.tcpress.com/the-hip-hop-mindset-9780807768709#:">certain mindset that focuses on freedom of thought, flexibility and truth-telling</a>. It also includes <a href="https://doi.org/10.25148/CLJ.16.1.010605">creativity, authenticity, confidence, braggadocio, uninhibited voice and integrity</a> as those things relate to one’s community and culture.</p>
<p>In order for educators to overcome the challenges of what politicians are turning into an <a href="https://theconversation.com/politicians-seek-to-control-classroom-discussions-about-slavery-in-the-us-187057">increasingly restrictive teaching environment</a> – particularly with regard to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-teachers-can-stay-true-to-history-without-breaking-new-laws-that-restrict-what-they-can-teach-about-racism-205452">matters of race and racism in American history</a> – I believe the hip-hop mindset has taken on a new sense of relevance in the educational arena.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/bans-on-critical-race-theory-could-have-a-chilling-effect-on-how-educators-teach-about-racism-163236">Many educators feel uncertainty</a> over what they can and can’t say in the classroom. They also want to stay true to themselves. Here, I offer five ways that educators can adopt the hip-hop mindset to confront the challenges they face:</p>
<h2>1. Claim your space</h2>
<p>When Run-DMC <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcCaycrPIa0">took the stage in the 1980s</a>, they often began their show with Run – one half of the pioneering rap duo – walking on stage and saying to an eager crowd: “We had a whole lot of superstars on this stage here tonight, but I want y'all to know one thing: This is my house. And when I say ‘Who’s house?’ I want y'all to say ‘Run’s house.’”</p>
<p>Through this <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25377-6_2">call-and-response</a> routine, the group claimed every arena in which they performed. Whether you call it posturing, braggadocio or swag, hip-hop culture has long rewarded those who confidently took control of the spaces where they work.</p>
<p>Hip-hop’s longevity is due in large part to this boldness – artists standing firm and <a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/musc210-hhp/hip-hop-culture-politics-exploring-the-narrative-and-power-of-rap-lyrics/fuck-tha-police-n-w-a/">fighting back</a> <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/when-christian-america-and-the-cops-went-insane-over-n-w-a-rap-and-metal/">even when they were under attack</a>.</p>
<p>Strong confidence gives artists the guts to be nonconformists, to tell the truth and to try something new – practices that I believe will benefit teachers in the midst of political efforts to control what they say.</p>
<h2>2. Form a squad or a crew</h2>
<p>From the early days to now, hip-hop artists have always formed
<a href="https://www.seoultherapy.co.uk/post/a-guide-to-k-hip-hop-crews#">squads or crews</a> to perform as emcees or dancers, who often battle to show who has the best lyrics or dance moves.</p>
<p>Early examples include the Rock Steady Crew and New York City Breakers, who famously squared off against one another in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xu48tnr4qQ">iconic scene</a> from the 1984 hip-hop movie “Beat Street.”</p>
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<p>Your squad isn’t just your personal friends – they are your colleagues and comrades in the struggle. They are your trusted village of truth tellers, possibility partners and strategic thinkers. Educators can lean on their squad to help strategize and stay sane. </p>
<p>A squad or crew need not be confined to just one school. Queen Latifah, Monie Love, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul – who were either solo acts or individual groups – were all part of an even larger artistic community called <a href="https://www.avclub.com/a-beginner-s-guide-to-hip-hop-collective-native-tongues-1798239179">Native Tongues</a>. </p>
<p>Just as hip-hop artists are often part of larger groups, educators can similarly build a larger community of support.</p>
<p>Partnering with local nonprofits and community organizations could prove important now more than ever. These organizations can host and facilitate learning experiences that might be prohibited in a classroom. Through these partnerships, students can get free, community-based programs that enable them to have freer discussions that might not be allowed within a public school in a state that restricts what educators can say.</p>
<h2>3. Remix</h2>
<p>One of the most popular strategies of creating hip-hop music is the remix – where a song’s producer will create a new version of a song, sometimes by borrowing or sampling beats from other songs, changing up the pace, or even introducing new lyrics that weren’t part of the original.</p>
<p>A classic example would be KRS-One’s 1988 song “Still #1.” Whereas the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw_UMdFSSlo">original version</a> was laid back, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gZ6tLhUAHY&t=42s">“Numero Uno” remix</a> featured a sample of an upbeat Latin jazz song and even opened in Spanish.</p>
<p>Embracing the art of remixing might offer a viable way for educators to respond to efforts to censor what students can read in school or educators can teach in class.</p>
<p>For instance, in school districts or states where certain books or topics have been outlawed, educators can use <a href="https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-teenagers-can-borrow-banned-books-for-free-from-brooklyn-public-library/">Books Unbanned</a> – a program in which teens and young adults can access e-books using a national library card. Educators can create a free guide of resources for families that include information on similar programs.</p>
<p>A remix may also be helpful with school funding. Schools at all levels could <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2022/01/11/critical-race-theory-scholars-counter-funded-attacks">secure grant and foundational support</a>, which can provide the resources to fund community-based partnerships and the freedom to establish specialized initiatives.</p>
<h2>4. Go crate digging</h2>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/cuepoint/the-lost-art-of-cratedigging-4ed652643618">Crate digging</a> is a critical part of the remix. It is the process of sifting through old vinyl records, typically stored in old milk crates or cardboard boxes, to find a long-forgotten song to use in a remix.</p>
<p>Similarly, teachers can turn to the tactics and strategies employed by educators from different eras to see how they dealt with the educational exclusion and erasure of their day. After desegregation, for instance, a new struggle emerged in the 1960s and 1970s to make school lessons more <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2668212">culturally and racially inclusive</a>. </p>
<p>By examining the work of legendary educators like <a href="https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-teenagers-can-borrow-banned-books-for-free-from-brooklyn-public-library/">Septima Clark</a>, today’s teachers can uncover ideas and opportunities to re-imagine historical efforts like the <a href="https://snccdigital.org/people/septima-clark/">Citizenship Schools</a> initiative that Clark developed. These mobile schools – or <a href="https://snccdigital.org/people/septima-clark/">“rolling schools”</a> as they were called – took learning into community spaces. These schools paved the way for programs like the Freedom Schools that were later developed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, and are still in operation today by the <a href="https://www.childrensdefense.org/programs/cdf-freedom-schools/">Children’s Defense Fund</a>. Communities around the country partner with the Children’s Defense Fund to offer local Freedom Schools.</p>
<h2>5. Still keep it real</h2>
<p>As a teenage fan of hip-hop in the early 1990s, I remember the phrase “keep it real” – which is an expression of authenticity – as being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/08/keeping-it-real-has-lost-its-true-meaning/">extremely popular</a>. At the time, it felt like intense pressure to keep it real and to represent your community. I now look back and appreciate that it actually wasn’t pressure, but rather permission to be authentic.</p>
<p>Educators don’t have to champion the new laws and policies that restrict what they can teach – they just have to follow them. But there’s no restriction against “keeping it real” and discussing the new laws and policies as a civics lesson.</p>
<p>So, when the lesson or class is about current events, students could examine various laws being enacted to restrict the teaching of Black history.</p>
<p>Educators may find themselves facing a growing number of challenges from state legislatures as they increasingly invade their classroom spaces and curtail the kind of content they can teach in class. I believe by adopting the hip-hop mindset, educators will be better prepared to do the kind of battle required to prevail on behalf of truth-telling, authenticity, creativity and all the other habits of mind that made hip-hop the defiant and resilient culture that it has become.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Jenkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The same boldness that enabled hip-hop to endure can benefit teachers in the classroom, a hip-hop scholar writes.Toby Jenkins, Professor of Higher Education, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112982023-08-11T12:37:47Z2023-08-11T12:37:47ZHip-hop at 50: 7 essential listens to celebrate rap’s widespread influence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542025/original/file-20230809-17-99zw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C25%2C5566%2C3584&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hip-hop culture spread quickly – to places like London, seen here in 1984.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/hip-hop-dancer-performing-during-the-hip-hop-jam-a-break-news-photo/85054866?adppopup=true">Kerstin Rodgers/Redferns</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the evening of Aug. 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc <a href="https://www.essence.com/entertainment/the-block-party-where-hip-hop-was-born-1973/">attended a block party</a> in the South Bronx. Armed with two record players and a mixer, he created an extended percussive break while others rhymed over the beats. Hip-hop was born. </p>
<p>Well, that’s the origin story, although pinpointing the birth of a genre is never going to be an exact science. What is undeniable, though, is that in the 50 years since that event, hip-hop has evolved, grown and influenced nearly every aspect of modern U.S. culture – from dance, theater and literature to visual arts and fashion.</p>
<p>But at the heart will always be the music. Leading up to the landmark anniversary, The Conversation reached out to hip-hop academics – it is a scholarly pursuit, too – to help provide context on how the genre has transformed modern culture, not just in the U.S. but around the world. Below is a selection of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/hip-hop-50-135779">resulting articles</a>, introduced by a key track featured in their writing.</p>
<h2>1. ‘Rapper’s Delight’ – The Sugarhill Gang</h2>
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<p>No history of hip-hop would be complete without this 1979 track by The Sugarhill Gang. But along with being an old-school classic, it also kick-started hip-hop’s global expansion.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/echarry/profile.html">Eric Charry</a>, a music professor at Wesleyan University, explained, within months of its being released, versions of “Rapper’s Delight” were being recorded in Brazil, Jamaica, Germany and the Netherlands. Within a year or so, the song’s DNA had spread to Japan and Nigeria.</p>
<p>“It marked the beginning of the globalization of rap music and the broader hip-hop culture in which it is embedded, which includes deejaying, break-dancing and graffiti-tagging,” Charry wrote. But this global spread created what <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-rappers-delight-hip-hop-went-global-its-impact-has-been-massive-so-too-efforts-to-keep-it-real-206373">Charry described as a paradox</a>: “The Black American urban culture that birthed rap and hip-hop makes up its very fabric. But so does the core idea of representing one’s own experience and place.” </p>
<p>This led to questions of authenticity that global rappers have contended with ever since, with some digging into their own local culture to square the circle.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-rappers-delight-hip-hop-went-global-its-impact-has-been-massive-so-too-efforts-to-keep-it-real-206373">After 'Rapper's Delight,' hip-hop went global – its impact has been massive; so too efforts to keep it real</a>
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<h2>2. ‘Planet Rock’ – Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force</h2>
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<p>Despite building on samples and influences from the past, hip-hop as a genre has always pointed forward – as this 1981 track from Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force exemplifies. “Planet rock” also forms part of a tradition in which <a href="https://theconversation.com/through-space-and-rhyme-how-hip-hop-uses-afrofuturism-to-take-listeners-on-journeys-of-empowerment-203887">rappers lean on Afrofuturism</a> – a mix of science fiction, politics and liberating fantasy – to “inform their lyrics and their look,” as Roy Whitaker, a scholar of Africana philosophy of religions at San Diego State University, explained.</p>
<p>“Hip-hop artists influenced by Afrofuturism have long been aware that American society made many Black, Indigenous and other people of color feel different – less than human, or even like aliens – and expressed this through their art. And like socially conscious hip-hop, Afrofuturism has always had a political element,” Whitaker wrote, noting the influence that Afrofuturism pioneers such as musicians Sun Ra and George Clinton and science fiction novelist Octavia Butler had on rap artists from Public Enemy and OutKast to Kendrick Lamar.</p>
<p>“All in all, Afrofuturism counsels marginalized peoples to reassess past wounds and present injustices, while reassuring them that there are possible futures where they can feel they belong,” Whitaker concluded.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/through-space-and-rhyme-how-hip-hop-uses-afrofuturism-to-take-listeners-on-journeys-of-empowerment-203887">Through space and rhyme: How hip-hop uses Afrofuturism to take listeners on journeys of empowerment</a>
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<h2>3. ‘Stan’ – Eminem, featuring Elton John</h2>
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<p>OK, this is a live performance from the 2001 Grammy Awards show and not a recorded track – though Eminem did release a version of “Stan” featuring British singer Dido a year earlier. But it was a pivotal moment in rap history: Eminem dueting with pop royalty Elton John underscored how hip-hop by the beginning of the 21st century had been accepted by the mainstream music industry.</p>
<p>Moreover, it came at a time when Eminem was deemed deeply controversial because of his use of anti-gay slurs in his tracks. Yet here he was being embraced – both figuratively and physically – by one of the world’s most famous openly gay men. The moment forms part of the hip-hop’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hip-hop-learned-to-call-out-homophobia-or-at-least-apologize-for-it-202819">evolution on LGTBQ issues</a> that University of Richmond sociologist <a href="https://socanth.richmond.edu/faculty/moware/">Matthew Oware</a> detailed in his article.</p>
<p>He noted that rappers are now having discussions over LGBTQ+ issues and apologizing for hateful speech in their earlier lyrics.</p>
<p>As rap music hits its 50th anniversary, “it is increasingly embracing challenges to – and debates about – homophobia,” Oware wrote. “That is, hip-hop has evolved to the point where anti-gay rhetoric invites condemnation from members of the culture. It is still present in some rap lyrics – as indeed is true of all genres, from pop to country – but hip-hop is changing because of more progressive cultural views and greater LGBTQ+ representation.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hip-hop-learned-to-call-out-homophobia-or-at-least-apologize-for-it-202819">How hip-hop learned to call out homophobia – or at least apologize for it</a>
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<h2>4. ‘You Came Up’ – Big Pun</h2>
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<p>While hip-hop’s origins lie in Black American communities, Latino culture is also deeply woven into its story: from pioneers like Kid Frost and Big Pun to Bad Bunny, one of the most-streamed artists making music today. </p>
<p>The genre was “my first love,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/street-scrolls-the-beats-rhymes-and-spirituality-of-latin-hip-hop-201843">wrote Alejandro Nava</a>, <a href="https://religion.arizona.edu/people/nava">a religious studies professor</a> at the University of Arizona. “Hip-hop had its finger on the pulse of Black and brown lives on the frayed edges of the Americas, lives like my father’s and his father’s before him.”</p>
<p>Big Pun, for example – raised in the South Bronx by his Puerto Rican family – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibdvIKLgtg8">alerted the world</a> that “Latins goin’ platinum was destined to come.” Big Pun’s rhymes “spilled off his tongue in torrents of alliteration and assonance, rarely pausing to take a breath or gulp, as if he didn’t require as much oxygen as other humans,” Nava recalled.</p>
<p>From coast to coast, young Latinos “embraced hip-hop as an ingenious instrument of self-expression,” asserting their place in American culture – and often calling for social change. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/street-scrolls-the-beats-rhymes-and-spirituality-of-latin-hip-hop-201843">Street scrolls: The beats, rhymes and spirituality of Latin hip-hop</a>
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<h2>5. ‘That’s what the Black woman is like’ – Arianna Puello</h2>
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<p>Back in the day, as they still do now, rappers talked about their experiences on the margins of American society. Those social messages connected with Black and immigrant youths throughout Europe who themselves were searching for identity in countries where discrimination remains entrenched.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CeaQNawAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of European studies and identity politics</a>, Armin Langer <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-its-birth-50-years-ago-hip-hop-has-spread-throughout-europe-and-challenged-outdated-ideals-of-racial-and-ethnic-identity-202280">wrote</a> that modern-day European rappers, particularly <a href="https://17190.org/ari-puello/">Arianna Puello</a>, <a href="https://top40-charts.com/artist.php?aid=15401">Black M</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eko-fresh-mn0001925342/biography">Eko Fresh</a>, are challenging outdated European views of citizenship and reshaping public debate on racial and ethnic identity.</p>
<p>Throughout her career, for example, Puello has used her music to confront the racism that she has faced as a Black female migrant in Spain.</p>
<p>In this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiAP5yyEQsY">2003 track</a>, “Así es la negra,” or “That’s what the Black woman is like,” tells the “ignorant racist,” “You’re going to have to put up with me, If I am born again I want to be what I am now, of the same race, same sex and condition.”</p>
<p>“As migration from African, Caribbean and Middle Eastern countries to Europe continues to increase and European societies discuss questions of identity belonging, it’s my belief that hip-hop will continue to make significant contributions to ongoing public policy debates,” Langer wrote.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-its-birth-50-years-ago-hip-hop-has-spread-throughout-europe-and-challenged-outdated-ideals-of-racial-and-ethnic-identity-202280">From its birth 50 years ago, hip-hop has spread throughout Europe and challenged outdated ideals of racial and ethnic identity</a>
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<h2>6. ‘Move the Crowd’ – Eric B. and Rakim</h2>
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<p>Of all the elements of hip-hop – which include deejaying, rapping, graffiti-writing and break-dancing – one that seems to get the least attention is the one referred to as hip-hop’s fifth element: “knowledge of self.”</p>
<p>Su'ad Abdul Khabeer, Associate Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, <a href="https://theconversation.com/knowledge-of-self-how-a-key-phrase-from-islam-became-a-pillar-of-hip-hop-208559">expounded on the significance of the phrase</a>. She argued that it became “hip-hop’s consciousness, emphasizing an awareness of injustice and the imperative to address it through both personal and social transformation.”</p>
<p>One of the first rappers to use the phrase in lyrics was Rakim, who mentioned it in his 1987 song “Move the Crowd.” The song is a track on the “Paid in Full” album, which <a href="https://www.rs500albums.com/100-51/61">Rolling Stone once listed as No. 61 </a> on its “<a href="https://www.rs500albums.com/">500 Greatest Albums of All Time</a>.”</p>
<h2>7. ‘LOUD’ – Wawa’s World</h2>
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<p>In 2005, U.S. rapper Warren “Wawa” Snipe coined the term “dip hop” to describe a burgeoning form of rap music in the Deaf community.</p>
<p>West Virginia University ethnomusicologist Katelyn Best has been following dip hop artists for over a decade. In that time, <a href="https://theconversation.com/deaf-rappers-who-lay-down-rhymes-in-sign-languages-are-changing-what-it-means-for-music-to-be-heard-206825">she’s witnessed dip hop artists achieve mainstream success</a> – including Wawa, whose 2020 song “LOUD” became a top 20 dance track on iTunes. </p>
<p>Dip hop is unique, Best wrote, because “rappers lay down rhymes in sign languages and craft music informed by their experiences within the Deaf community.” </p>
<p>At the same time, the subgenre embodies hip-hop’s broader legacy: speaking – or signing – about experiences of marginalization, while shaking up preexisting notions of what can be considered music.</p>
<p>There is no one way to perform dip hop. Some artists speak and sign simultaneously so their music can be understood by hearing audiences, too. Others collaborate with interpreters, or prerecord vocal tracks that play in the background while they rap in sign language.</p>
<p>“Dip hop, like many styles of music, comes to life through live performance,” Best wrote. “Artists move across the stage with their hands flying through the air as audiences pulse to the rhythm of the blasting bass beat.”</p>
<p>“In the spirit of hip-hop,” Best added, “dip hop rebels both musically and socially against cultural norms, breaking the mold and expanding possibilities for musical artistry.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/deaf-rappers-who-lay-down-rhymes-in-sign-languages-are-changing-what-it-means-for-music-to-be-heard-206825">Deaf rappers who lay down rhymes in sign languages are changing what it means for music to be heard</a>
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On Aug. 11, 1973, a block party in the Bronx spawned a genre that would go on to influence nearly all aspects of US culture – and the music, fashion and art of countries around the world.Nick Lehr, Arts + Culture EditorJamaal Abdul-Alim, Education Editor, The ConversationMatt Williams, Senior International EditorMolly Jackson, Religion and Ethics EditorHoward Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000362023-07-19T12:22:54Z2023-07-19T12:22:54ZHip-hop and health – why so many rap artists die young<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537895/original/file-20230717-17-u3sao8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C38%2C2502%2C2483&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hip hop artists, from top left, clockwise, DMX, Lexii Alijai, Prince Markie Dee and Trugoy the Dove have all passed away within the past decade. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The song “Be Healthy” from the 2000 album by hip-hop duo dead prez, “<a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dead-prez-lets-get-free/">Let’s Get Free</a>,” is a rare rap anthem dedicated to diet, exercise and temperance:</p>
<p><em>“They say you are what you eat, so I strive to eat healthy / My goal in life is not to be rich or wealthy / ‘Cause true wealth come from good health and wise ways / We got to start taking better care of ourselves”</em> </p>
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<p>In what’s widely recognized as <a href="https://www.grammy.com/news/2023-grammys-celebrate-50-years-hip-hop-star-performance-segment">hip-hop’s 50th anniversary</a>, an unfortunate reality is that several of its pioneering artists aren’t here to celebrate. The number of rappers who never live to see much more than 50 years themselves is astounding.</p>
<p>Rappers and rap fans can’t help but take notice that their peers and favorite rappers are dying young. Trugoy the Dove of De La Soul, 53, <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/de-la-soul-trugoy-the-dove-dead-at-54.html">passed away in February 2023</a> after a <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trugoy-the-dove-member-of-hip-hop-trio-de-la-soul-dies-at-54">battle with congestive heart failure</a>. Gangsta Boo, hailed as the “<a href="https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/01/14/gangsta-boo-celebration-of-life-memphis-rap-railgarten/69804248007/">Queen of Memphis</a>” and known for her work with Three 6 Mafia, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/gangsta-boo-dead-former-three-6-mafia-rapper-dies-obituary-1235192876/">died at the age of 43</a> of a drug overdose in January 2023. Takeoff, a member of the Atlanta trio Migos, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/arts/music/takeoff-migos-dead.html">killed in November 2022</a>. He was 28 years old. </p>
<p>Rapper <a href="https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/jim-jones-stands-on-rappers-have-the-most-dangerous-job-comment-1234672569/">Jim Jones has claimed</a> that rap is the most dangerous profession due to rappers <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/takeoff-death-hip-hop-rap-violence/672117/">being violently killed so frequently</a>. Similarly, <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/a/backwoodsaltar/fat-joe-rappers-endangeed-species-pnb-rock-death">rapper Fat Joe believes</a> rappers are an endangered species. In the 2022 song “On Faux Nem,” Lupe Fiasco put it more succinctly: “Rappers die too much.”</p>
<p>As a rapper, a fan of hip-hop’s art and artists, and a <a href="https://news.virginia.edu/content/meet-ad-carson-uvas-professor-hip-hop">professor of hip-hop</a>, I agree with Lupe Fiasco: Rappers die too much. Whether it’s from gun violence, heart disease, cancer, self-harm or drugs, the number of rappers whose lives have ended prematurely is alarming.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Rap star Nipsey Hussle looks out." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537537/original/file-20230714-17-t3lnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537537/original/file-20230714-17-t3lnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537537/original/file-20230714-17-t3lnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537537/original/file-20230714-17-t3lnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537537/original/file-20230714-17-t3lnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537537/original/file-20230714-17-t3lnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537537/original/file-20230714-17-t3lnuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rap star Nipsey Hussle was shot and killed in Los Angeles in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rapper-nipsey-hussle-attends-a-craft-syndicate-music-news-photo/1080924940?adppopup=true">Prince Williams/WireImage via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The (un)exceptional spectacle of American gun violence</h2>
<p>Stories of rappers who die violently are well known. News media are quick to report on <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/11/01/gun-violence-has-killed-at-least-1-rapper-every-year-since-2018-2/">violence in hip-hop</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/scapegoating-rap-hits-new-low-after-july-fourth-mass-shooting-186443">support their view</a> that the music and the people who make it are exceptionally violent. Violence, death and conflict attract attention. Pair any of those with racial stereotyping and scapegoating and it’s easy to see why the murders of hip-hop stars such as Nipsey Hussle, the Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur and countless other artists garner so much attention.</p>
<p>Though they were all taken by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rappers-are-victims-of-an-epidemic-of-gun-violence-just-like-all-of-america-194429">very American plague of gun violence</a>, news and historical accounts often amplify the spectacle of violent Black death, even when they claim to honor those who are killed. </p>
<p>I’ve <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/05/24/173838383/a-letter-to-my-mother-just-in-case">written extensively</a> about the trend of scapegoating rappers. It is also the topic addressed in the song “<a href="https://aydeethegreat.bandcamp.com/track/ankh-featuring-nathaniel-star">ANKH</a>” from my forthcoming mixtap/e/ssay, “<a href="https://aydeethegreat.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Illicit-Press-Release-6-23-pdf-232x300.jpg">V: ILLICIT</a>”:</p>
<p><em>“He died by the gun but they blamed the music. / They said, ‘What he said was evidence.’ And used it. …/ No compassion for the life torn apart when the bullets hit him, / cause he talked about the block in his art, so he’s not a victim. / Cameraman said, ‘They don’t value life too much.’ / He reported here before. Even twice some months. / Somewhere in his mid-twenties was his deadline (dying). / ‘Another N— Killed Here’ was the headline (crying).”</em></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 442px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=594009146/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=de270f/tracklist=false/transparent=true/" seamless="" width="100%" height="400"><a href="https://aydeethegreat.bandcamp.com/track/ankh-featuring-nathaniel-star">ANKH (featuring Nathaniel Star) by A.D. Carson</a></iframe>
<p>An awful byproduct of this culture of consuming carnage is that the kinds of violent gun tragedies people are experiencing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2022/gun-deaths-per-year-usa/">all across the U.S.</a> are being spotlighted in hip-hop and used as <a href="https://theconversation.com/scapegoating-rap-hits-new-low-after-july-fourth-mass-shooting-186443">excuses to criminalize and pathologize</a> certain people and the music they enjoy, the art they create, the neighborhoods they live in or the places they grew up.</p>
<p>Another heartbreaking consequence is that some rappers only gain wide popularity and realize financial success <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/23/posthumous-albums-by-young-rappers-are-topping-the-charts">after they’ve died</a>. Deceased rappers are an unfortunately abundant commodity. Juice WRLD and Pop Smoke are prime examples: They both sold four to five times as much music after their deaths than when they were alive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538103/original/file-20230718-21-dohcve.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538103/original/file-20230718-21-dohcve.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538103/original/file-20230718-21-dohcve.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538103/original/file-20230718-21-dohcve.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538103/original/file-20230718-21-dohcve.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538103/original/file-20230718-21-dohcve.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538103/original/file-20230718-21-dohcve.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Before and after death sales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Economist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Along with being alarmed by these tragedies, it’s important to examine the conditions that affect mortality and attempt to get to the actual causes rather than scapegoating a musical form.</p>
<h2>Deadly diseases</h2>
<p>While violence brings about headlines, guns are not the only cause for concern. Diseases – many of them preventable – are also a factor.</p>
<p>Heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, strokes and renal disease are among the top 10 causes of death <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/lcod/men/2017/nonhispanic-black/index.htm">among Black men</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/lcod/men/2018/byrace-hispanic/index.htm">Hispanic men</a>, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It makes sense that these causes also prominently figure in the deaths of hip-hop artists. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rapper Big Pun performs on stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537899/original/file-20230717-210016-dd9z7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rapper Big Pun, who sold a million albums, died at 28.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/big-pun-and-fat-joe-performing-at-les-poulets-on-may-13-news-photo/547402373?adppopup=true">Hiroyuki Ito/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gone before retirement</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/arts/music/james-yancey-producer-known-for-soulful-hiphop-dies-at-32.html">Rapper and producer J-Dilla</a> (32), rappers <a href="https://www.chron.com/entertainment/music/article/houston-rappers-remember-big-moe-dead-at-33-1797262.php">Big Moe (33)</a>, <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/a/complex/black-the-ripper-dead-at-32">Black the Ripper (32)</a> from the U.K., <a href="https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/founding-three-6-mafia-member-lord-infamous-dead-40-199175/">Lord Infamous (40)</a>, <a href="https://hiphopdx.com/news/id.20369/title.big-hutch-releases-statement-on-passing-of-above-the-law-member-kmg?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#">KMG the Illustrator (43</a> from Above the Law, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/04/09/dmx-hip-hop-legend-dies-50-after-heart-attack/7074550002/">DMX (50)</a>, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/big-t-death-cause-texas-rapper-age-52-wanna-be-a-baller-a8343506.html">Big T (52)</a>, <a href="https://onthisdateinhiphop.com/news/april-3-tweedy-bird-loc-passes-away-2020/">Tweedy Bird Loc (52)</a>, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/black-rob-dead-1157364/">Black Rob (52)</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/09/arts/christopher-rios-28-rapper-recorded-under-name-big-pun.html">Big Pun (28)</a> all died from heart attacks. <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/heavy-d-cause-death-pulmonary-embolism-276405/">Heavy D (44) experienced a pulmonary embolism</a> that led to his death. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/arts/music/prince-markie-dee-fat-boys-dead.html">Prince Markie Dee (52) of the Fat Boys</a> passed away from congestive heart failure. <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/craig-mack-flava-in-ya-ear-rapper-dead-at-47-127656/">Craig Mack (47)</a> died from heart failure. And Brax (21) <a href="https://variety.com/2020/music/news/brax-dead-influencer-rapper-1234823912/#">died from cardiac arrhythmia</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://ew.com/article/2016/03/23/phife-dawg-dead-dies/#">Phife Dawg (45)</a> of A Tribe Called Quest, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tim-dog-f-k-compton-rapper-dead-at-46-98451/">Tim Dog (46)</a> and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/biz-markie-dead-1191772/">Biz Markie (57)</a> all passed away from complications related to diabetes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest performs at a music festival." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537822/original/file-20230717-210447-vwdxnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537822/original/file-20230717-210447-vwdxnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537822/original/file-20230717-210447-vwdxnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537822/original/file-20230717-210447-vwdxnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537822/original/file-20230717-210447-vwdxnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537822/original/file-20230717-210447-vwdxnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537822/original/file-20230717-210447-vwdxnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2016, Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest died at 45 after a long battle with Type-1 diabetes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/phife-dawg-of-a-tribe-called-quest-performs-at-2013-h2o-news-photo/176730972?adppopup=true">Rodrigo Vaz/FilmMagic via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/arts/music/21guru.html">Guru (48) of Gangstarr</a>, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bushwick-bill-geto-boys-rapper-dead-obituary-846047/">Bushwick Bill (52) of the Geto Boys</a>, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-11-07/hurricane-g-death-rapper-lung-cancer">Hurricane G (52)</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/18/arts/music/kangol-kid-dead.html#">Kangol Kid (55)</a> died from cancer. <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/dj-kay-slay-55-dead-covid-19-battle-obituary-1235060195/">DJ K Slay passed away at 55</a> from what was described as COVID-19 complications.</p>
<p>Eazy-E <a href="https://deadline.com/2021/07/the-mysterious-death-of-eazy-e-docuseries-wetv-1234793623/">died of AIDS at 30</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/arts/music/nate-dogg-hip-hop-collaborator-dies-at-41.html#:%7E:text=He%20was%2041.,on%20the%20songs%20of%20rappers.">Nate Dogg’s death at 41</a> was attributed to a stroke. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-pimpc5feb05-story.html">Pimp C’s death at 33</a> was attributed to sleep apnea and an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/arts/06arts-DRUGSKILLEDP_BRF.html">overdose of cough syrup</a>. <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/01/28/autopsy-st-paul-rapper-lexii-alijai-died-of-accidental-overdose">Lexii Alijai (21)</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/philadelphia-rapper-chynna-rogers-dies-25-n1180051">Chynna (25)</a>, and <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/digital-underground-shock-g-cause-of-death-9585758/">Shock G (57)</a> all reportedly died of accidental drug overdose.</p>
<p><a href="https://ew.com/article/2012/07/19/ms-melodie-rapperdead-at-43/">Ms. Melodie passed away</a> in her sleep at the age of 43. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-06-18/big-pokey-death-houston-rapper-texas#">Big Pokey collapsed onstage</a> and passed away at 48. <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/whodini-john-fletcher-dead-1107571/">Ecstasy of Whodini died at 56</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Artist Ms. Melodie performs on stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537824/original/file-20230717-243941-wecfnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ms. Melodie of Boogie Down Productions passed away in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/late-rapper-ms-melodie-of-boogie-down-productions-performs-news-photo/465938029?adppopup=true">Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A renewed focus on health</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, this list of tragic lives halted from ages 21 to 57 is not a comprehensive account of all the rappers who have passed away well before the age of retirement.</p>
<p>The occasion of celebrating 50 years of hip-hop provides a moment to reflect and honor some of the artists who contributed to the culture and are not here to celebrate this golden anniversary. It’s also, perhaps, an opportunity to consider some of the outcomes of systemic barriers to health and wellness, such as <a href="https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health/literature-summaries/access-health-services">access to affordable health care</a>, varied dietary options and mental wellness resources.</p>
<p>Given the number of rappers and other prominent hip-hop artists who have died young, ultimately it may come down to seriously taking heed to dead prez’s instructions from “Be Healthy”: “We got to start taking better care of ourselves.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A.D. Carson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As hip-hop turns 50, an unfortunate reality is that so many of its pioneering artists never live to see much more than 50 years themselves, a professor of hip-hop writes.A.D. Carson, Associate Professor of Hip-Hop, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061612023-06-23T12:48:18Z2023-06-23T12:48:18ZJa Morant shows how a ‘good guy with a gun’ can never be Black<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533247/original/file-20230621-22-uh7sna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2986%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The NBA suspended Ja Morant for 25 games after he posted a video of himself brandishing a gun.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ja-morant-of-the-memphis-grizzlies-brings-the-ball-upcourt-news-photo/1485941791?adppopup=true">Justin Ford/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Man enough to pull a gun, be man enough to squeeze it,” rapped NBA superstar Allen Iverson on his song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2skYVPGExgY">40 Bars</a>.” </p>
<p>This was two weeks prior to the 2000-01 NBA season, one in which Iverson would be named league MVP. Ja Morant, the 23-year-old star point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, was barely 1 year old.</p>
<p>Today, Morant’s game conjures <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYbs4adAyds">that of the electrifying Iverson</a>. With colorfully dyed dreadlocks, an infectious smile and <a href="https://www.si.com/fannation/sneakers/news/the-nike-ja-1-day-one-sold-out-quickly-online">a signature sneaker</a>, Ja represents the next generation of NBA superstars.</p>
<p>But his bursting athletic brilliance, so evocative of Iverson, comes with a cost: the perceived menace of the Black gangster.</p>
<p>On March 4, 2023, Morant posted an <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/35782987/nba-investigating-ja-morant-displays-gun-instagram-video">Instagram Live video</a> of him displaying a gun at a Denver strip club. Colorado is an open carry state, but it’s illegal to carry a firearm while under the influence of alcohol. Though Morant was never charged for a crime, the NBA suspended him eight games for “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/nba-hands-down-8-game-suspension-ja-morant-gun-incident-shotgun-willies/">conduct detrimental to the league</a>.” </p>
<p>Then, on May 14, 2023, <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/ja-morant-addresses-latest-gun-controversy-i-take-full-accountability-for-my-actions/">another Instagram Live video</a> surfaced of Morant holding a gun in a parked car with his friends while dancing to rap music. In response, <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/37863825/sources-grizzlies-ja-morant-suspended-25-games-nba">the NBA suspended Morant for 25 games</a> to start this upcoming season for “engaging in reckless and irresponsible behavior with guns.”</p>
<p>I’m not looking to defend Morant’s behavior. It was careless, and he could have harmed himself and others.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/aaron-dial.html">But as a scholar of Black popular culture</a>, I can’t help but wonder what the reaction would have been if Morant were white.</p>
<p>To many politicians and activists in the gun-obsessed U.S., the freedom to own and flaunt firearms is a sacred right. And yet throughout the nation’s history, gun ownership among Black Americans has elicited fear and recrimination. Even when folks who look like Morant innocuously and legally possess a gun, they find themselves too easily typecast as villains. </p>
<h2>Disciplining ‘thugs’ and ‘children’</h2>
<p>The NBA has long had a fraught relationship with its Black superstars.</p>
<p>When global sports icon Michael Jordan <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2022/03/22/ap-was-there-michael-jordan-retires-for-3rd-final-time/49970153/">retired from basketball in 2003</a>, the league found itself in a period of transition.</p>
<p>How would it continue to fill arenas, satisfy advertisers and spread its vision of a global game without its brightest star? </p>
<p>Not only did the NBA need a new crop of superstars to mitigate Jordan’s exit, but it also needed a fresh attitude. In response, the league turned to the <a href="https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/08/the-answer-to-the-nbas-stance-on-hip-hop/">marketing juggernaut of hip-hop and Black culture</a>.</p>
<p>Players openly professed their love for rap music, with stars like <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/shaquille-oneal-rap-return-king-talk-nba-playoffs-1235405566/">Shaquille O'Neal</a>, <a href="https://deadline.com/2021/05/kobe-bryant-los-angeles-lakers-rap-album-hall-of-fame-induction-1234757106/">Kobe Bryant</a>, Iverson <a href="https://ballislife.com/nba-players-music-albums/">and others</a> recording and releasing music. Players wore oversized T-shirts, baggy jeans and New Era fitted caps as they traveled. You’d see durags and iced-out diamond chains during postgame interviews. </p>
<p>At first, the league saw opportunity – an opening to usher in a new <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Street">post-Jordan</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Assist-Relationship-Strategies-Communication/dp/1572734086">audience</a>. </p>
<p>However, in 2004, two events prompted a backlash.</p>
<p>First, there was the notorious “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP7xRieiZm0">Malice at the Palace</a>,” during which players for the Indiana Pacers went into the stands to fight fans who had provoked them at Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills stadium.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Basketball fan grabbing arm and tusseling with basketball player." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533250/original/file-20230621-11103-foropp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533250/original/file-20230621-11103-foropp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533250/original/file-20230621-11103-foropp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533250/original/file-20230621-11103-foropp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533250/original/file-20230621-11103-foropp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533250/original/file-20230621-11103-foropp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533250/original/file-20230621-11103-foropp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indiana Pacers forward Ron Artest fights with a fan during a brawl at a game against the Detroit Pistons, in Auburn Hills, Mich., on Nov. 19, 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NBAat75APWasThereMaliceatthePalace/e858811ee860456d882be6320dc9ec41/photo?Query=pistons%20pacers%20brawl&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=68&currentItemNo=2">Duane Burleson/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A year later, there was an infamous Team USA dinner in Serbia. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/10/23/opinions-on-the-nbas-dress-code-are-far-from-uniform/d8110301-49b4-4151-b0c2-42c2c5f30ae8/">As The Washington Post reported</a>, “Iverson and some of his fellow National Basketball Association professionals arrived wearing an assortment of sweat suits, oversize jeans, shimmering diamond earrings and platinum chains … Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame coach of the U.S. team, was appalled and embarrassed.”</p>
<p>Former commissioner David Stern went on to institute <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=2194537">a controversial dress code for NBA players</a>, banning, among other things, baggy clothing, along with the display of gaudy jewelry. But Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson exposed the ban’s quiet truth. </p>
<p>“The players have been dressing in prison garb the last five or six years,” <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=2197012">he said</a>. “All the stuff that goes on, it’s like gangster, thuggery stuff.”</p>
<p>The NBA decided its foray into the marketing of hip-hop with basketball required a paternalist brand of discipline to keep its players’ “street cool” in line and avoid the poisonous image of Black criminality.</p>
<p>And like Jackson all those years ago, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, on the network’s <a href="http://www.espn.com/espnradio/podcast/archive/_/id/10528553">Lowe Post basketball podcast</a>, criticized Morant with not so subtle racial undertones.</p>
<p>“Ja Morant is a child,” he announced. “This guy is so worried about being cool: ‘Look at me, man: Life is like a rap video.’”</p>
<h2>The NBA’s gun culture</h2>
<p>Ja Morant isn’t the first NBA player to find himself in trouble for wielding firearms. </p>
<p>In 2006, <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/NBA-suspends-Jackson-for-seven-games-2581301.php#:%7E:text=After%20all%20the%20legal%20and,finally%20caught%20up%20with%20him.">Stephen Jackson</a> was suspended just seven games for firing a gun after an altercation at an Indianapolis strip club. In 2010, <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=4802267">Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton </a> were suspended for 50 and 38 games, respectively, after pulling guns on each other in the Washington Wizards team facilities. And in 2014, <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/8/7/5979817/raymond-felton-suspension-gun-charges-mavericks">Raymond Felton</a> was suspended four games after pleading guilty to charges stemming from an incident where he threatened his estranged wife with a gun. </p>
<p>Like Ja, all these players are Black. But unlike his situation, these incidents were violent, criminal offenses.</p>
<p>The closest analogues to Morant are Chris Kaman and Draymond Green. <a href="https://www.sportskeeda.com/basketball/news-flexing-guns-used-school-shootings-pictures-chris-kaman-posing-guns-spark-ja-morant-double-standards-claim">Kaman</a>, a former center who is white, posted pictures of his arsenal to social media in 2012, 2013 and 2016. In 2018, during a trip to Israel, Golden State Warriors star forward <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/draymond-green-warriors-israel-rifle-photo-outrage/">Draymond Green</a> posed with an assault weapon. Neither Kaman nor Green was suspended for their posts. </p>
<p>The metaphor of guns also saturates the league in ways that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-warspeak-permeating-everyday-language-puts-us-all-in-the-trenches-121356">reflect the country’s obsession with firearms</a>. </p>
<p>The alias of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Kirilenko">Andrei Kirilenko</a>, a former All-Star for the Utah Jazz, was “AK- 47.” Fans anointed Lakers guard <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lakers-guard-austin-reaves-wants-to-get-rid-of-ar-15-nickname/">Austin Reaves</a> with the nickname “AR-15” until he denounced it after <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/24/uvalde-school-shooting-what-to-know/">the tragic mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas</a>. NBA superstar Kevin Durant’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/easymoneysniper/">Instagram handle</a> is “easymoneysniper.” Watch Hall of Fame broadcaster Mike Breen announce a game, and you’ll inevitably hear <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtIx03UmiiE">his famous catch phrase</a>, “BANG.” </p>
<h2>Was this ever about guns?</h2>
<p>After Morant’s most recent incident, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j03cKLDTo0Y">Adam Silver</a>, league commissioner, said, “I’m assuming the worst.” </p>
<p>But why is Morant, according to Silver, all of a sudden a poor role model to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-6-xiD8Xkk">millions of kids, globally</a>,” especially when <a href="https://www.kcra.com/article/former-nfl-player-says-posing-with-gun-in-daughters-prom-photo-was-a-joke/19915571">former</a> <a href="https://www.thedodo.com/pro-baseball-player-is-trolled-803649064.html">and</a> <a href="https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-carey-price-is-showing-how-far-reaching-trudeaus-hunting-gun-ban-will-go">current</a> athletes have done the same without punishment? </p>
<p>To me, the answer is simple: In America, armed Black folks conjures pathological criminality.</p>
<p>Guns, since the nation’s inception, have fortified <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-good-guy-with-a-gun-became-a-deadly-american-fantasy-117367">a uniquely American masculine fantasy</a>: the revolutionary and the cowboy, the cop and the soldier, the spy, the hunter, the gangster – all coalesce around the presumed thrill of the trigger. These fantasies reflect the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/12/21/167824766/nra-only-thing-that-stops-a-bad-guy-with-a-gun-is-a-good-guy-with-a-gun">National Rifle Association’s</a> most pernicious and oddly patriotic lie: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”</p>
<p>At the same time, Historian Carol Anderson’s book “<a href="https://www.professorcarolanderson.org/the-second">The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America</a>” explores how the imagined danger of armed Black people has long pervaded the national psyche. </p>
<p>In her telling, this story begins in Morant’s home state of South Carolina, where the <a href="https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/2020/04-06-Stand-Your-Ground.pdf">Negro Act of 1722</a> and the <a href="https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/may/10">Negro Slave Act of 1740</a> argued Blacks were “instinctually criminal” and abolished their access to weapons and right to self-defense.</p>
<p>So if people are so sure of Morant’s villainy, I ask without a hint of snark: What does responsible Black gun ownership look like?</p>
<p>Does it look like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party, whose armed protests were the impetus behind <a href="https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act">California’s stricter gun laws – legislation that was backed by the NRA</a>? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of Black men and women congregating, with some men holding guns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533252/original/file-20230621-3564-twpfqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533252/original/file-20230621-3564-twpfqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533252/original/file-20230621-3564-twpfqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533252/original/file-20230621-3564-twpfqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533252/original/file-20230621-3564-twpfqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533252/original/file-20230621-3564-twpfqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533252/original/file-20230621-3564-twpfqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armed members of the Black Panther Party stand in the corridor of California’s capitol in May 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/HueyNewton/176d2c81ae1648cda9038c36e3aa7b15/photo?Query=black%20panthers%20guns&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=28&currentItemNo=0">Walt Zeboski/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Does it look like <a href="https://exhibits.stanford.edu/saytheirnames/feature/philando-castile">Philando Castile</a>? Do we see it in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/us/marissa-alexander-released-stand-your-ground.html">Marissa Alexander</a>, who was sent to prison after she fired a warning shot at her husband, who had threatened to kill her?</p>
<p>To me, this was never about guns – just as, back in the early 2000s, it was never about rap music or baggy clothing.</p>
<p>It’s about <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Feminist-Theory-From-Margin-to-Center/hooks/p/book/9781138821668">white paternalism</a>. It’s about how Black people can’t be trusted with weapons. It’s about how the country’s veneration of gun ownership as an inalienable right is seconded only by its commitment to rendering armed Blacks an existential danger to the civility and structure of America.</p>
<p>Blackness seems to disavow any possibility of being a “good guy,” gun or not. <a href="https://fox17.com/news/local/tennessee-lawmaker-proposes-2nd-amendment-bill-in-honor-of-hero-kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-wisconsin-gun-rights-crime-courts-usa-news-politics">Kyle Rittenhouse</a> was a “good guy with a gun.” So, too, was <a href="https://psmag.com/news/george-zimmerman-hero-77272">George Zimmerman</a>. Both meted out extrajudicial killings, and both emerged unpunished.</p>
<p>According to this warped, uniquely American fantasy, “good guys with guns” can never look like Ja Morant – and good guys can always kill bad guys.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A. Joseph Dial does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>America’s veneration of gun ownership is seconded only by its commitment to rendering armed Blacks as an existential danger to the civility and structure of America.A. Joseph Dial, DISCO Network Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2063732023-06-13T12:31:02Z2023-06-13T12:31:02ZAfter ‘Rapper’s Delight,’ hip-hop went global – its impact has been massive; so too efforts to keep it real<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531462/original/file-20230612-260763-85vkdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C78%2C4689%2C3053&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">MC Solaar, a pioneer of French rap</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/solaar-en-concert-lors-des-francofolies-de-la-rochelle-en-news-photo/1199615351?adppopup=true">Photo by Eric Catarina/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Soon after the fall 1979 release of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcCK99wHrk0">Rapper’s Delight</a>,” versions of the first commercially successful rap recording began cropping up around the world. </p>
<p>Two Portuguese-language versions, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byP2Ex4swlg">Bons Tempos</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e5dg4gvEjQ">Melô Do Tagarela</a>,” were put out in Brazil. One version from Jamaica provided a relatively faithful <a href="https://youtu.be/wMp6bSEgk4c">recreation of the Sugarhill Gang original</a>, while “<a href="https://youtu.be/V4GMOL-t7YM">Hotter Reggae Music</a>” slowed down the track, transforming it into reggae. Other local language versions came from the Netherlands with “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjdqUQnfB7k">Hallo, Hallo, Hallo</a>,” Venezuela with “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9YyqFF_m0Q">La Cotorra Criolla</a>” and Germany with “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pQ5Xqv6bQk">Rapper’s Deutsch</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531409/original/file-20230612-167932-xm0gc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531409/original/file-20230612-167932-xm0gc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531409/original/file-20230612-167932-xm0gc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531409/original/file-20230612-167932-xm0gc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531409/original/file-20230612-167932-xm0gc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531409/original/file-20230612-167932-xm0gc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531409/original/file-20230612-167932-xm0gc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Rapper’s Delight’ spreads to Germany in 1980.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.discogs.com/release/1517110-GLS-United-Rappers-Deutsch/image/SW1hZ2U6Mjc5NzkyNTU=">Metronome Musik GmbH/Discogs</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Within a few years, one could hear the song’s DNA being altered in disparate parts of the world, as in Japanese artists Yellow Magic Orchestra’s 1981 “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZ1GWEoiP0">Rap Phenomena</a>,” Nigerian Dizzy K. Falola’s 1982 “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrMwSSt1Hd8">Saturday Night Raps</a>” and the French duo Chagrin d’amour’s 1982 “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLiyZdkkEJU">Chacun fait (c’qui lui plait)</a>.” Even Soviet Russia got into the act with Chas Pik’s “Rap” in 1984.</p>
<h2>… and on and on</h2>
<p>The rapid spread of “Rapper’s Delight” is an important milestone in <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/hip-hop-50-135779">hip-hop’s first 50 years</a>. It marked the beginning of the globalization of rap music and the broader hip-hop culture in which it is embedded, which includes deejaying, break-dancing and graffiti-tagging. </p>
<p>More milestones in hip-hop’s global spread soon followed. In 1984 in France, “<a href="https://youtu.be/9nctOWroU1g">H.I.P.H.O.P.” hosted by DJ Sidney</a> became the first nationally televised weekly show devoted to rap, preceding “Yo! MTV Raps” in the U.S. by some four years. In the early 1990s, a vibrant French rap scene produced the first internationally touring, platinum-selling rap star outside the U.S.: <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-06-08-ca-1865-story.html">MC Solaar</a>. France became – and remains – the second-biggest market for rap in the world. </p>
<p>Indeed, by 2000 the term “global hip-hop” had entered <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/405511-Various-Speaking-In-Tongues-Diverse-Dialects-From-The-Global-Hip-Hop-Nation">commercial</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Gg8UiSodjz8C&lpg=PA5&vq=global&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=%22global%20hip%20hop%22&f=false">and scholarly</a> discourse. Soon, new styles partially informed by hip-hop emerged, like grime in London, <a href="https://youtu.be/yEH6IU7pDOg?t=596">which cultivated its own unique identity</a>.</p>
<h2>The catch</h2>
<p>But the global expansion of hip-hop rides on a paradox. The Black American urban culture that birthed rap and hip-hop makes up its very fabric. But so does the core idea of representing one’s own experience and place. When hip-hop and rap travel abroad, does one or the other have to give? </p>
<p>To an <a href="https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/echarry/profile.html">ethnomusicologist</a> like myself, this paradox goes right to the heart of identity and authenticity. How do people use, shape and transform cultural elements from elsewhere to make it speak to their own experience? And in the process, how do markers of authenticity become redefined?</p>
<h2>Multitracking global hip-hop</h2>
<p>With hip-hop, I believe it is helpful to imagine a wide spectrum of possible markers of authenticity – that is, what it means to stay “true” to the art form.</p>
<p>At one end lies the integration of Black American performance styles and fashion. Some efforts may border <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yKD_-e8neo">appropriation</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVR9JykPC-0">mimicry</a>.</p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/4KfQJTnuUojupdOZ3yeH0O?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="380" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p>At the other end lies hip-hop’s potential to inspire global rappers to dig deep into the well of local performance traditions. This could mean sampling music from their own countries or exploring the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20174422">quirks and intricacies of their own languages</a> and dialects. </p>
<p>Pioneering hip-hop scholar <a href="https://www.hosumare.com/about">Halifu Osumare</a> explored authenticity in her concept of “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1537-4726.2001.2401_171.x">connective marginalities</a>,” which established the blueprint for theorizing about global hip-hop. This key concept concerns “social resonances between Black expressive culture” on the one hand and similar dynamics in other nations and cultures on the other hand.</p>
<p>These connections or resonances can be tied to a shared culture among different parts of the African diaspora or through social class, historical oppression or the marginalization of youth.</p>
<p>Expanding this framework a bit, almost anyone feeling marginalized can draw on a hip-hop ethos. This could include Ukraine’s Alyonna Alyonna, <a href="https://uatv.ua/en/rapper-singer-fight-cyber-bullying-music">who was bullied for the way she looked</a>, and even <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lions-of-the-north-9780190212605?cc=us&lang=en&">Nordic white supremacists</a>.</p>
<p>Hip-hop scholar and political activist <a href="https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Yvonne+Bynoe">Yvonne Bynoe</a> presented an alternative view on the genre’s worldwide spread. Writing in 2002, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43133478">she noted</a>: “While rap music has been globalized, hip-hop culture has not been and cannot be.” To Bynoe, it is irrational to expect that a cultural expression that is centered around Black American experiences and vernacular can speak for all. </p>
<p>“While ‘rap’ as a creative tool is portable and adaptable, it belittles hip-hop culture to continue to insist that as a cultural entity it can be disassociated from its roots,” she wrote.</p>
<h2>Manufacturing authenticity</h2>
<p>A 2007 documentary about hip-hop in Kenya, with the on-point title “<a href="https://www.hiphopcolony.com/">Hip Hop Colony</a>,” addresses the issue from a different standpoint: “Today, Kenya tackles a new breed of colonization,” the narrator notes, “Its chameleon-like quality has allowed it to integrate with cultures around the world. … It is hip-hop [and] in the vein of colonialism it’s dictating the choice of attire, language and lifestyle in general. Unlike the colonists, its presence is welcomed and widely embraced by the majority.” </p>
<p>In a clever twist, the <a href="https://www.michaelwanguhu.com/">filmmaker, Michael Wanguhu,</a> sets up an initial neo-colonial framework and then dismantles it by showing how Kenyans have made hip-hop their own. </p>
<p>Moreover, hip-hop has been seen as a catalyst for cultural self-reflection and revival wherever it lands. </p>
<p>“The first time we heard Grandmaster Flash rapping on a hip-hop track,” Senegalese rapper Faada Freddy of the group Daara J <a href="https://www.npr.org/2005/05/20/4660446/daara-j-senegalese-hip-hop">said in 2006</a>, “everybody was like, ‘OK we know this, because this is taasu,’” referring to a <a href="https://youtu.be/c_yImWVc5QE">Senegalese verbal art form accompanied by drumming</a>.</p>
<p>“We’ve been rhyming like that for a long time,” he added. </p>
<p>Australian aboriginal rapper Wire MC similarly sees a connection between traditional Indigenous gatherings known as “corroboree” – which involve singing, dancing and telling stories – <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/24046901">and hip-hop, which he says</a> “is just a modern corroboree.”</p>
<p>“Hip-hop is a part of aboriginal culture; I think it always has been,” he added.</p>
<p>Native American rapper Frank Waln, of the Sicangu Lakota tribe, also <a href="https://vimeo.com/355341843">notes a resonance between hip-hop and Indigenous culture</a>. </p>
<p>“I definitely think there’s a connection between traditional storytelling and hip-hop,” he said. “My people have been storytellers for thousands of years, and this is just a new way to tell our stories.” </p>
<h2>Digging into the well</h2>
<p>Almost anywhere rap and hip-hop have traveled, people have pointed to its resonance with homegrown traditions. Some have employed those traditions to transform hip-hop into something with deep local roots. In this way, Japanese rapper Hime has <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1072/Hip-Hop-JapanRap-and-the-Paths-of-Cultural">used the ancient poetic form tanka</a> for the chorus of her song “Tateba Shakuyaku.” In the song, she raps about the Japanese concept of “kotodama,” or “the spirit of the language” embedded in the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count in that chorus. </p>
<p>Similarly, Ghanaian rapper Obrafour has <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253005755/hip-hop-africa/">drawn on esoteric proverbs in his native Twi language</a>, and Somali Canadian rapper K’Naan has <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337005283_Hip_Hop_as_dusty_foot_philosophy_Engaging_locality">drawn on and paid tribute to Somali oral poetry</a>.</p>
<p>Historical connections between modern-day French rappers and French song <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/volume/1946">have also been fruitfully explored</a>. This should be no surprise, given the dual identities of the children of African immigrants in France, like rapper <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/world/europe/rapper-abd-al-malik-pushes-for-new-french-identity.html">Abd al Malik</a>. </p>
<p>The indelible link between hip-hop and Black American culture remains a constant theme in how to understand its transformations around the world. Take one of <a href="http://www.szdaily.com/content/2018-08/22/content_21066727.htm">China’s most well-known rappers, Vava</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aknkofx2bHg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">VAVA - My New Swag.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a 2018 interview in Esquire Singapore, she said that hip-hop “helps us to express our innermost emotions and thoughts about how we understand the world we’re living in.” When asked, “American hip-hop has grown out of the African American struggle. So where does Chinese hip-hop come from?” she replied, “Chinese hip-hop comes from rebellion in young people’s lives. … The generation before us were rockers, but today, we use rap to express ourselves.”</p>
<h2>Rap as universal art form</h2>
<p>The “global spread of authenticity,” as linguist <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15348450701341246">Alastair Pennycook called it in 2007</a>, has been a concern in the genre ever since “Rapper’s Delight” sparked its travel across the world.</p>
<p>In 1982, pioneering deejay <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WzNEAQAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22rap+in+your+own+language%22">Afrika Bambaataa advised French rappers</a> to “Rap in your own language and speak from your own social awareness.”</p>
<p>Jay-Z addressed the issue in the conclusion of his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/books/23book.html">2010 memoir, “Decoded</a>.” Implicitly noting the distinction between the culture hip-hop and the art form rap, he wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Rap … is at heart an art form that gave voice to a specific experience, but, like every art, is ultimately about the most common human experiences. … The story of the larger culture is a story of a million MCs all over the world … and inside of them the words are coming, too, the words they need to make sense of the world they see around them. … And when we decode that torrent of words — by which I mean really listen to them with our minds and hearts open — we can understand their world better. And ours, too. It’s the same world.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Charry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hip-hop traveled far after being birthed by Black Americans in US cities. The journey hasn’t always been smooth.Eric Charry, Professor of Music, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2018432023-05-31T12:39:54Z2023-05-31T12:39:54ZStreet scrolls: The beats, rhymes and spirituality of Latin hip-hop<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528174/original/file-20230525-27-wjzwiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C1014%2C674&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Puerto Rican singer Residente performs in Havana in 2010. His back reads, 'We receive flowers and bullets in the very same heart.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/puerto-rican-singer-rene-perez-aka-residente-of-hip-hop-and-news-photo/97987551?adppopup=true">STR/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a first-generation college graduate and a Latino from a family that constantly scrambled to make ends meet, there was very little in my upbringing that foreshadowed my current life <a href="https://religion.arizona.edu/people/nava">as a religion professor and scholar</a>. I didn’t grow up surrounded by books, and I spent many more hours in childhood dissecting hip-hop and shooting hoops than doing schoolwork. </p>
<p>It wasn’t until late in college, when a couple of teachers lit a fire in my bones, that I became hungry for the stuff of books and ideas. Learning about the world’s religions instilled in me a newfound passion for all the existential questions and conundrums of the human condition, connecting me with a truth beyond myself, a sublime pattern that brought the world into greater focus.</p>
<p>But if the study of religion swept me up into the stars, hip-hop brought me back down to earth. It was my first love, and its beats and rhymes schooled me in things closer to home. Hip-hop had its finger on the pulse of Black and brown lives on the frayed edges of the Americas, lives like my father’s and his father’s before him: cleaning trains, floors and toilets, doing whatever they could to support their families.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Teens stand in a schoolyard as a young man does a high back flip." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528173/original/file-20230525-29-q6zck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Rock Steady Crew members break-dance in the yard of Booker T. Washington Junior High School in New York on May 8, 1983.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-rock-steady-crew-break-dance-in-the-yard-of-news-photo/159723630?adppopup=true">Linda Vartoogian/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>There is an unstudied wisdom in the defiant, dirty beats of hip-hop, and even religious dimensions – <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo145420021.html">a focus of my research today</a>, which explores the prophetic and even mystical elements in the genre. Its lyrics can be sweet like honey, as the biblical prophet Ezekiel <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+3&version=KJV">describes the scroll of the Lord</a>. Yet they can also be bitter, like the herbs of Passover – a remembrance of pains and indignities. Hip-hop turns 50 this summer, and throughout its history, Latinos’ experiences have been important threads in this music’s cries for justice.</p>
<h2>‘Latins goin’ platinum’</h2>
<p>Back in the day, my brother was a b-boy – a break dancer – and his group, the Royal Rockers, convinced me that in this fresh new culture, Black and brown youth had a story to tell. </p>
<p>Making their feet flutter like centipedes, their tails rise up like scorpions in a battle, these Tucson kids thrust themselves into public view, refusing to remain invisible. Their body language flipped the prevailing narrative about our battered neighborhoods, turning them into places of pride rather than shame. </p>
<p>Latinos beyond the U.S. borderlands were also very much part of <a href="https://timeline.carnegiehall.org/genres/rap-hip-hop">hip-hop’s history</a>. While there is no doubt that its inventors were Black Americans, <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292718036/">Latinos added new colors</a> to the prevailing palette of hip-hop. Whether in the South Bronx or East L.A., brown-bodied youth embraced hip-hop as <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/from-bomba-to-hip-hop/9780231110778">an ingenious instrument of self-expression</a>: <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/reggaeton">a perfect medium to assert, define</a> and even reinvent ourselves.</p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6QQMRgqK5kFp5yaDUVFC4p?utm_source=generator&theme=0" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p>When it came to emceeing, rap in Latino circles started experimenting with Spanish words and slang by the 1980s. Artists peppered their verses with shouts of Latin pride, and my friends and I heard it loud and clear.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a faint mustache wearing a Los Angeles baseball cap points at the camera close-up." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528154/original/file-20230525-19-qp7m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1111&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kid Frost, born Arturo Molina Jr., in New York City in 1991.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rap-collective-group-latin-alliance-and-kid-frost-appear-in-news-photo/1273387989?adppopup=true">Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives</a></span>
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<p>Kid Frost, to take a West Coast example, put in rhymes what we felt but didn’t have the courage to say. While he had the thuggish pretense of the gangster rap era, his body teetering to the side like the Tower of Pisa and his mouth riddled with threats, Kid Frost’s bars were also <a href="https://remezcla.com/features/music/tbt-30-years-dropping-la-raza-remains-historic-part-hip-hop-history/">filled with cultural knowledge</a>. Echoing the unruffled cadences of Latino subcultures around him – from kids cruising in lowrider cars to the <a href="https://www.laits.utexas.edu/onda_latina/program?sernum=MAE_82_15_mp3&header=Identity">street speech of caló</a>, a coded argot from zoot-suit culture in the 1930s and 1940s – Kid Frost used barrio language to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4488380">rewrite the story of hip-hop</a> with Indigenous and Chicano lives as significant characters.</p>
<p>Meanwhile on the East Coast, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/7xpbpa/el-general-pioneered-the-sound-of-reggaeton-then-disappeared-entirely">the Panamanian reggaeton pioneer El General</a> brought even greater visibility to Latin-accented hip-hop, as did Fat Joe and Big Pun. </p>
<p>“Cause everybody’s checkin’ for Pun, second to none / ‘Cause Latins goin’ platinum was destined to come,” he announced to the world, like a boxing ring announcer before a prime event, in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibdvIKLgtg8">You Came Up</a>.” </p>
<p>Both Fat Joe and Big Pun were big in stature and big in lung capacity, but Big Pun was the better rhyme-spitter; his flows spilled off his tongue in torrents of alliteration and assonance, rarely pausing to take a breath or gulp, as if he didn’t require as much oxygen as other humans.</p>
<p><a href="https://untappedcities.com/2014/02/13/daily-what-big-pun-place-guerilla-street-sign-goes-up-in-the-bronx/">In his hood, the South Bronx’s Soundview Projects</a>, social and psychological stresses seemed to weigh heavily on residents. In <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0B8drtTSp68pZdkmVrG9ZA">one memorable rap, “Twinz</a>,” he painted a picture of himself holding his “rosary as tight as I can,” fingering it to keep evil away on streets that swallowed the weak. Big Pun and his rap progenitors – from Big Daddy Kane and Fat Joe to Wu-Tang and Mobb Deep – projected violent images of oversized badness: of being the predator, not the prey.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white picture, taken from below a stage, of two large men rapping into microphones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528155/original/file-20230525-25-bqxfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Big Pun and Fat Joe performing on May 13, 1998.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/big-pun-and-fat-joe-performing-at-les-poulets-on-may-13-news-photo/547402273?adppopup=true">Hiroyuki Ito/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>La nueva religíon</h2>
<p>Fast forward a couple of decades, and today’s Latino rappers and reggaetoneros are breaking new ground, frequently adding more sensitive, introspective and socially conscious touches to hip-hop. </p>
<p>One of the <a href="https://ledgernote.com/blog/interesting/most-streamed-artists-ever/">most-streamed artists in the world today</a>, the Puerto Rican hitmaker Bad Bunny, is representative of this new style. Raised in a Catholic home, <a href="https://www.thefader.com/2018/08/28/bad-bunny-cover-story-conejo-malo-interview">his voice nurtured in a church choir</a>, Bad Bunny’s breadth – reggaeton, cumbia, boogaloo, trap, bomba, salsa – owes a lot to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1014211817/no-boundaries-on-the-island-the-music-of-puerto-rico">the musical diversity of the island</a>. </p>
<p>Like so many artists of Latin American and African American heritages, he slips on religious sentiments, then drops them for bawdy ones in a beat, changing his mood like a stage performer between acts. Unlike R.E.M., Bad Bunny hasn’t exactly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg">“lost” his religion</a> as much as he’s reformed it, adding in dance rhythms, folk motifs, feminist sensibilities, LGBTQ rights and barrio experiences. </p>
<p>“El diablo me llama pero Jesucristo me abraza – amén,” he sings in his verse for the viral hit “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLFNgKOPS50">I Like It</a>,” a trap version of Pete Rodriguez’s 1967 “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiM9GqZG9kE">I Like It Like That</a>”: The devil calls me but Jesus Christ holds me.</p>
<p>He named his first major tour “La Nueva Religíon,” a fitting name for <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2022/08/25/bad-bunny-spirituality-243615">the eccentric combinations of spirituality</a>, sexuality, dance and pan-Latin motifs in his music. Since the tour in 2018, the term has endured, referring not only to Bad Bunny’s fans – devotees of this “new religion” – but also a generation that is questioning traditional gender roles, chasing new spiritual experiences and raising their fists in support of human rights. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large crowd outside, with men on a truck holding Puerto Rican flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528156/original/file-20230525-25-nhl8zb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Rapper Bad Bunny (holding flag), singer Ricky Martin (black hat) and rapper Residente (blue hat) join protests against the governor of Puerto Rico in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rapper-bad-bunny-singer-ricky-martin-and-rapper-residente-news-photo/1162646990?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Ever since Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria in 2017 – when over 300,000 homes in Puerto Rico <a href="https://spp-pr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2018/07/HUD-Housing-Damage-Assessment-Recovery-Strategies-6-29-18.pdf">were damaged or destroyed</a> – Bad Bunny has produced anthems and rally cries as much as songs. Take “El Apagón,” “The Blackout,” a rebellious <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-latin/bad-bunny-releases-documentary-for-el-apagon-1234594915/">condemnation of the government’s inaction</a> on power outages that have swept the island since Maria, and locals’ sense that their own needs go unmet while wealthy outsiders flood in.</p>
<p>He’s not alone: Many of today’s rappers are sampling some of the more righteous trends in the history of hip-hop. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP9Bto5lOEQ">The Cuban rap song “Patria y Vida</a>,” for instance – a collaboration between Gente de Zona, the Orishas, Descemer Bueno and other artists – appeared in Cuba like a storm in 2021. Capturing feelings of widespread discontent with the Cuban government, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2021/07/19/1017887993/explaining-patria-y-vida-the-cuban-song-defying-an-evil-revolution">the rap reclaims and revolutionizes</a> the classic slogan from the Cuban revolution of the 1950s, “Patria o Muerte” (“Homeland or Death”). In the hands of these Cuban rappers, the phrase becomes “patria y vida”: “We no longer shout homeland or death, but homeland and life instead.”</p>
<p>Further south in the Americas, consider MC Millaray, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/world/americas/mc-millaray-chile-mapuche-rapper.html">a 16-year-old Indigenous rapper</a> from Mapuche lands in Chile, whose fierce raps swing between Spanish and Indigenous languages. She wields her words like incantations to summon Mapuche ancestors and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pWmhrsAKPI">defend the dignity of Indigenous lives</a> throughout the Americas. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young woman's face, with a serious expression, lit up against a dark room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527636/original/file-20230523-23-b2kdxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Chilean Mapuche rap singer MC Millaray records at a studio in Santiago on March 25, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chilean-mapuche-rap-singer-mc-millaray-records-at-a-studio-news-photo/1250034416?adppopup=true">Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Romp and grace</h2>
<p>Now <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hip-hop-has-enhanced-american-education-over-the-past-50-years-from-rec-rooms-to-classrooms-202794">50 years in the making</a>, hip-hop continues to be a powerful amulet against powers that try to silence the young and underprivileged. It’s eloquent proof of an enduring truth: that hardship can fuel ingenuity and cunning, and that poetry can be fashioned out of society’s scraps. </p>
<p>For my brother and his breaking crew, hip-hop was a lesson in grace: how the body can find the still point in the midst of spins, leaps and flying arms and legs. For me, always drawn by the rapping, it was also a lesson in grace: the emcee’s adroit arrangement of syllables and syntax, the way they sculpted their bars, making language bounce, dance and romp. </p>
<p>For both of us, it was like a first love, making us feel rapturously free yet connected – liberating and revelatory at once.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alejandro Nava is affiliated with Casa Alitas, a non-profit organization that works with refugees and asylum-seekers. </span></em></p>Latino artists have been forging their own paths in hip-hop for decades, giving voice to young peoples’ pain, faith and demands for change.Alejandro Nava, Professor of Religious Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2003822023-03-02T16:55:43Z2023-03-02T16:55:43ZDe La Soul is coming to streaming services – a brief guide to their best work<p>De La Soul is one of the most significant and iconic groups in the history of hip hop. Comprising three members, Trugoy The Dove, Posdnous and Maseo, De La Soul worked together for 35 years releasing innovative music, touring and collaborating with artists from a range of genres until Trugoy’s death in February 2023.</p>
<p>Since their debut album <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/de-la-soul-3-feet-high-and-rising/">Three Feet High And Rising</a> in 1989, De La Soul have been challenging and changing the sound of hip hop. While they tipped their hat at the genre’s roots, they pushed hip hop’s boundaries by using a range of unusual samples and production techniques. </p>
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/festivals-must-do-more-to-address-sexual-violence-189188?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Festivals must do more to address sexual violence</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-2-why-the-death-of-someone-young-can-be-harder-to-handle-195307?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Black Panther 2: why the death of someone young can be harder to handle</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/rihanna-and-radical-pregnancy-fashion-how-the-victorians-made-maternity-wear-boring-182000?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Rihanna and radical pregnancy fashion – how the Victorians made maternity wear boring</a></em></p>
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<p>They also had championed a “new form of speak” – a conversational, persuasive lyrical delivery. The words that they rapped also presented a different type of rapper, a more emotional and softer version. Their songs addressed significant subject matter including Black history, personal identity, family and relationship struggles and social cohesion. These songs challenged the unhelpful stereotypes of rap artists that the industry and audiences had come to expect.</p>
<p>Across eight studio albums and numerous collaborations De La Soul continued to champion musical and cultural innovation.</p>
<p>After years of <a href="https://www.theroot.com/officially-all-good-de-la-soul-finally-gets-masters-ba-1847456177">industry conflict</a>, De La Soul’s complete back catalogue will be finally released on all streaming platforms from March 2023. If you are a fan of Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean or Childish Gambino, I encourage you to explore De La Soul’s discography, it’s all good. Here are five songs to introduce you to their back catalogue: </p>
<p><strong>1. Potholes In My Lawn</strong></p>
<p>Originally released on the five-track EP Jenifa (Taught Me) in 1988, Potholes In My Lawn is significant for its original use of metaphors to deliver the established hip hop trope of biting – that is, stealing ideas. In the song, the lawn represents De La Soul’s raps and the potholes are the chunks that biting MCs – those that steal their rhymes – have taken. The group sample <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jms7nde0Rc&ab_channel=ReelblackOne">Eric Burdon and War’s Magic Mountain</a>, which can be heard in the trilling trumpets. </p>
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<p>The introduction speech states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yo, something’s wrong here. No, not again?<br>
Get the daisies for the potholes in my lawn. </p>
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<p>In the video, Trugoy leans against a timber-clad building, delivering his lyrics as if explaining some encounter or seeking advice from whoever might listening. </p>
<p><strong>2. Ghetto Thang</strong></p>
<p>The second selection from their debut album, Ghetto Thang approaches social destitution and the breakdown of family structures through the figures of nursery rhyme characters. For example:</p>
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<p>Mary had a little lamb,<br>
that’s a fib, she had two twins though,<br>
and one crib </p>
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<p>Here they introduce a narrative of the 14-year-old mother, a victim of social deprivation, all too common in the projects. Posdnous’ raps, “But this defect is ground common in these parts”. This is further amplified by Trugoy as he ends, “But dreams ain’t what it seems, When it’s just the ghetto thang.” Here they sample <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILrvgPkFuXI&ab_channel=GrownFolks">Rock Creek Park</a> by The Blackbyrds’, which can be heard in the chorus. </p>
<p><strong>3. Oooh. (featuring Redman)</strong></p>
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<p>This song from their 2000 album Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump initially seems to take the form of a conventional boom bap rap song – a style of beat production developed in the late 80s centred on a hard-hitting bass drum and snapping snare drum. This sort of rap was typified by mid-90s groups such as Mobb Deep or Wu-Tang Clan. </p>
<p>However, the song’s incredible bounce lifts the vibe sky high as Redman, Posdnous and Trugoy flex traditional pass-the-mic style raps in unexpected ways. Pauses, soundbites and reimagined rhyme patterns and the creative use of the famous breakbeat from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNODqOk01Ls">Blow Your Head by Fred Wesley and The JBs</a> positions this song as a true innovative rap classic.</p>
<p><strong>4. All Good? (featuring Chaka Khan)</strong></p>
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<p>Another exemplary song illustrating De La Soul’s collaborative approach, All Good? enlists the powerful voice of Chaka Khan. As Chaka sings a much extended bridge and hook-line preceding each verse of rap, this places her as a clear antagonist to Trugoy and Posdnous in the song’s narrative and structure. By doing so, the song reimagined the 90s R&B song structure popularised by artists such as Mary J. Blige and Faith Evans. Thematically, the song again comments on music industry tensions between artist and record labels. </p>
<p>The swing in this song is tremendous, the beat dropping in and out in unanticipated places creates an almost minimalist production. This provides space for Chaka’s sublime vocals which, intertwines with Trugoy and Posdnous’ raps perfectly. A benchmark for R&B rap collaborative crossover.</p>
<p><strong>5. Exodus</strong></p>
<p>Exodus is the last song on the final studio album <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22353-and-the-anonymous-nobody/">And The Anonymous Nobody</a> released in 2016. Exodus truly encapsulates everything about De La Soul’s musical ethos and all that is good about hip hop music – despite not containing any rap as such. </p>
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<p>As De La Soul state, “With the outro that’s also an intro”, Exodus moves through a cyclical mesmerising melody, reminding us of what De La Soul are about - hip hop artists who believe in the progression of music through peer support, collaboration and discursive ideas. Exodus is both celebration and lament. It is reflective upon their lived experience in the world, hip hop community and music industry, yet also forward-looking – a call to arms of sorts for the future of hip hop. </p>
<p>Signing off:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are the present, the past, and still the future. Bound by friendship, fuelled and inspired by what’s at stake. Saviours, heroes? Nah. Just common contributors hoping that what we create inspires you to selflessly challenge and contribute. Sincerely, Anonymously, Nobody. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is almost as if they knew that this would be their last album as a trio as member <a href="https://theconversation.com/de-la-souls-trugoy-the-dove-was-a-true-musical-disruptor-who-broke-the-hip-hop-mould-199839">Trugoy died in early 2023</a>, just before the back catalogue brought new listeners to this group of ground breakers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With their back catalogue finally being made available on streaming services, a new generation of rap lovers will get to enjoy their groundbreaking work.Adam de Paor-Evans, Research Lead at Rhythm Obscura, University of PlymouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1998392023-02-14T16:24:47Z2023-02-14T16:24:47ZDe La Soul’s Trugoy The Dove was a true musical disruptor who broke the hip-hop mould<p>David Jude Jolicoeur (better known as Trugoy The Dove and Plug 2), who has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trugoy-the-dove-dies-obituary-de-la-soul-music-86ebc0545ff2111c7b0fc6e6f491ef78">died at the age of 54</a>, was a music disruptor who changed the sound and look of rap and hip-hop in the late 80s and 90s.</p>
<p>I first heard his voice on DJ John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show in 1988. It was on De La Soul’s debut single Plug Tunin’ (Are You Ready For This). Like many teenagers back then, my finger was ready on the pause button to record any new hip-hop music from radio shows.</p>
<p>Plug Tunin’ featured a “new style of speak”, which is to say a new way of creating rap. You can hear it over the song’s concise samples of The Invitations, snippets of James Brown, Manzel and even Billy Joel. </p>
<p>In the lyrics, Trugoy and his bandmate Posdnous brought a new style, pattern and cadence to rap. The intro-verse-break-verse-outro song pattern that had become convention was disputed and a conversational approach to lyric delivery, with space for reflection, was built into De La’s song structures. </p>
<p>The arrival of De La Soul’s debut album <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/de-la-soul-3-feet-high-and-rising/">Three Feet High And Rising</a> early in 1989 affirmed their position as true rap innovators. The sound, format and visuals embodied in this album tested everything that had been established as tenets of hip-hop. They would go on to carve a new look and sound that would influence some of hip-hop and raps biggest artists today. </p>
<h2>Giving hip-hop a new look and sound</h2>
<p>Across 23 tracks (including several skits), Three Feet High And Rising brought the concept of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9jCsOCfUUg&ab_channel=DeLaSoulVEVO">The D.A.I.S.Y. Age</a>”, not a reimagined take on the flower power of the hippie era but as an acronym for “Da Inner Sound Y’all”. </p>
<p>While not immediately obvious, De La Soul’s inner sound is deeply reflective of the roots of rap. </p>
<p>Trugoy and Posdnous’s pseudonyms of Plug 1 and Plug 2 are a nod to the original emcee’s microphone check (mic check, one two). Homages to DJs can also be heard throughout their music, like the intense cut and scratch sounds in bridge sections in <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jenifa-taught-me-derwins-revenge-238265/">Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin’s Revenge)</a> and Potholes In My Lawn. </p>
<p>They incorporated skits into many of their tracks, which also nodded to the shoulders on which they stood. For instance, the skit in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7kDkEf2bwk&ab_channel=%C3%B8ZzLX98">Cool Breeze On The Rocks</a> pays homage to two generations of rappers through montaged soundbites from The Fearless Four, The Treacherous Three, Crash Crew, Cut Master D.C. and MC Lyte. </p>
<p>However, De La Soul’s lyrics were also a challenge to the braggadocio rap tradition. Through a less hard-edged approach, the songs that comprise the album Three Feet High And Rising are a series of stories thoughtfully contextualising and calling out the growing nihilistic essence of rap. They also used visuals to do this.</p>
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<p>In the music video of Me Myself And I from Three Feet High And Rising, the trio shuffle cautiously into a high school classroom. Trugoy is seen uncomfortably taking a seat, removing his jacket to reveal a pale green polka dot shirt as he opens with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mirror mirror on the wall, tell me mirror what is wrong?<br>
Can it be my De La clothes or is it just my De La song?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The song’s overarching narrative explores De La Soul’s image, identity and approach to hip-hop, while the video focuses on the culture’s canon of artefacts, accessories and tropes. By the close of 1988, Kangol hats, fat gold rope chains, three-finger knuckle rings, sneakers, tracksuits, Cazal eyewear and high-top fade haircuts collectively represented the personal <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Free-Stylin-Changed-Fashion-Industry/dp/0313386463">accessories of hip-hop</a>. </p>
<p>In the video, De La Soul’s classmates wear these accessories to portray their hip-hop identity as they tease Trugoy and Posdnous for their clothing. Enter the teacher – complete with boom box and mobile phone – imagined as “Prof DefBeat”. </p>
<p>He teaches the class “the stance” (the classic hip-hop pose) while miming the instructions written on the chalkboard – arms crossed, hunched, shoulders up. The bright pop colours of the video bring humour to the scenario, yet the narrative clearly invites the audience to question the representations of hip-hop.</p>
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<p>Three Feet High and Rising became a global hit with four successful singles, and, despite their breaking away and questioning of what hip-hop was, the album was widely praised within the hip-hop community as well. </p>
<h2>Genre-blending genius</h2>
<p>Not limited to the world of hip-hop they embarked on several genre-blending collaborations. Notable among these was their guesting on Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc, for which <a href="https://www.grammy.com/news/de-la-soul-essential-tracks-david-jolicoeur-dave-trugoy-the-dove">they won a Grammy</a>. They also featured a wide range of artists on their final studio album <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22353-and-the-anonymous-nobody/">And The Anonymous Nobody</a>, including cellist and composer Okorie Johnson, rock singer David Byrne, soul singer Jill Scott and Gorillaz and Blur indie singer <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/damon-albarn-shares-musical-tribute-to-de-la-souls-david-trugoy-the-dove-jolicoeur-3397685">Damon Albarn</a>.</p>
<p>Trugoy remains a central figure in the seismic shift in identity and production of hip-hop since the late 1980s. As one-third of De La Soul, he challenged the stereotyped cadence of rap and the 16-bar solo verse, paving the way for identity-driven artists such as Camp Lo and many popular rappers today, like Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean and Childish Gambino.</p>
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<p>Taking a departure from the sort of music they were expected to sample and expanding the breadth of their source material, De La Soul further questioned the expanse of hip-hop culture and its materialistic desires. As many of their productions charted globally, these are more than mere crossover songs, within lies ideas which cut across genres. </p>
<p>For example, Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) and its reimagined sung chorus of Curiosity Killed The Cat’s Name And Number. These genre-crossing ideas not only challenge the canonical trajectory of rap but also influenced the wider practice of songwriting.</p>
<p>Trugoy The Dove will be sorely missed not only throughout the global hip-hop fraternity but across the world of music. His work from the past 35 years will continue to inspire new generations of artists, producers, rappers, singers and songwriters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trugoy the Dove was instrumental in shaping a type of hip-hop that was more experimental and sensitive.Adam de Paor-Evans, Associate Lecturer, School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of PlymouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1859762022-10-09T07:46:53Z2022-10-09T07:46:53ZWhat is cultural appropriation and why is it so harmful?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476888/original/file-20220801-77595-l4tehb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Album artwork for Mount Ninji And Da Nice Time Kid. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zef Recordz/Die Antwoord</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Die Antwoord is a South African band that uses hip-hop music to create a style it calls “zef”. Since it first appeared in 2009, Die Antwoord has been criticised for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-cultural-appropriation">cultural appropriation</a> (using cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative way). It’s accused of copying the lyrics and styles of Cape Town artists rapping in South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-ever-dictionary-of-south-africas-kaaps-language-has-launched-why-it-matters-165485">Kaaps language</a>, and of mimicking the visual styles of Cape Flats <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-some-of-cape-towns-gangsters-got-out-and-stayed-out-170485">gang members</a>. Adam Haupt has researched and written extensively on hip-hop and identity. He discusses cultural appropriation and the role of power in interactions between dominant and marginalised subjects in a case like Die Antwoord’s.</em></p>
<h2>What is cultural appropriation?</h2>
<p>In an article on cultural appropriation, visual culture scholar Rina Arya <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354629226_Teaching_learning_guide_for_cultural_appropriation_What_it_is_and_why_it_matters">writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Integral to the definition of cultural appropriation is an asymmetry of power between two cultures that involves the majority/dominant culture taking from the marginalised culture. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, it’s more productive to think about cultural appropriation in terms of relations of power. For example, in South Africa, Afrikaner nationalists appropriated the local Kaaps language to produce the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Afrikaans-language">Afrikaans</a> language, a version that stripped <a href="https://www.litnet.co.za/kaaps-is-the-future-of-afrikaans/">Kaaps</a> of its creolised Khoi San, Arabic and south-east Asian roots to favour its Dutch origins because it could do so.</p>
<p>Cultural appropriation is both enabled by power and is an expression of power.</p>
<h2>How is Die Antwoord a good example of this?</h2>
<p>Die Antwoord means “the answer” in Afrikaans, the language associated with the dominant white minority rulers of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>The band has two members, Ninja and Yolandi. They created a hip hop outfit using Kaaps as a basis for their lyrics and styling Ninja as a Cape Town gangster. So, a privileged white man, Waddy Jones, created Ninja after previously crafting other <a href="https://oddculture.com/the-personas-of-waddy-jones-aka-ninja-from-die-antwoord/">hip hop personas</a> such as Max Normal. Jones is neither “black”/“coloured” nor “white” working-class. He is not a gangster either. </p>
<p>Stereotypically, speakers of Kaaps have been presented as “mixed race” or “coloured” people. They were segregated from other categories of black South Africans in the service of apartheid ideology. Speakers of Kaaps have also been denigrated as speakers of “slang”, as if Kaaps were not a language in its <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-ever-dictionary-of-south-africas-kaaps-language-has-launched-why-it-matters-165485">own right</a>.</p>
<p>To become known, Die Antwoord employed social media alongside performances at music festivals. The cartoonish violence and phallic imagery in its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc3f4xU_FfQ">first video</a>, Enter the Ninja, was designed to go viral. Once it did, the band was soon able to perform extensively in Europe and the US, thanks to a record deal. </p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/static">Static</a>: Race and Representation in Post-Apartheid Music and Media, I argue that Die Antwoord’s success is thanks in part to racialised class inequality in South Africa and the fact that systemic racism has yet to be dismantled nearly three decades after democracy. The band used class privilege, social capital and networks to ensure that it succeeded – often at the <a href="https://www.news24.com/News24/Die-Antwoord-used-us-20150430">expense</a> of marginalised communities. </p>
<h2>How did the cultural appropriation work?</h2>
<p>Die Antwoord “borrows” heavily from <a href="http://www.dwkaaps.co.za">Kaaps</a> (also known as Afrikaaps) and from Afrikaans hip-hop. It draws on words and cultural expressions associated with black/coloured and white working-class multilingual speech communities. So it piggybacked off work done by black artists who established the cool of “rapping in the vernac”.</p>
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<p>Die Antwoord could appropriate this music because it had the power to do so. But its appropriation went beyond performing verbal stereotypes. It was also embodied, for example, in Ninja adorning his body with particular Cape gang tattoos. To quote <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/static">Static</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The band alludes to the <a href="https://thenumbersgang.weebly.com/history-of-the-numbers-gang.html">numbers gangs</a>, the 26s and 28s, via tattoos and the graffiti that appears in the background of their set.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Die Antwoord then sold itself as authentically South African to a global audience that knew nothing of the culture being appropriated.</p>
<h2>Who actually pioneered Afrikaans hip hop?</h2>
<p>Afrikaans/Kaaps hip hop was initially pioneered by the groups <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/220003-Prophets-Of-Da-City">Prophets of da City</a> and <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/996596-Brasse-Vannie-Kaap">Brasse Vannie Kaap</a> in the 1990s. It is now also championed by a wide range of hip hop artists from the Western Cape province, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAEUTsz3OL8">Rosey die Rapper</a>, <a href="http://www.youngstacpt.com">YoungstaCPT</a>, <a href="https://emileyx.co.za">Emile YX?</a> and <a href="https://jitsvinger.co.za">Jitsvinger</a> to name just a few.</p>
<p>Prophets and Brasse did a great deal to <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/neva-again">validate black multilingualism</a> in an environment that still favoured imperial language. Members of Prophets of da City went on to form bands like Skeem and Boom Shaka, shaping the country’s youthful <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-kwaito-music">kwaito</a> music revolution. Kwaito affirms black multilingual modes of speech. </p>
<h2>Where does blackface fit in?</h2>
<p>While we might argue Die Antwoord’s use of tattoos and oblique references to the numbers gangs is a form of blackface, band members have literally blackened their bodies in the music video for the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIXUgtNC4Kc">Fatty Boom Boom</a>, for example. Die Antwoord proudly displays blackface as part of its persona. </p>
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<p>The US cultural historian Eric Lott <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Love_and_Theft.html?id=FwEJAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">reveals</a> that blackface minstrelsy took shape in the US in the 1800s when “white men caricatured ‘blacks’ for sport and profit” by painting their own faces black and performing racist caricatures of “black” subjects for “white” audiences. These projections of blackness had little to do with the lived experiences of “black” subjects. </p>
<p>The US historian Alexander Saxton <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2711892">contends</a> that minstrel shows “merged into vaudeville and the beginnings of cinema”.</p>
<p>Blackface is <a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/news/blackface-book-hollywood-racist-performance-1234996254/">not a thing of the past</a>. We need only think of South African filmmaker <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0776856/">Leon Schuster</a>’s many <a href="https://mg.co.za/friday/2020-06-28-oh-shucks-an-accidental-blackface-hero/">blackface performances</a> in comedy movies that continue to appeal to South African audiences. Who can forget US singer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmndB6ONtxA">Miley Cyrus twerking</a> or the Dutch continuing to defend their blackface Christmas tradition <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2018/11/pride-prejudice-and-blackface">Zwarte Piet</a> as “traditional”?</p>
<p>Cultural appropriation and blackface persists in popular culture in a world facing a resurgence of right wing politics in the form of ethnonationalism, xenophobia and fascism. To this day, black communities fight for the right to represent themselves on their own terms with dignity.</p>
<p>Die Antwoord’s use of cultural appropriation to gain global fame is enabled by the continuing asymmetry of power relations that play out along race, gender and class lines.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Haupt receives funding from the NRF and UCT's URC. </span></em></p>Controversial South African band Die Antwoord illustrates the power relations that make cultural appropriation and blackface so damaging.Adam Haupt, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1791632022-03-22T12:14:25Z2022-03-22T12:14:25Z‘I wanted a professor like me’ – a hip-hop artist explains his turn to academia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452239/original/file-20220315-27-1j5fkkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7951%2C5237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The media plays an important role in the way people learn to view themselves and others.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/single-father-wacthing-movie-on-a-laptop-with-his-royalty-free-image/1182448936">FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/cic/faculty-staff/evans_jabari.php">Jabari Evans</a>, associate professor of race and media at the University of South Carolina, studies the messages that media produce about the representation of race and how that can impact marginalized groups, particularly the Black community. Below are some highlights from an interview with The Conversation. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.</em></p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jabari Evans explains his career path.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>How did you get to where you are today?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> I started <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYL6MGqDss">off as a musician</a>, a hip-hop musician. I toured. I had three separate record deals over the course of my career as a recording artist. But I found that when I started entering my early 30s, I was doing a lot of youth mentorship work, as well as community activism.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The music video for Kidz in the Hall’s Jukebox.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That work led me to pursue grants for my own not-for-profit and really try to see solutions and help Black youths utilize their creativity in ways that can change their life trajectories – whether that’s financially or just becoming better people. I found myself really asking these questions that could only be answered through research or academic work. </p>
<p>For example, I was always interested in how young adults from low-income communities of color who become successful in creative industries could have been better supported along their formal paths to success, and how that insight could be used to implement culturally relevant offerings in academic spaces. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1952294">My most recent work</a> argues that participation in hip-hop “<a href="https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/">communities of practice</a>” is a multidimensional asset that can be used to empower Black youths for the media literacy education necessary to navigate their social, civic, personal, academic and professional lives. </p>
<p><strong>What do you enjoy most about what you study?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> The greatest thing about what I study is that I get to always put a little bit of me in the work that I do. When you study race as a Black person – and for me as a Black man – I’m able to see not only is my work impactful to society at large, but how it is impactful for those who are my friends, who are my family and my own children. My work speaks to issues of equity and inclusion in today’s creative class that face many Black youths at the social policy level, a developmental level and a pedagogical level.</p>
<p>I think it allows me a lot more credence. It allows me a lot more flexibility in how I reach people, how to connect with people. </p>
<p><strong>What motivates you to continue to do the research in the field that you’re in?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> Since I was an undergrad, and I think when I was an undergrad, I wanted a professor like me. And so I’m really just trying to be the change that I wanted to see. And I think that’s kind of the necessary void that needed to be filled. And so I have fashioned myself into that space.</p>
<p>But beyond that, I think I’ve always loved media, I’ve always loved watching television, making and listening to music. I’ve always loved watching movies, I’ve always loved sports media and, now, news media. And I’ve always been very well entrenched in it and thinking about it in ways that are critical.</p>
<p><strong>What is next for your research?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jabari Evans:</strong> I am working on a book called “Hip Hop Civics” (University of Michigan Press). It is an ethnographic study of a hip-hop-based education program administered by a local nonprofit in two of Chicago’s lowest-performing schools. The project is articulating the claim that Black youths, particularly those from low-income areas, should be both allowed and encouraged to learn digital media literacy and develop critical thinking skills in a curriculum centered on hip-hop composition.</p>
<p>[<em>More than 150,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Join the list today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jabari M. Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of race and media discusses the importance of analyzing media through a critical lens.Jabari M. Evans, Assistant Professor of Race and Media, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1701722021-11-12T13:35:31Z2021-11-12T13:35:31ZChief Keef changed the music industry – and it’s time he gets the credit he deserves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431127/original/file-20211109-21-5daqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=309%2C0%2C2685%2C1827&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It’s been 10 years since Chief Keef became an internet famous rapper with the song 'Bang.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chief-keef-performs-at-irving-plaza-on-october-30-2018-in-news-photo/1055746054?adppopup=true">Johnny Nunez/WireImage via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before he was arrested in December 2011, Chief Keef was a 16-year-old budding rap star. He’d released a song, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEoDSTBY_Y4">Bang</a>,” which had more than 400,000 views on YouTube, along with a mixtape that he’d recorded in a friend’s bedroom. He also had a dedicated Twitter following among Chicago high school students. </p>
<p>The track displayed a rawness unlike anything else that was released at the time, and you couldn’t stroll down the streets of Chicago’s South Side without hearing Bang’s lyrics pulsing from the stereos of cars rolling by:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Choppers gettin' let off
Now, they don't want no war
30 clips and them .45's, gotta go back to the sto'
And that Kush gettin' smoked, gotta go back to the sto'
Cock back 'cause there's trouble, my mans gon' blow
</code></pre>
<p>Yet he was almost completely unknown outside of Chicago. His Facebook profile had less than 2,000 followers, he claimed his occupation was “smokin’ dope” and he still lived with his grandmother. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the verses written and hastily disseminated on social media by Chief Keef and his peers were fast becoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/rap-musics-path-from-pariah-to-pulitzer-95283">a unique sort of news ticker</a> for low-income communities of color in Chicago, detailing the turf wars, rivalries and hassles of everyday life as a Black kid growing up in the city.</p>
<p>The songs became known as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210607-the-controversial-music-that-is-the-sound-of-global-youth">drill music</a>, a genre characterized by its dark synths, booming 808 drums, seemingly off-beat, mumbled verses and war-cry choral chants. Its vanguards – artists like Chief Keef, King Louie, G Herbo and Lil Durk – emerged as local heroes by staying tethered to the blocks and neighborhoods they rapped about on SoundCloud and YouTube. Eventually, the national press caught on. The coverage was often less than flattering.</p>
<p>At the time, I was entrenched in my own hip-hop music career, rapping under the moniker Naledge in the duo <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1045164/kidz-in-the-hall-hope-to-move-the-crowd">Kidz in the Hall</a>. As I was touring the country, I noticed that everyone from back home in Chicago was asking me if I’d heard of this kid Keef who was from Washington Park. </p>
<p>I knew that if a 16-year-old kid had the city buzzing, it would only be a matter of time before he was famous. What I didn’t know is that five years later, the drill subculture would be the subject of my field work <a href="https://chicagoreader.com/music/naledge-brings-his-rappers-brain-back-to-academia/">as a doctoral student at Northwestern</a> and that it would inspire me to write about the ways in which the city’s Black youth dealt with cultural, racial, economic and political oppression through inventive <a href="https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/11910">media production</a>.</p>
<p>I started to argue, to anyone that would listen, that drill music was more than shock value or a new spin on gangsta rap. The scene planted the seeds for hip-hop’s ascendancy in music’s digital economy.</p>
<h2>Drill goes viral</h2>
<p>When Chief Keef’s house arrest ended, on Jan. 2, 2012, WorldStarHipHop <a href="https://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhfL989vmcpWdpq7CE">posted a video</a> of a young child in a hysterical fit of excitement, bounding around a room and rapping along to “Bang.” </p>
<p>The video of the boy went viral in the hip-hop community, and curious viewers furiously searched YouTube for more Chief Keef content.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boy yelling into camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431594/original/file-20211111-25-6j75kr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431594/original/file-20211111-25-6j75kr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431594/original/file-20211111-25-6j75kr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431594/original/file-20211111-25-6j75kr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431594/original/file-20211111-25-6j75kr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431594/original/file-20211111-25-6j75kr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431594/original/file-20211111-25-6j75kr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A video of one of Chief Keef’s young fans celebrating his release from prison went viral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhfL989vmcpWdpq7CE">WorldStarHipHop</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Later that year, Chief Keef cemented his national reputation with the commercial success of his song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WcRXJ4piHg">I Don’t Like</a>.” As the lead single for Chief Keef’s debut album, “Finally Rich,” “I Don’t Like” <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chief-keef/chart-history/RPT/song/759040">charted on the Billboard Hot 100</a>, accumulated tens of millions of listens online and helped drill break into the nation’s musical mainstream. </p>
<p>Within months of the song’s release, drill was seemingly everywhere. Hip-hop icons like <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/1709056/kanye-west-yeezus-track-king-louie/">Kanye West</a> and <a href="https://audibletreats.com/600breezy_pr7/">Drake</a> began co-signing drill rappers, while record labels instigated bidding wars over the South Side of Chicago’s budding rap talent.</p>
<p>At the time, drill music was still one of the only music scenes to exist almost exclusively on YouTube and free streaming sites like SoundCloud and DatPiff.com – a form of DIY distribution that circumvented the traditional gatekeepers of the rap music industry. Songs were churned out via singles, curated playlists, snippets and low-budget music videos that could be edited and released instantly by artists direct to their audiences via social media.</p>
<p>The most popular YouTube videos for drill songs were often shot <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyHZNBz6FE">in low-income apartments</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hxN7HXsSGk">on street corners</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu8PtiN0Ce8">with the local crews standing behind the artist performing</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_edyRETJWdw">pointing weapons at the camera</a> and rapping about the recent events of ongoing street wars. </p>
<p>Initially, many journalists and researchers focused almost exclusively on how youth in the drill scene used their songs to perform “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.035">internet banging</a>,” or threatening rival gang members and planning crimes over social media. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">FBG Duck’s music video for ‘Exposing Me’ featuring Rooga directed threats at the O-Block street gang.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Media outlets like the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun Times, <a href="https://youtu.be/TybFtK6VTVo">Noisey</a>, <a href="https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/211-chicago-rap-documentary-the-field-investigates-the-origins-of-drill/">Pitchfork</a>, <a href="https://www.spin.com/2012/06/chicago-rap-blazes-streets/">Spin</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/arts/music/chicago-hip-hops-raw-burst-of-change.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">The New York Times</a> and WorldStar Hip Hop extensively covered the rise of Chief Keef and the drill scene, pointing to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/09/gangs-of-social-media/">the violence inspired by the lyrics and the gang affiliations of the artists</a> as the source of their viral appeal.</p>
<p>Police not only <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-lori-lightfoot-public-safety-plan-news-conference-20200814-uw36wzrezjeu7h4wjjccbvvupy-story.html">started monitoring</a> the social media accounts of drill rappers, but also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/arts/music/hologram-performance-by-chief-keef-is-shut-down-by-police.html">effectively banned Chief Keef from performing in his hometown</a> by encouraging venues not to book drill rappers and telling promoters that they’d shut down drill shows.</p>
<p>The drill scene did incite violence. For example, in August 2020, drill rapper FBG Duck was murdered in the upscale Gold Coast neighborhood a year-and-a-half after threatening the O-Block street gang <a href="https://youtu.be/SR1vGzEiv90">in a music video</a>. In October 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s office for Northern Illinois indicted five members of the O-Block street gang for the murder, pointing out that the gang has “publicly claimed responsibility for acts of violence in Chicago” and “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/5-alleged-gang-members-charged-murder-chicago-rapper-fbg-duck-n1281536">used social media and music</a> to increase their criminal enterprise.”</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Rethinking the legacy of the drill scene</h2>
<p>Though deaths like FBG Duck’s make headlines, my interviews with those affiliated with artists like Chief Keef have shown me that the gang violence associated with drill is hardly the reason these artists found success. </p>
<p>Instead, they wrote a blueprint for artists in hip-hop’s streaming era. </p>
<p>In the decade since Chief Keef became an “internet famous” rapper with the song “Bang,” a lot has changed in the music industry. <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/ditto-music-lee-parsons-interview-749510/">There’s now no real demarcation</a> between being a famous musician online and one who’s been elevated by the industry’s power brokers. Tekashi 69, Lil Yachty, 21 Savage, Juice WRLD and Lil Uzi Vert are just a few of the artists that built on the swagger, style, aesthetic and internet distribution model pioneered by Chief Keef.</p>
<p>Chief Keef was among the first to broadcast everyday life in Chicago’s gang territories to the world. His “<a href="https://youtu.be/UaJupVcjS4E">stream of consciousness</a>” style – saturating his YouTube channel videos of himself hanging out with his friends, meeting up with female fans, smoking marijuana and recording songs in his home studio – was a window into everyday life that’s been emulated by pretty much every pop star since.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man raps into microphone in front of a few friends." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431595/original/file-20211111-36844-uewflq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431595/original/file-20211111-36844-uewflq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431595/original/file-20211111-36844-uewflq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431595/original/file-20211111-36844-uewflq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431595/original/file-20211111-36844-uewflq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431595/original/file-20211111-36844-uewflq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431595/original/file-20211111-36844-uewflq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chief Keef takes fans into a recording studio he set up in his cousin’s apartment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaJupVcjS4E">DGainz/YouTube</a></span>
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<p>Moreover, his willingness to give away music for free also paved the way for the “<a href="https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-raps-soundcloud-generation-changed-the-music-business-forever/">SoundCloud era</a>,” in which artists like Chance the Rapper, Lil Pump and Doja Cat gained huge followings not through record deals, but through releasing tracks on SoundCloud. </p>
<p>Chief Keef’s unique slang and mumbled, melodic rapping style have also sparked drill youth movements in places as far away as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4Dxs4nEY84">Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210607-the-controversial-music-that-is-the-sound-of-global-youth">London</a> and <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/2020/10/inside-ghana-asakaa-drill-scene/">Ghana</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"986383918013149184"}"></div></p>
<p>Yes, Chief Keef’s story is out-of-the-ordinary: Getting in a shootout with police at the age of 15 and filming videos while on house arrest aren’t exactly common adolescent experiences. But his ability to present that story to the world and brand his style within a larger movement speaks to his genius. </p>
<p>In my forthcoming book project, I nod to the drill subculture that he spearheaded as reflecting the potential of Chicago’s Black youth. Denied full access to resources that might have helped them overcome their trauma and avoid gang lifestyles, Chief Keef and his peers used social media to persevere and make careers for themselves in music.</p>
<p>A lot that could be gained by not overlooking the creativity and ingenuity of teens and young adults like Chief Keef. He’s a perfect example of the ways in which young Black kids are unintentionally innovating within social media while simply navigating violence and poverty. </p>
<p>What if the violence that accompanied his work were seen as a bug, not a feature? How might his creative output been harnessed to bolster – rather than vilify – the impoverished communities he rapped about?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170172/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jabari M. Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The police, the media and politicians have long objected Chief Keef’s ties to gang violence. But the rapper wrote the playbook for using social media to make a career out of music.Jabari M. Evans, Assistant Professor of Race and Media, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1439022020-09-03T05:13:13Z2020-09-03T05:13:13ZCompeting in Birmingham, live from Mount Druitt: how hip hop moved online under COVID-19<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352443/original/file-20200812-22-n5ssp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C8%2C5964%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joseph Frank/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the South Bronx of New York City, in the early-to-mid 1970s, block parties started to incorporate much of the artistic elements of hip hop as we know it today. </p>
<p>On the streets between their apartment buildings, young African-American, Caribbean and Latino people would gather at parties in which graffiti art, breaking, DJing and rapping were taking place. </p>
<p>These block parties, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Dangerous_Crossroads.html?id=qvjZAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">writes</a> American studies scholar George Lipsitz, were “an attempt to channel the anger of young people in the South Bronx away from gang fighting”. They would become a positive social, cultural and political force for many young people and their communities.</p>
<p>By the mid-1980s, hip hop had hit the mainstream with a force. Today, it is one of the most <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/hip-hop-continued-to-dominate-the-music-business-in-2018-774422/">popular musical genres</a> in the world. During the coronavirus pandemic – and with the resulting high unemployment, disruption to education, restricted travel and lockdown – hip hop has again become a vital outlet for many young people. </p>
<p>Instead of dancing on the streets, they are now performing online and across the world.</p>
<h2>Connecting online</h2>
<p>As hip hop music and dance artists tend to gather in public places, the pandemic and lockdowns have heavily restricted these kinds of events. Many hip hop artists - both in Australia and internationally - have <a href="https://twitter.com/partywithmiya11/status/1262522627421323265">taken to</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wood_girls_mama/status/1239899249799835651">social media</a> to voice their frustration and disappointment with feeling cut off from this community.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1240262642691948546"}"></div></p>
<p>Artists responded to the early stages of the pandemic by moving online. Zoom, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube provided a much needed social and creative outlet. </p>
<p>In July, Melbourne hip hop dancer Nadiah Biddle started running an online “Krump Dance” program for women. <a href="https://blogs.uoregon.edu/jerkrumpop/krump/">Krumping</a> started in Los Angeles in the 1990s, and is now recognised for its expressive, exaggerated, and highly energetic movements.</p>
<p>Attracting dancers from across Australia and New Zealand through Zoom video-conferencing calls, Biddle teaches the basics of Krumping and leads students through choreography.</p>
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<p>“The vibes have been really high”, says Biddle. </p>
<p>“The ladies have expressed to me that they feel so much more uplifted [after dancing] and that they always look forward to the classes.”</p>
<p>Sydney dancer Lowe Napalan recently won the <a href="https://www.birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/b-side-hip-hop-festival-2020/">The B-Side Hip Hop Festival</a> organised by the Break Mission crew in the UK. </p>
<p>The annual festival takes place at Birmingham’s Hippodrome Theatre, but during the pandemic it moved online for the first time – opening up the competition to international artists like Napalan. He competed from the comfort of his own home in Mount Druitt via Instagram live.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_L8XXmhbI5","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Although he was on the other side of the world, Napalan says he had a real feeling of belonging in the event, just as if they had all been in the same room. </p>
<p>He set up his laptop in the living room to watch the other competitors and to film himself. It was a little strange, he says, because the music had to come through the laptop speakers, and there was some internet lag during some moments of the competition. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, it he found it amazing to compete on the international stage with some of the top breakers in the world.</p>
<p>The move online hasn’t just been for professionals. The Perth City Breakers, a collective of hip hop dance teachers and performers from Perth, started a hip hop dance podcast featuring local performers and an <a href="https://perthcitybreakers.podia.com/fit-rockers?fbclid=IwAR3XSCVJHGj5iAX_dl_t1_VZHQHQJmQb92EizPLe5PWJ0mxFlg12zdxqpIE">online training program</a> for absolute beginners, giving people a new way to stay fit under lockdown.</p>
<h2>A global artform</h2>
<p>Hip hop is ever-changing, dynamic and globally diverse. While graffiti art, breaking, DJing and rapping are often recognised as being the forms core artistic elements, the label is much more expansive than that.</p>
<p>It encompasses a wide range of different musical and artistic practices, all of which are able to be expressed and transformed in ways that are local and unique. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-hip-hop-meets-iranian-diaspora-in-a-cross-border-rap-29159">Aboriginal hip-hop meets Iranian diaspora in a cross-border rap</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>In late July, for instance, Soundz of the South, a hip hop music collective based in Khayelitsha, South Africa, organised an open-mic event called Rebel Sistah Cypher. Eight South African hip hop music artists and poets each performed on a Zoom call live-streamed on the group’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=290506098721962">Facebook page</a> to raise money for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WaveOfHopeForTheFuture">Wave of Hope</a>, a charity that supports refugees and asylum seekers living in overcrowded camps in Lesbos, Greece. </p>
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<p>Hip hop is the <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ435214">representative voice</a> of many young people, since the culture was created by and for them. It is a uniquely malleable, dynamic and empowering artform – and its adaptation to the pandemic is especially vital given creative outlets are <a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-research-shows-the-arts-promote-mental-health-136668">so important</a> for well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Marie is member of the Australian Anthropology Society. </span></em></p>Hip-hop got its start as a political artistic force in the streets of Bronx. In the age of coronavirus, that same force has taken to the internet.Lucas Marie, Early career researcher, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1448152020-08-21T11:23:16Z2020-08-21T11:23:16ZWAP: the summer smash hit that exposed the fear of sexually liberated black women<p>What’s so dangerous about a sexually liberated woman? If the critical commentary surrounding Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s chart-topping song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsm4poTWjMs">WAP</a> is any indication then the answer is well, everything. </p>
<p>Premiering on 7 August, the video garnered 26 million <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/08/10/viola-davis-living-wap-fantasies-fans-cut-cardi-b-megan-thee-stallions-music-video-13108113/#:%7E:text=The%2520WAP%2520video%2520broke%2520the,it%2520dropped%2520on%2520August%25207.&text=At%2520the%2520time%2520of%2520writing,58%2520million%2520views%2520and%2520counting.">YouTube</a> views within the first 24 hours and is perhaps <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/ep4kq4/cardi-b-onlyfans-wap-2020-interview">one of the strongest female rap releases to date</a>. Yet WAP isn’t just the summer smash we all needed. As an acronym for “wet ass pussy”, it has emerged as the new anthem of female-centred sexual empowerment.</p>
<p>Complete with sexy costumes, fantastical set pieces, exotic animals, and updo hairstyles reminiscent of the very best of the 1990s, the WAP video is nothing short of a visual feast. Lyrically, the song features the tongue-in-cheek musings of two female rappers known for their unabashed embrace of their sexual power. The opening line, “I said certified freak, seven days a week,” sets the tone for a song that celebrates sex as a potent vehicle for personal expression and the development of individual autonomy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Clean version.</span></figcaption>
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<p>However, with so much to celebrate, it was surprising to see so many men lambaste WAP for its supposed violation of feminist principles. </p>
<h2>Conservative backlash</h2>
<p>James P Bradley, a congressional candidate from California, was the first to <a href="https://twitter.com/BradleyCongress/status/1291735105774522368">express his outrage</a> writing on Twitter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion are what happens when children are raised without God and without a strong father figure. Their new “song” The #WAP (which i heard accidentally) made me want to pour holy water in my ears and I feel sorry for future girls if this is their role model!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not to be outdone, American conservative provocateur Ben Shapiro offered <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1292926867599581184">a dramatic reading</a> of the song before sarcastically concluding that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[WAP] is what the feminist movement was all about. It’s not really about women being treated as independent, full rounded human beings. It’s about wet-ass p-word.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both Bradley and Shapiro framed sexual empowerment as the principal threat to the feminist movement. </p>
<p>Such a disconnected view of feminism not only erases the activists, many of them <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4618-are-sex-workers-the-original-feminists">sex workers</a>, who fought to ensure that sexual liberation is taken seriously as a feminist endeavour, but it also excuses the patriarchy and sexism that have marginalised women around the globe. </p>
<p>It is also worth mentioning that Shapiro and Bradley’s critiques ring particularly hollow when measured against their support for a president who once spoke of his desire to “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html">grab’ em by the pussy</a>”. A brazen endorsement of sexual assault that many conservatives dismissed as “<a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/10/11/13230414/trump-leaked-audio-locker-room-sexual-assault">locker room talk</a>”.</p>
<h2>Double standards in hip-hop</h2>
<p>Critiques of WAP have not been confined to conservative circles. In a <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/ceelo-green-interview-gnarls-barkley-music-today/">recent interview</a> Ce-Lo Green, co-founder of the southern rap group Goodie Mob, expressed his view that the sexually-explicit lyrics of female artists like Cardi B and Megan came at a cost to hip-hop. </p>
<p>Nevermind that male-fronted songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxu-PRz63rw">P-Popping</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmGvtAkTSAI">Suck It or Not</a> are certifiable hip-hop classics and just as sexually explicit. However, when women discuss how they enjoy these same activities they suddenly become the ones setting back the culture. </p>
<p>Coming from Green, a man who was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ceelo-green-cleared-sex-assault-charged-giving-drugs-woman-flna8C11429773">accused of (but not charged with)</a> sexual assault, this critique risks appearing hypocritical. But it also continues a <a href="https://www.villainesse.com/girl-power/madonna-whore-dichotomy-explained">historical trend</a> that holds women to the double standard of appearing sexually demure and respectable while men are celebrated for owning their sexual prowess.</p>
<p>In reality, the danger of WAP lies not in its unabashed celebration of sex but in the audacity of a Black woman and a Afro-Dominican woman to lay claim to their bodies and own their sexual satisfaction.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Rapper Megan Thee Stallion posing in black dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353879/original/file-20200820-16-1vzpzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353879/original/file-20200820-16-1vzpzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353879/original/file-20200820-16-1vzpzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353879/original/file-20200820-16-1vzpzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353879/original/file-20200820-16-1vzpzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353879/original/file-20200820-16-1vzpzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353879/original/file-20200820-16-1vzpzhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Megan Thee Stallion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-ny-september-12-2019-1503732605">lev radin/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Beginning with the commodification of African captives in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and continuing through the use of black women’s bodies for <a href="https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves">gynaecological research</a>, history is rife with <a href="https://psmag.com/ideas/why-cant-reality-tv-stop-stereotyping-black-women">examples</a> of black women being cast as objects to be consumed, commodified and exploited for the gain of others. </p>
<p>In demanding, “I want you to park that big Mac truck right in this little garage”, Cardi and Megan assert themselves as agents in their commodification. Though some would argue that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRgIGMwZd2o">the revolution will not happen between these thighs</a>, WAP remains an important and in some ways <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/">familiar discussion</a> about the appropriate path to women’s liberation.</p>
<p>That both women have refused to be pigeonholed as rap’s sex sirens adds greater complexity to two already complicated figures. </p>
<p>Though often criticised for her background as a stripper, Cardi has made a name for herself in the political realm by lending <a href="https://time.com/5548908/cardi-b-politics/">her support</a> to important issues like ending police brutality. Meanwhile, Megan is <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a32248165/megan-thee-stallion-getting-her-degree-to-make-her-mom-proud/">as vocal</a> about the importance of university education as she is about her status as a “Big Ole Freak” by using her social media to document her degree in healthcare administration. </p>
<p>Both women embody the notion that you can love sex and still be a fully-realised human with interests and goals. So when Megan Thee Stallion raps “I’ll run down on him ‘fore I have a n*gga runnin’ me,” that is not just cute wordplay but a warning shot to anyone who would dare challenge Black women’s ability to create their destinies. After all, “there some whores in this house” and they own it and they’re here to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michell Chresfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s song has cause an uproar for its explicit expression of female sexuality.Michell Chresfield, Lecturer in 20th century US history, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1344932020-03-26T14:58:32Z2020-03-26T14:58:32ZFunky Drummer: How a James Brown jam session gave us the ‘greatest drum break of them all’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322611/original/file-20200324-155640-1ei5oj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C10%2C1710%2C1609&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul VanDerWerf via Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Brown-American-singer">James Brown</a> released a seven-inch single called Funky Drummer in March, 1970 – a loosely arranged jam session showcasing the talent for improvisation of drummer <a href="https://www.moderndrummer.com/article/august-2017-clyde-stubblefield-remembered/">Clyde Stubblefield</a>, who was employed in Brown’s band at the time. </p>
<p>Although it failed to crack the top 50 pop charts on release, Funky Drummer was rediscovered in the 1980s by a generation of pioneering hip-hop artists. These have included Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Flash, Eric B. & Rakim, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys – who all sampled Stubblefield’s infectious drum break. The Funky Drummer breakbeat soon spread far beyond hip-hop, appearing on well over 1,000 recordings by pop artists ranging from George Michael and Sinead O’Connor in the 1990s right up to Emeli Sandé and Ed Sheeran in the past decade.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-the-funky-drummer-the-most-exploited-man-in-modern-music-73473">The story of the funky drummer: the most exploited man in modern music</a>
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<p>Funky Drummer is one of the most sampled drum breaks of all time – and also one of the most discussed (including in my new book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/kick-it-9780190683870">Kick It: A Social History of the Drum Kit</a>). It’s also a prime example of how copyright law has historically failed to compensate drummers. Stubblefield <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/arts/music/clyde-stubblefield-a-drummer-aims-for-royalties.html">famously never received any royalties</a> from all the hits his drum break was used on. </p>
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<p>James Brown typically <a href="https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=umeslr">paid his musicians on a “work-for-hire” basis</a> for recording sessions, and generally credited himself as the sole author of the resulting songs. This was the case even if the music was largely improvised, as in the case of Funky Drummer. It was also in keeping with copyright law conventions at the time, which usually recognised the legal author of a musical composition as the person who wrote <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/42790899_Copyright_the_Work_and_Phonographic_Orality_in_Music">the topline melody and lyrics</a>.</p>
<h2>Anchor for a new sound</h2>
<p>Funky Drummer has various musical elements: simple repeating horn and guitar riffs, a syncopated wandering bass line, occasional instrumental solos on organ and saxophone, as well as vocal improvisations by Brown. We also hear Stubblefield’s performance underpinning the jam session, including the glorious moment when Brown orders the band to drop out while Stubblefield keeps drumming his highly inventive groove unaccompanied – the isolated drum “break” that hip-hop artists love to sample. </p>
<p>But Brown would have deemed all the above musical elements as insignificant compared to his own role as the artistic leader and frontman – this wasn’t necessarily fair, but neither was it uncommon. Ringo Starr did not receive co-writing credits for his drumming contributions on Beatles songs, for example, even though his drum parts have often been <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150707132204/http://www.pas.org/About/the-society/halloffame/StarrRingo.aspx">retrospectively deemed by musical peers</a> to constitute a distinct compositional element of the band’s work.</p>
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<p>Five decades on, in a pop soundscape utterly transformed by hip-hop culture, we now tend to recognise just how important a compelling drum beat is in making a chart hit. Most commercially successful music in the 21st century is anchored by the sounds of the kick drum, snare and cymbals (or electronic percussion serving similar functions). You can now point to plenty of contemporary chart hits that don’t feature an electric guitar, but there are almost none that don’t prominently feature a beat between kick and snare – whether acoustic, sampled or synthesised.</p>
<p>In the hit factories of the present day, the most successful pop artists <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191126-the-hidden-beat-makers-behind-musics-big-hits">often bring in producers</a> who have gained reputations by creating alluring beats. They often receive a formal share in songwriting credits as “co-writers” and “producers”. </p>
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<p>We also live in an era when it is increasingly expensive to gain legal permission to sample drum breaks from rights holders (usually songwriters and/or record companies, as opposed to drummers). This has led to a relatively hidden ancillary industry of “sample replay” companies that are hired to painstakingly rerecord well-known drum breaks (and other parts from guitar riffs to vocal samples). These are designed to resemble the original recordings as much as possible.</p>
<p>The rights to these copycat recordings are then bought wholesale and sampled instead of the originals (at least by the handful of pop stars with deep enough pockets to afford such tactics).</p>
<h2>Musical value</h2>
<p>One drummer making a living from sample replay is <a href="http://dylanwissing.com/">Dylan Wissing</a>, an American session musician who has re-recorded impeccable covers of famous drum breaks for the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West, Drake, Eminem, Rick Ross, John Legend and Alicia Keys. Wissing also runs a website, <a href="https://www.gettingthesound.com">Getting The Sound</a>, which offers tutorials on how to “digitally recreate famous breakbeats” resulting in “a new recording of an existing audio recording that is sonically indistinguishable from the original”.</p>
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<p>Unsurprisingly, one such tutorial demonstrates how to reproduce Funky Drummer – “from choosing the instruments, tuning, muffling, and performance to miking the kit, treating the room and recording the drums for this iconic breakbeat masterpiece.”</p>
<p>The sample replay industry relies on the premise that a particular performance of a work cannot in itself be subject to copyright. Yet part of the legacy of Funky Drummer is the discourse and debate it has generated on exactly this point: everyone seems to agree that Stubblefield was not fairly remunerated for his creativity. But what would be the implications for musical culture if music copyright legislation was changed in his favour?</p>
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<p>Drumming performances are generally considered not to be musical compositions – and this is both a good thing and a bad thing. If every element of musical creation was locked down as a form of intellectual property – from a standard blues chord progression (upon which most blues songs are constructed) to a swinging ride cymbal pattern (the underlying rhythmic pulse upon which countless jazz compositions were built from the 1940s onwards) – we might conceivably be left with no freely available musical building blocks to make new compositions.</p>
<p>It’s a good thing that musicians can borrow, repurpose and build upon previous musical ideas without the fear of getting sued – that’s how new music gets made. But Funky Drummer raises a crucial question: where do we draw the line between a generic part and an original musical composition? This is the tension that Funky Drummer brings sharply into focus, and it is at the heart of understanding how we make sense of musical creativity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134493/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Brennan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Clyde Stubblefield’s drumming has been sampled or imitated more than 1,000 times since it was recorded in 1970.Matt Brennan, Reader in Popular Music, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1318512020-02-24T15:53:14Z2020-02-24T15:53:14ZHip-hop’s obsession with combat imagery is about more than violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316834/original/file-20200224-24655-buzp1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C18%2C2032%2C1342&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of Wu-Tang Clan at Glastonbury 2019. The group took their name from the 1983 Kung Fu film Shaolin and Wu Tang</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Wu_Tang_Clan_West_Holts_Stage_Glastonbury_2019_007.jpg/2048px-Wu_Tang_Clan_West_Holts_Stage_Glastonbury_2019_007.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALPH86ybA6U">Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em</a>, legendary New York MC Rakim proclaims: “I’m the arsenal, I got artillery, lyrics are ammo….”</p>
<p>Senegalese-born French rapper MC Solaar compares his mic to body armour and warns listeners about his cache of lyrical bullets halfway through <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5Bo5rbFD28">La Concubine de l’Hémoglobine</a></em> (The Haemoglobin Concubine): <em>“…le mic est devenu ma tenue combat … le Solaarsenal est équipé de balles vocales …”</em>.</p>
<p>Kendrick Lamar refers to himself as <a href="https://www.thefader.com/2017/04/20/don-cheadle-confirms-kendrick-lamars-kung-fu-kenny-moniker-is-a-irush-hour-2i-reference">Kung Fu Kenny</a> throughout the album DAMN, a reference to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJnJonRPJ-w">Don Cheadle’s character</a> in the 2001 buddy cop and martial arts film Rush Hour 2 starring Jackie Chan. </p>
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<p>As all these examples confirm, it’s a common practice for rappers to equate verbal prowess with martial skill. MCs “spit” incendiary lines. Breakdancers “battle” for supremacy on the dance floor. DJs “cut” samples to their own liking. Graffiti artists “bomb” public spaces with tags. </p>
<p>Critics of hip-hop music and culture denounce such imagery as encouraging actual violence. They often cite graphic examples from commercial American “<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-great-and-the-grisly-of-gangsta-rap-1.2317070">gangsta rap</a>” to make their case. Yet from <a href="https://www.ucc.ie/en/cipher/">the research</a> in which I have been involved, there’s a whole other way of looking at this imagery that casts hip-hop in a very different light. </p>
<h2><strong>Planet rap</strong></h2>
<p>Musicologist Griff Rollefson offers a different view of this tendency for hip-hop MCs to use their “<a href="https://europeanhiphoporg.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/HipHopAsMartialArt-OxfordHandbook-Rollefson.pdf">words as weapons</a>”. For members of marginalised communities, he argues, hip-hop potentially offers “a discursive and performative field in which to vent frustrations, enact fantasies, build confidence and formulate plots”. It’s a cathartic space free from threat of physical harm or retaliation from authorities. </p>
<p>I would argue that the metaphors of combat in global hip-hop are often concerned with messages of <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/12/its-a-hip-hop-world/">empowerment and social action</a>. The seeming violence of such expressions serves as a means for practitioners to channel their dissatisfaction with adverse social conditions through creative artistry. On her 2019 track <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qceP35fafc">Land of Gray</a>, for instance, South African MC Yugen Blakrok “dismembers a fascist” with her incisive “verbal blades”. </p>
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<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpY3XTS9EZw">another instance</a>, Japanese rapper Zeebra fires off a lyrical “bullet of truth”, changing listeners’ thought patterns and “slowly directing brain cells” toward more enlightened ways of being (Saishu Heiki, 2005).</p>
<h2><strong>Musical art to martial art</strong></h2>
<p>At a time when issues of migration, secession and isolationism dominate, an in-depth study of the impact of global forms of hip-hop marks an important change in political and cultural perspectives. As part of the <a href="https://www.ucc.ie/en/cipher/">CIPHER</a> initiative, Rollfeson, the researcher Jason Ng and I are investigating hip-hop’s social importance and re-evaluating its stigmas. The aim is to shift the focus from a strictly US context to look at models from around the world.</p>
<p>Rollefson’s idea that hip-hop is a “martial art” is a part of this approach. Not only does it position rap within its contemporary context but it also considers the culture’s deep indebtedness to Kung Fu cinematic lore and East Asian philosophy. </p>
<p>Take the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut album <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/15-fun-facts-about-wu-tang-clans-enter-the-wu-tang-36-chambers-187134/">Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)</a>. The title references the classic martial arts movies Enter the Dragon (1973) starring Bruce Lee, and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978). </p>
<p>Busta Rhymes’ video for the 1997 track Dangerous, directed by <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb9wm3/hype-williams-changed-hip-hop-forever-with-these-10-videos">Hype Williams</a> (who made some of the period’s most well-known hip-hop videos), takes its inspiration from the 1985 classic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089461/">The Last Dragon</a>. </p>
<p>Ask any old-skool hip-hop head “Who is the master?” and they’ll answer, “Sho’nuff!”. This scene is played out in the music video with Rhymes taking the role of martial arts master Sho’nuff. For brown and black kids growing up in the socioeconomically repressed Bronx of the 1980s, what’s a more aspirational narrative, what’s more hip-hop, than the tale of a lone warrior acting decisively, but only when provoked? </p>
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<p>This influence also manifests globally, but in very different ways. Irish MC Jun Tzu (his <em>nom de guerre</em> a nod to Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu), often highlights the continued need for unity in his hometown of Belfast after <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2w4cg0cdhs">the Troubles</a>. In the single <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBaJORaQI9k">Klik Klak</a> – the title imitating the sound of a pistol being racked and readied to fire – the South African rapper Cream declares: “I’m Jackie Chan with a pen… I defend rappers in my clan…” </p>
<p>Just as martial arts principles are handed down from teacher to disciple, hip-hop MCs spread ideological “truths” through their music. Global practitioners of hip-hop in particular prioritise a resistive aesthetic – an awareness of cultural identity, personal expression and a fundamental “knowledge of self” in their work. </p>
<p>The notion of hip-hop as a martial art also helps to illustrate the community-oriented ethos of the culture. In the cipher, which is the name given to hip-hop performance gatherings, MCs hone their skills and “sharpen their blades” in lyrical combat. This rite of passage, where performers are called on to demonstrate their talents and be evaluated by peers, exemplifies the “each one teach one” approach that characterises much of global hip-hop.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Warrick Moses receives funding from the European Research Council as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the CIPHER Hip Hop Interpellation project, hosted by University College Cork, Ireland.</span></em></p>Global hip-hop takes many cues from Kung Fu. Contrary to what denouncers might think, there is a rhyme and reason to using ‘words as weapons’.Warrick Moses, Postdoctoral Fellow in Hip-Hop Studies, University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309692020-02-05T19:50:18Z2020-02-05T19:50:18Z‘Hamilton,’ the musical now in Canada, tells the story of America’s founding passions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313383/original/file-20200203-41532-1awqtu2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C225%2C1688%2C1013&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joseph Morales and company in 'Hamilton,' the musical that opens to sold out shows in Toronto this month. The show highlights early ambition in America. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hamilton national tour/Joan Marcus)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Hamilton</em>, the musical, is coming to Canada.</p>
<p>Four years after taking Broadway by storm, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s portrayal of the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, one of the most colourful founding fathers, opens this month to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/blog/hamilton-15-fascinating-facts-about-the-biggest-musical-of-all-time-1.5341556">sold out shows</a> in Toronto. </p>
<p><em>Hamilton</em>’s main draws are its fabulous music and astonishing plot. Born a nobody on the British-ruled island of Nevis, Hamilton became a romantic polymath who fought wars and duels, wrote treatises and doctrines and helped turn 13 rebellious colonies into a rising empire. Inspired by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/books/creating-capitalism.html">Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography</a>, Miranda’s masterpiece features a hip-hop soundtrack, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/theater/hamilton-and-history-are-they-in-sync.html">multiracial cast</a> and powerful arguments, in theatrical form, for a more inclusive America. </p>
<p>More subtly, the play also explores ambition, a traditionally maligned passion in British North America that became a distinctive national ethic in the early United States.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from ‘Hamilton,’ the musical.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Ascent from poverty</h2>
<p>From the first scene to the last, <em>Hamilton</em> relates an incredible case of social mobility: “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman … grow up to be a hero and a scholar [and a] Founding Father?” The curtain parts as a teenaged Hamilton leaves his Caribbean birthplace and lands in New York City in 1772, determined to rise up in this “new land,” where “you can be a new man.” His destiny and that of the 13 colonies merge. </p>
<p>“Hey yo, I’m just like my country,” he boasts, “I’m young, scrappy and hungry!” Both the man and the nation must throw off British rule to realize their mighty potential.</p>
<p>In the play — and in history — the young Hamilton’s skills with the sword and pen catch the eye of George Washington, the statuesque leader of the Continental Army. As Washington’s right-hand man, Hamilton helps keep the American Revolution alive after the British chase the outgunned rebels out of New York in late 1776.</p>
<p><em>Hamilton</em> brilliantly captures the boundless energy of its main character. We watch Hamilton woo the daughter of a wealthy landlord, lobby the Continental Congress for more money, and outshine the other officers around Washington. “<a href="https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/32212220/Hamilton%3A+An+American+Musical+%5BOriginal+Broadway+Cast+Recording%5D/Non-Stop">The Man is NON-STOP!</a>”</p>
<p>With independence won, Washington entrusts his favourite officer with the new Treasury Department — and sides with Hamilton against Thomas Jefferson and most Americans, who don’t understand that with the revolution over and done with, the new country must act a bit more like the self-interested, hyper-capitalist empire it just defeated. In the play’s version of the chaotic 1790s, only Hamilton is smart enough to create a national bank and financial system while keeping the U.S. out of the French Revolution. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313380/original/file-20200203-41532-kjw4o9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Shoba Narayan, Ta'Rea-Campbell and Nyla Sostre in the national tour of ‘Hamilton,’ the musical.</span>
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<p>Miranda’s opus inevitably adopts many of the arguments of its title character. At times it turns Hamilton, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/opinion/what-hamilton-forgets-about-alexander-hamilton.html">deeply elitist man</a> who wanted to insulate economic and foreign policy from ordinary people, into a progressive visionary. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the play is accurate in its read of Hamilton’s motivations. On stage as in real life, the man from Nevis doesn’t seek money or office. He doesn’t need creature comforts or cheap thrills. What he wants, more than anything is for the world to know his name. He’s defined and perhaps consumed by ambition, the desperate desire to be noticed by strangers and posterity. </p>
<h2>Dangerous passion</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313386/original/file-20200203-41485-f6r2bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull, circa 1805.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&menu=search&aspect=Keyword&term=IAP+08930129&index=.NW">(Smithsonian Art Museum)</a></span>
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<p>The American patriots believed that republics required <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807847237/the-creation-of-the-american-republic-1776-1787/">selfless and civic-minded citizens</a> who were always on guard against those who lusted for power. The people had to “know ambition under every disguise it may assume,” <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807845882/notes-on-the-state-of-virginia/">Jefferson warned</a> in 1781. Otherwise, their republic would fall into corruption and tyranny. </p>
<p>In a society built on family labour, ambition often seemed useless as well as dangerous. Farm parents needed dutiful children, not ambitious dreamers.</p>
<p>Indeed, colonial Americans denounced ambition as a “fire” that threatened to destroy social ties and moral duties. They knew it as a <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300182804/ambition-history">radically selfish passion</a>, a dark blend of pride, envy and rage. </p>
<p>By abolishing monarchy and aristocracy, however, revolutionary leaders also invited go-getters to reach for the sky. They celebrated their revolution as a grand theatre on which previously obscure people could do remarkable things. </p>
<p>In other words, they deliberately stoked ambition even as they worried about its destructive energies.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Americans like Hamilton solved this cultural riddle by <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14459.html">turning ambition into a national virtue</a> — something that was good and moral so long as it was in service to the United States, the only country (in theory) where merit found its reward. For young men, at least, the burning desire to rise up became not only a right but also a duty, something that would carry the nation as well as themselves to greatness.</p>
<h2>American dreams</h2>
<p>In this sense, <em>Hamilton</em> reflects the cultural moment in which the play is set. It is a celebration of a new and lasting marriage between individual and national ambition in American culture. It is a paean to patriotic ambition, set against the amoral careerism of the anti-hero, Aaron Burr, whom Hamilton ultimately confronts on the duelling ground. </p>
<p>“Alexander Hamilton!” the chorus exults in the opening number. “When America sings for you, will they know what you overcame?” Hamilton replies on his deathbed: “America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me.”</p>
<p>And yet Miranda’s play is also honest about ambition’s costs. Hamilton’s relentless pursuit of fame draws him away from his dutiful wife, Eliza, who can only wonder why she and the children aren’t enough. His inability to respect other people’s views — he assumes they can’t keep up with him — alienates him from his peers. He’s too busy to love anyone but himself, his country and their shared destiny.</p>
<p>In all these ways, <em>Hamilton</em> captures the national tendency to see history as a grand drama, in which the exceptionally driven and talented make things happen, for better and worse. </p>
<p>By its very nature, of course, this way of looking at ambition and history marginalizes the everyday concerns of most people, whose duties inevitably outweigh their dreams. That’s yet another irony for a country that has long seen itself as the only real democracy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The cast of ‘Hamilton’ performs a selection of songs at the Obama White House.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J.M. Opal receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster portrayal of Alexander Hamilton, one of the most colourful founding fathers, opens this month in Toronto.Jason Opal, Associate Professor of History and Chair, History and Classical Studies, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1025152018-10-02T14:42:07Z2018-10-02T14:42:07ZFive reasons to end the conspicuous silence of music in classrooms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236185/original/file-20180913-177947-1tnag05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kendrick Lamar performing in Portugal.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jose Sena Goulao/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the main challenges that we educators face is getting our students to actively interact with course content, and perhaps explore its application to “real life”. One of the solutions to this age-old problem seems to be right under our ears. </p>
<p>A few years back I stumbled upon the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1318699?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">article</a> “Music and Cultural Analysis in the Classroom: Introducing Sociology through Heavy Metal” by Jarl Ahlkvist. He explores cultural analysis of music as a pedagogical tool for enhancing the learning experience of sociology students who are new to the discipline. Ahlkvist beautifully illustrates the value of using music as a bridge between theory and reality, and as a way to get students to actively interact with course content. Since this chance encounter I try – perhaps, not enough – to use music in more or less the same way in my course.</p>
<p>On hearing that hip-hop artist <a href="http://www.kendricklamar.com/">Kendrick Lamar</a> was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/04/regina-carter-kendrick-lamar-pulitzer/558509/">awarded</a> the Pulitzer prize for his album <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/dec/21/the-best-albums-of-2017-no-2-kendrick-lamar-damn">“Damn”</a> earlier this year I couldn’t wait to share the news with my class and my colleagues teaching English literature. I imagined that they would share my excitement and enthusiasm about what the award meant for the hip-hop community and Lamar’s fans. </p>
<p>But this wasn’t the case.</p>
<p>Many of my colleagues didn’t even know who the iconic artist was. Students didn’t understand the big deal as they hadn’t really listened to the album as social commentary. My exchanges highlighted what I believe is the general disregard that South Africa’s schools and universities have for music as a tool for teaching. They haven’t grasped that it’s of equal scholarly importance to the written word.</p>
<p>This palpable absence of music in the lecture halls of South Africa’s universities and schools is problematic for a range of reasons. At some point it must be addressed, either for the sake of progress or at least experimentation. </p>
<p>But, for now, let me share my initial thoughts. To stimulate discussion around music and its potential role within the context of higher education I have distilled these into five concrete ideas.</p>
<h2>Literature is not superior to music</h2>
<p>As a record collector it’s glaringly obvious to me that an album is capable of providing as much social commentary, intellectual depth and perspective as a novel could. In fact, an album might, in addition, provide a more robust text for analysis within the context of lecture. </p>
<p>If, for instance, one is teaching a class on colonialism in Zimbabwe, you could draw on the text of the novel <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270683743_Nervous_Conditions_by_Tsitsi_Dangarembga">“Nervous Conditions”</a> by <a href="https://blogs.stockton.edu/postcolonialstudies/body-in-the-context-of-postcolonial-studies/tsitsi-dangarembgas-nervous-conditions-a-postcolonial-feminist-reading/tsitsi-dangarembga-biography/">Tsitsi Dangarembga</a> to explain colonial subjectivity. But you could also play <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/zimbabwes-powerful-music-of-struggle"><em>Chimurenga</em></a> music and analyse it beyond the constraints of the written word. <em>Chimurenga</em> is music from Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle against colonial rule.</p>
<h2>Music is the literature of the streets</h2>
<p>There’s another reason for the urgent need to include sonic literacy in curricula. It’s to do with access.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, people engage with music more than with books. For example, someone might not read a book on <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/">“Black Lives Matter”</a> – the movement started in 2013 that grew in opposition to violence against black Americans – but they will engage with an album like Lamar’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/18/best-albums-of-2015-no-1-to-pimp-a-butterfly-by-kendrick-lamar">“To pimp a butterfly”</a> from 2015. It not only provided the soundtrack of the times, but also provided <a href="https://medium.com/cuepoint/the-oral-history-of-kendrick-lamar-s-to-pimp-a-butterfly-622f725c3fde">social commentary</a> as impactful as any book published on the topic. </p>
<p>Also, music is more accessible and readily available than books. It’s therefore often the best medium to reach larger numbers of people. </p>
<h2>Music reflects the times</h2>
<p>The music of Afrobeat pioneer <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/fela-kuti-mn0000138833/biography">Fela Kuti</a> is a powerful telling of what was happening in Nigeria in the 1970s. It also reflects what ordinary people were experiencing and addresses the burning issues of the time. </p>
<p>The same can be said of artists like American icon <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/nina-simone-mn0000411761">Nina Simone</a>, Jamaican reggae superstar <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bob-marley-mn0000071514">Bob Marley</a> and the “Lion of Zimbabwe”, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/thomas-mapfumo-mn0000581262">Thomas Mapfumo</a>. </p>
<p>These artists have managed to be the mouthpieces of particular generations and social movements. Their music has provided guidance in periods of turmoil. With this understanding in mind, how can we ignore these iconic voices when we engage with the context in which they are embedded?</p>
<h2>Music is a vehicle toward the ‘decolonial’</h2>
<p>As academics endeavour to decolonise learning spaces they need to consider why the written word takes priority over the spoken. Also, they should question why certain texts are treated with greater respect despite their obvious chronological and socio-cultural irrelevance. </p>
<p>And, why do academics generally treat text that’s accompanied by music as non-intellectual and inferior? I believe that music is an underutilised tool when it comes to steering curricula away from strictly Western and colonial models that have cemented the privilege of certain texts and modes in the knowledge economy.</p>
<h2>Remain in the groove</h2>
<p>It’s fairly safe to say that a substantial section of the novels and poems that have become permanent, canonical fixtures in curricula across the globe are outdated. This is particularly true since the advent of the internet and social media which have dramatically changed our reality, and how we (and our students) relate to it. </p>
<p>Within a fast moving, highly technologised and globalised era, music provides an analytical framework and sounding board for understanding a rapidly transforming society. To engage with society in real time we can’t always afford to wait for books to be published. We have to listen to the music, and dance while we’re at it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102515/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Shakib Bhatch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Music is an underutilised tool when it comes to steering curricula away from strictly Western and colonial models.Michael Shakib Bhatch, Lecturer of English. PhD Candidate in Afrofuturism and African Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1034692018-09-24T10:07:53Z2018-09-24T10:07:53ZJazz isn’t dead: it’s just moved to new venues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237108/original/file-20180919-158228-1y01ijl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African rising jazz star, Thabang Tabane.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lidudumalingani Mqombothi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When, a few weeks back, Johannesburg’s largest jazz venue, The Orbit, <a href="http://www.jhblive.com/News-in-Johannesburg/news-and-alerts/the-orbit-needs-your-help/109544">posted</a> a crowd-funding appeal to stay afloat it prompted the usual flurry of concern that the genre might be on its deathbed. </p>
<p>That’s nothing new. Nearly half a century ago rock musician and musical maverick Frank Zappa’s <a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3d7diu">“Be-Bop Tango”</a> (1973) first asserted that jazz wasn’t dead, but just smelled funny. Zappa’s track alluded to debates about the impact of the then revolutionary jazz style of <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/what-is-bebop-jazz/">bebop</a> after World War II.</p>
<p>But the question also threaded through commentary on <a href="https://study.com/academy/lesson/cool-jazz-history-characteristics-musicians.html">“cool” jazz</a>, on the demise of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/sep/08/british-traditional-jazz-chris-barber-band-humphrey-lyttleton-acker-bilk">British “trad” jazz</a> under the assault of pop groups such as the Beatles, on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110306162117/http://allmusic.com/explore/style/smooth-jazz-d4447">“smooth” jazz</a>, on Wynton Marsalis’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/jun/23/artsfeatures1">jazz neoclassicism</a> and much more. Now that hip-hop has become the <a href="https://www.awal.com/blog/takeaways-from-nielsens-2017-end-music-report">unchallenged behemoth</a> of the US music industry, it’s being heard again. </p>
<p>But the music industry now occupies a new, digital landscape, and the “Is jazz dead?” debate has several – not just one – aspects. The statistics tell us less than half of the story.</p>
<h2>Health of a genre</h2>
<p>First, the demise or rise of an individual venue tells us very little about the health of a genre. Even when The Orbit was flourishing in 2015, its owners were <a href="http://www.financialmail.co.za/life/music/2015/06/11/orbit-jazz-club-a-place-for-all-to-play">voluble</a> about the difficulties of maintaining a big, double-decker space that needed to fill every night to cover its costs. </p>
<p>In a country such as South Africa only a tiny minority of a population far smaller than that of the US have disposable income to spend on high-priced clubs. Jazz is only one music niche among many (the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/in-south-africa-gospel-music-reigns-supreme/2996581.html">biggest by far</a> is gospel), so devising the right business plan is a conundrum many venues have failed to solve.</p>
<p>Second, assessments of the health of any genre depend on how you define that genre. Worldwide, what is defined as jazz by commercial analysts may not coincide with the definitions of consumers. A case in point is the landslide success of what the analysts may define as crossover artists, such as pianist <a href="http://www.robertglasper.com/">Robert Glasper</a>, or hip-hop artists such as the award-winning <a href="http://www.kendricklamar.com/">Kendrick Lamar</a>, whose sound is shaped by the inputs of multiple jazz musicians, including saxophonist <a href="https://www.kamasiwashington.com/">Kamasi Washington</a> (and as of March 2018 veteran pianist <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/herbie-hancock-mn0000957296">Herbie Hancock</a>) – but the jazz that fans hear in this music is not recorded in the statistics.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Rapper Kendrick Lamar got help from his jazz friends.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Third, international comparisons based on the fortunes of, say pop singer <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ed-sheeran-mn0002639628">Ed Sheeran’s</a> multimillion <a href="http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-top-40-biggest-albums-of-2017-on-the-official-chart__21316/">selling</a> “÷” (pronounced “divide”) as compared to any jazz album fail to compare like with like. The business model for the music of pop artists such as Sheeran is based on fast, high-volume sales shortly after release. It was the fastest selling album ever by a solo male artist – 672,000 in its first week of release in March 2017. It sold 2.7 million in 2017.</p>
<p>John Coltrane’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Both-Directions-At-Once-Album/dp/B07D4ZWCHX">“Both Directions at Once”</a>, which was released earlier this year half a century after the saxophonist’s death, will sell far fewer copies immediately. But it will likely continue selling, in some format or on some platform or other, for a further 50 years or more. </p>
<p>Fourth, the technology and value chain of the music industry have transformed over the past decade. Intermediaries have been removed from the supply chain. Digital downloads and more recently streaming have sidelined the major record labels as sources of music. What they sell, and the official figures they provide, are a fraction of the music that is consumed. </p>
<p>It’s easier for smaller music niches to thrive. Compact, low-cost recording technology allows for self-publishing independent of labels, and those products can reach global buyers online. The detail of most of this activity, however – and of what’s happening in the growing arena of jazz vinyl – is far below the radar of those collecting data on industry trends. South Africa has been a fast <a href="https://www.pwc.co.za/en/assets/pdf/entertainment-and-media-outlook-2017.pdf">follower in this movement</a>, with the shift to streaming proceeding apace. </p>
<p>South African jazz artists are now self-publishing their music at an increasing and unprecedented rate. The music is original and often contemptuous of commercial genre marketing categories.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African experimental composer, Gabi Motuba.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Delwyn Verasamy/Mail & Guardian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Music writer</h2>
<p>Over the past few months alone, my work as a music writer has brought me flurry of new releases. These have included a piano trio <a href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/bokanidyertrio">outing</a> from Bokani Dyer, an Argentinian/South African <a href="https://arielz.bandcamp.com/releases">collaboration</a> from bassist Ariel Zamonsky, a vocal/string quartet <a href="https://urbanlifestylesa.co.za/2018/08/14/its-personal-with-gabi-motuba/">song series</a> from avant-garde composer Gabi Motuba, <a href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/claudecozens6">explorations</a> of rhythm patterns from Norway-based Cape Town drummer Claude Cozens, the <a href="https://thabangtabane.bandcamp.com/album/matjale">debut</a> of young Thabang Tabane, who plays the indigenous South African <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/malombo-jazz-mn0001009208">malombo style of jazz</a>, and the <a href="http://www.sibumash.com/">third album</a> from Durban-based pianist Sibu Masiloane. That isn’t, by any means, everything that has been released during the period.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘We Will Be Home’ by Tumi Mogorosi and Gabi Motuba.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All these artists find audiences when they play, and those audiences are overwhelmingly young. As well as at comfortable metropolitan jazz clubs, there are now events at more informal, less expensive venues. In addition, audiences are growing for events around the discourses of jazz, such as the current series of Johannesburg discussions on jazz photography themed around the <a href="http://www.transafricaradio.net/index.php/2018/09/10/expression-the-couch-sessions-with-siphiwe-mhlambi/">exhibition</a> of photographer Siphiwe Mhlambi.</p>
<p>For a musician anywhere, surviving and prospering within the genre called jazz has never been easy, and it still isn’t. But the story is not summed up by the figures cited in international media commentaries.</p>
<p>Jazz author <a href="https://stuartnicholson.uk/">Stuart Nicholson’s</a> 2005 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Dead-Has-Moved-Address/dp/0415975832">book</a> on the US scene posed the question differently: Is jazz dead? Or has it moved to a new address? To which the answers are: no, yes – and one of those addresses is definitely South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For a musician anywhere, surviving and prospering within the genre called jazz has never been easy, and it still isn’t.Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1002852018-07-29T08:28:48Z2018-07-29T08:28:48ZSomali songs reveal why musical crate digging is a form of cultural archaeology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229323/original/file-20180725-194134-1ja2jpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mogadishu's Waaberi Theatre Troupe back in the 1970s when Somalia was a cultural hub.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied by Ostinato Records</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cratedigger">Crate diggers</a> are cultural archaeologists who dedicate their time, money and energy to collecting musical artefacts that provide alternative histories from the fringes of society. They frequent record stores, flea markets, garage sales, charity shops and other places of “disposal” to find rare vinyl records or cassettes.</p>
<p>But as music producer, journalist and digger Kathy Iandoli <a href="https://medium.com/@kath3000">explained</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cratedigging isn’t merely ‘record shopping’ though. It’s a hunt for the DNA of a popular song you’re in love with. An addiction to origins.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A recent compilation album of 1970s/80s music from the Horn of Africa, <a href="https://ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com/album/sweet-as-broken-dates-lost-somali-tapes-from-the-horn-of-africa">“Sweet as Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes”</a>, is a great example of this. Half of the compilation is sung by women, their voices often compared in Somali poetry to the “sweetness of broken dates”. The album’s 15 songs, coming from cassette tapes and master reels, had to literally be dug up from shelters after being hidden to protect it during Somalia’s two decade <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14094503">civil war</a>. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">One of the tracks from “Sweet as broken dates”.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This astonishing story goes back to 1988, when Somalia’s military dictator Siad Barre responded with air strikes to the Somaliland region which was agitating for independence. Barre targeted Radio Hargeisa in Somaliland’s capital city to prevent any kind of central communication system that could organise a resistance.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com/album/sweet-as-broken-dates-lost-somali-tapes-from-the-horn-of-africa">few brave broadcasters</a> knew that the archives with their more than half a century of Somali music had to be preserved. Thousands of cassettes and reels were quickly removed. They took them to neighbouring Djibouti and Ethiopia and buried them deep under the ground to withstand even the most powerful airstrikes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229325/original/file-20180725-194128-tn81je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229325/original/file-20180725-194128-tn81je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229325/original/file-20180725-194128-tn81je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229325/original/file-20180725-194128-tn81je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229325/original/file-20180725-194128-tn81je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229325/original/file-20180725-194128-tn81je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229325/original/file-20180725-194128-tn81je.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the reel tapes that was excavated from the shelters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janto Djassi/Picture Me Different</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These audio artefacts were excavated from their shelters only very recently. Some are now kept in the 10,000-strong cassette tape archive of the Red Sea Foundation in Hargeisa. A team from <a href="https://ostinatorecords.bandcamp.com/">Ostinato Records</a>, a New York-based label that documents music from the African continent and diaspora, digitised a large portion of the archive.</p>
<h2>Historical grandeur</h2>
<p>Ostinato Records founder Vik Sohonie recently <a href="http://www.okayafrica.com/somalia-music-golden-age-lost-sounds/">expressed</a> the importance of reviving and sharing old Somali music to illuminate Somalia’s historical grandeur. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The most defining feature of the archive was its ability to transport our hearts and minds to Mogadishu of the 1970s and 1980s, when the coastal capital glistened as the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’, when wine and cosmopolitanism flowed freely…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He highlighted the importance of the unseen cultural archaeology that crate diggers do and the impact this work might have in broader society. “Sweet as Broken Dates” is a powerful example. I’m talking as a digger myself – we actively archive and curate the stories and the experiences of the people in our own ways.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229327/original/file-20180725-194146-cduybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229327/original/file-20180725-194146-cduybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229327/original/file-20180725-194146-cduybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229327/original/file-20180725-194146-cduybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229327/original/file-20180725-194146-cduybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229327/original/file-20180725-194146-cduybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229327/original/file-20180725-194146-cduybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the musicians from the Somali compilation, Hibo Nuura.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo courtesy of Hibo Nuura</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Crate diggers often build huge collections of rare and forgotten records that contain the stories and experiences of people whose stories have not made it into our society’s official historical memory. These musical tales are often recontextualised through sampling or curated for the dance floor where they find new life.</p>
<p>As an Afrofuturist scholar I liken crate diggers to the “Data Thief” in <a href="http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2014janmar/akomfrah.html">John Akomfrah</a>’s 1996 documentary “The last angel of history”. He travels across time to make archaeological digs for fragments of history that hold the key to the future. Music plays a prominent role in exploring and shaping the future through engaging with the counter-histories encoded in historical artefacts such as records.</p>
<p>I also see parallels between crate diggers and the custodians of the ancient <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/has-the-great-library-of-timbuktu-been-lost">Manuscripts of Timbuktu</a>. The manuscripts are key to preserving an alternative understanding of knowledge production from the African continent so that we might understand Africa differently to the unjust general imperialist history that is often paraded as the only account of our past.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229328/original/file-20180725-194134-22g2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229328/original/file-20180725-194134-22g2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229328/original/file-20180725-194134-22g2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229328/original/file-20180725-194134-22g2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229328/original/file-20180725-194134-22g2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229328/original/file-20180725-194134-22g2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229328/original/file-20180725-194134-22g2kp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radio Hargeisa today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janto Djassi/Picture Me Different</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Forgotten records</h2>
<p>As a crate digger, I’ve come to understand that the forgotten records we often find in the dingiest of places can contain alternative perspectives and social commentary on particular movements, epochs or historical events. </p>
<p>Our record finds allow us to experience the sound, the consciousness and the ambience of forgotten times and places. They provide a unique way of engaging with the past – for the crate digger and the listener alike. While a book might provide information about a particular place and time a record might also provide a unique sensory experience.</p>
<p>Each crate digger essentially builds a personal library of sonic texts that often cannot be found on the internet or in the official archives. This makes them custodians of these unique cultural artefacts. </p>
<p>Building and preserving these collections can become a lifelong obsession. We recycle them for present and future generations to enjoy, admire and understand.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Master sampler J Dilla in action.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlike book collectors who might keep their collections private, many crate diggers share their discoveries. They take them into class rooms. Hip-hop musicians like 9th Wonder (who <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/article185104818.html">teaches</a> at Duke University in North Carolina) and <a href="https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/clive-davis-institute/1409302753">Questlove</a> (New York University) come to mind. Others sample them to great effect, like leftfield producers such as <a href="https://www.stonesthrow.com/madlib">Madlib</a> and <a href="http://www.j-dilla.com/">J Dilla</a>. Most diggers simply play them out in DJ sets at their local club.</p>
<p>In genres like hip hop, house and techno, crate digging plays an important part in finding the source material for sampling. The source material is not only sampled for its sonic qualities, but also often for the message or story it contains, the social references it makes and the intertextuality it provides. Within these genres crate diggers are respected as sonic archaeologists and music scholars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Shakib Bhatch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A crate digger essentially builds a personal library of sonic texts that often can’t be found on the internet or in official archives.Michael Shakib Bhatch, Lecturer of English. PhD Candidate in Afrofuturism and African Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/985892018-07-15T09:45:22Z2018-07-15T09:45:22ZCape hip-hop keeps alive tradition of rapping in the voices of the ‘less thans’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227385/original/file-20180712-27027-4chq9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prophets of da City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/prophetsofdacity/photos/a.746177712094129.1073741830.719783358066898/1796768840368339/?type=3&theater">Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Cape region of South Africa has long had <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/hip-hop-south-africa">a vibrant tradition</a> of protest hip-hop music. Cape hip-hop culture has had much to protest about: Colonialism, apartheid, inequality and monolingualism – the use of one, usually dominant, language. For rap groups like the deeply political 1990s crew, <a href="http://livemag.co.za/youth-culture-in-south-africa/remembering-the-iconic-hip-hop-crew-prophets-of-da-city/">Prophets of da City</a>(POC), the challenge was always to present an accurate picture of where they came from, and what their own and their people’s struggles were.</p>
<p>Since colonialism, monolingualism has been the preferred way to define communication in South Africa. This has been tied to the practice of racialising (mainly) black, coloured, and Indian citizens along lines of race, language purity and fealty to the state. The justification for this was that multilingualism – the use of more than two languages – would confuse and complicate everyday communication, particularly the linguistic goals of colonialism and the apartheid state.</p>
<p>POC became the first rap group on the Cape hip-hop scene to sign a recording contract with a major South African record company, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/label/26052-Teal-Trutone-Music">Teal Trutone</a>. They came to prominence in the deeply violent late 1980s as well as early 1990s as the count down to the end of apartheid was beginning.</p>
<p>Early on, POC realised they had to make a strategic linguistic decision – to perform multilingual lyrics and music, versus monolingual lyrics and music, which at the time (and given the political climate of the apartheid government) would threaten to block out potential listeners. As POC rapper Shaheen Ariefdien <a href="http://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JWPM/article/view/36672">put it</a> in an interview in the early 1990s with academic Adam Haupt: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hip-hop took the language of the ‘less thans’ and embraced it, paraded it, and made it sexy to the point that there is an open pride about what constituted ‘our’ style… to express local reworkings of hip-hop.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>POC embraced the multilingual practices of the <a href="http://epubs.ac.za/index.php/multiling/article/view/246">“less thans”</a>, the downtrodden. In particular they celebrated languages such as Black South African English, Cape Flats English, Cape Coloured English, and especially <em><a href="http://epubs.ac.za/index.php/multiling/article/view/246">Kaaps</a></em>, a black township version of Afrikaans. <em>Kaaps</em> is a working class tongue that stems from the same language roots but is distinctly different to the mainly white <em>Algemeen Beskaafde Afrikaans</em> which was the official language of the ruling class under apartheid.</p>
<p>At first, the group’s rap music was set to <em>Kaaps</em> lyrics and a local variety of English, but later gradually expanded to isiXhosa and Jamaican patois, peppered with various accents. This was an inclusive form of multilingualism, a signal what could be possible if the multilingualism of the “less thans” was taken into consideration.</p>
<h2>Apartheid censorship</h2>
<p>POC’s debut album was called Our World (1990), followed by Boomstyle (1991), Age of Truth (1993), Phunk Phlow (1994), Universal Souljaz (1995) and Ghetto Code (1997).</p>
<p>The group’s early music was produced under the turbulence of apartheid censorship. At the time POC revised their linguistic strategy and began in earnest to paint an authentic and truly multilingual picture of marginalisation in South Africa.</p>
<p>Take their song “Slang 4 your Ass” (from Universal Souljaz). Rapper Ariefdien takes his imagined listener on a lyrical journey as he draws different languages and cultural expressions of what it is like to live in a multicultural and multiracial township.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alles in die haak broetjie, tjek ‘it ja. (Everything is in order brother, check it yes.)</p>
<p>Solang die ding ruk is dit tzits ounse (As long as its moving along, it’s ok guys)</p>
<p>Is mos soe my broe’! (Just like that my brother!)</p>
<p>Djy wiet dan (You know).</p>
<p>Phashaz, hola ghanzaan (I’m ok, how are you?)</p>
<p>Sien djy my broe (You see my brother)</p>
<p>die bra kick ‘n ander flavou’ uit my broe’ (That brother kicks a different beat my brother).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The lyrics open up to the outsider how typically multilingual greetings are performed in the township. Multilingualism is celebrated and an array of voices, suppressed by the apartheid government (thankfully unsuccessfully), are given permanence, on wax and in song. It is the sound of inclusivity.</p>
<h2>Language, lyric and rhyme</h2>
<p>The main protagonist in the second section of the song, POC’s Ready D, then colours in the picture to the listener through language, lyric and rhyme: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m walking around with a head full of thought</p>
<p>Mixting it with my Township Talk</p>
<p>Like</p>
<p>hoe issit? (how are you?)</p>
<p>is djy alright? (Are you alright?)</p>
<p>ek is (I am)</p>
<p>en tjek (Check it out)</p>
<p>dialect into the mic</p>
<p>djy kry? (You see?)</p>
<p>Then I flex it the other way</p>
<p>making them wonder what is going on</p>
<p>Where could this man be from?</p>
<p>Well we get to that later.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With these lyrics Ready D takes the listener through the ghetto, and showcases what multilingual skills were needed to interact with multilingual speakers.</p>
<p>The message is that you can’t box identities that have been forged through multilingual living in the ghettos of South Africa. The lyrics celebrate ghetto culture, but also protest stereotypes that seek to harm.</p>
<h2>Variety of tongues</h2>
<p>The multilingual tradition in Cape hip-hop continues today. Like Prophets of da City back in the 1990s, rappers still protest in a variety of tongues, often in the same song. It was heard when rap artists added their voices to the recent growing student protests and against the failings on democracy by the African National Congress government. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">20 Years of Democracy /mockery.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This music legacy goes unnoticed by mainstream media although it’s given a lot of attention on social media. An example is “20 Years of Democracy/ Demockery” featuring Crosby, Teba, Spencer, Youngsta CPT, Trenton, Mthunzi, Leandro, Mkosi, Cream, Hipe, Sammy Sparks, Whosane, Clem Reuben and Emile YX?. This release brought together a powerful multilingual ensemble of voices and styles of speaking. Add to that <a href="https://sos1.bandcamp.com/track/must-fall">“Must Fall”</a> by Emile YX? featuring Java, Linkris the Genius, Black Athena, Daddy Spencer, Crosby and Khusta, and it’s clear Cape hip-hop will continue to speak loudly to power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Quentin Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of South Africa’s finest hip-hop crews message was that you couldn’t box identities forged through multilingual living in the ghettos.Quentin Williams, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/979252018-07-10T04:36:54Z2018-07-10T04:36:54ZShould white Australian fans rap along to the n-word at a Kendrick Lamar concert?<p>US rapper Kendrick Lamar’s <a href="https://www.livenation.com.au/artist/kendrick-lamar-tickets">Australian tour</a> kicks off this week, culminating in a headline appearance at the music festival <a href="https://www.splendourinthegrass.com/">Splendour in the Grass</a>. </p>
<p>Lamar’s most recent album, DAMN., not only topped the charts in the US, Australia, and around the world, but was also the first rap album to be awarded the prestigious <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kendrick-lamars-pulitzer-win-blurs-lines-between-classical-music-and-pop-95213">Pulitzer Prize for Music</a>. Lamar’s historic victory provides hip hop with a level of critical recognition that has long escaped it, even as its popularity has spread from black and Latino neighbourhoods to white America and beyond. </p>
<p>However being a hip hop fan in Australia is not straightforward. For many, rap’s narratives of urban American hustle feel worlds removed from life here. These issues come to fore around the question of whether white fans in Australia should rap along to the “n-word”. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The song DNA. from Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album DAMN.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In May this year, at the Hangout Music Festival in Alabama, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/rapper-kendrick-lamar-asks-white-fan-not-to-sing-n-word/9789938">Lamar invited a white fan on stage</a> to rap over his song M.A.A.D city. The young woman began to rap with the confidence of a true fan, delighted to be sharing space with him. “Man down, where you from, n—a Fuck who you know, where you from, my n—a?” she rapped, until Lamar abruptly cut the music. </p>
<p>“Woah, you gotta bleep one single word, though” he cautioned. “Did I not –” she asked, clearly embarrassed by her mistake. “You didn’t,” Lamar replied. The woman tried to continue but faltered and was ushered off stage to a smattering of uneasy applause.</p>
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<p>The n-word can be found throughout Lamar’s music, including his hits HUMBLE., which <a href="http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/kendrick-lamar-wins-triple-js-hottest-100-2017/">topped Triple J’s Hottest 100 poll</a> in 2018, and Alright, from his previous album To Pimp a Butterfly. After the incident in Alabama, <a href="https://variety.com/2018/music/opinion/kendrick-lamar-rappers-should-stop-using-n-word-1202818977/">some people asked</a>, if the word is so bad, why should anyone be using it? But in spite of hip hop’s ubiquity in mainstream culture, and the existence of local versions in Australia (such as in Indigenous and white working class cultures), hip hop remains specific to black America - and the n-word is one of its vital gatekeepers. </p>
<p>Most hip hop fans understand that when a black American rapper says “n—a”, they are reclaiming the word from its <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/section1_2.html">original, derogatory use</a> to degrade and humiliate enslaved Africans in antebellum America. Just as some feminist movements have reclaimed words like “slut,” and LGBT communities have reclaimed the homophobic slur “queer,” “n—a” has become part of the exclusive lexicon of modern day black America. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kendrick-lamars-pulitzer-win-blurs-lines-between-classical-music-and-pop-95213">How Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer win blurs lines between classical music and pop</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The n-word is one crucial means through which hip hop reminds white listeners of the chasm of culture and experience between them and black America. Whether white American listeners are compelled – like the stereotypical white suburban youth devouring gangsta rap – or repelled by this, they cannot ignore it. </p>
<p>White people have a role in hip hop, but it is overwhelmingly a passive one – to listen, to take criticism, to be, at times, the butt of a joke or the target of aggression. And, most importantly, to learn. The presence of white people in hip hop, in particular their avid listenership, is part of what lends the n-word its ongoing subversive power in this space.</p>
<p>Indeed the self-deprecating white rapper Lil Dicky addresses this issue head on in his song Freaky Friday. Taking the film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0322330/">Freaky Friday</a>’s classic “body swap” trope, Dicky has R&B star Chris Brown sing as if he were Lil Dicky, finally allowed to engage in hip hop culture on a level unreachable to the white hip-hopper. Brown, acting as Dicky, asks, “Wait, can I really say the n-word? What up, my n—a?”</p>
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<p>The premise of the joke is that white hip-hoppers secretly, perhaps even subconsciously, yearn to use the n-word – although not for the racist reasons that some might fear. White hip hop artists and fans want to sing along to their favourite song without stopping short, breaking character, remembering with a sobering pause that they are part of a world that privileges whiteness. They want hip hop to know how down they really are, the same way that punk or emo fans are able to don the image and lifestyle of their subculture.</p>
<p>But the rules are different for white fans of hip hop. In this way, perhaps, the music can make white people feel, if only momentarily, the way black Americans are made to feel with quotidian regularity. “There’s been so many things a Caucasian person said I couldn’t do,” Lamar said in defence of <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/06/kendrick-lamar-cover-story">his stance on the n-word</a>. “So if I say this is my word … please let me have this word.”</p>
<p>As Solange, another recent visitor to Sydney, spells out in her song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njp2vaBzgto">F.U.B.U.</a> – a song that explicitly reminds black audiences that her music is “for us, by us” – “don’t be sad if you can’t sing along/Just be glad you got the whole wide world.” </p>
<p>Australian white fans of Lamar should bear this in mind as we welcome him back to our shores - and stay silent when the n-word appears.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Kendrick Lamar’s tour starts in Perth tonight.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tara Colley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The n-word is a means through which hip hop reminds white listeners of the chasm of culture and experience between them and black America.Tara Colley, Casual lecturer, United States Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/985632018-06-20T15:09:36Z2018-06-20T15:09:36ZBeyoncé and Jay-Z: the world is going APES**T for their vision of black culture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223762/original/file-20180619-126553-2yqd7c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">beyonce</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Anyone who is familiar with Beyoncé’s work knows that every outfit, song sample, visual reference and album cover art contains a deeper, more significant meaning behind its mainstream pop culture sheen. Now that Beyoncé has added her relationship with her husband Jay-Z and her passion for art to her vast repertoire, the symbolic and literal depth of her own work has an added resonance.</p>
<p>From the On The Run Tour II tour poster which references and pays homage to the 1970’s classic African film, <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/28412-touki-bouki">Touki Bouki</a> to the surprise release of the joint album <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-beyonce-jay-z-made-joint-album-everything-is-love-w521642">Everything is Love</a>, which takes a direct swipe at the white dominated high culture palace of the Louvre, Beyoncé and Jay-Z as reigning global megastars are turning their joint attention to celebrating black culture and highlighting historical and contemporary inequalities.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BgOcB2slHoQ/?utm_source=ig_embed","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>The On The Run II tour images offer a direct reference to the 1973 Senegalese film written and directed by <a href="http://newsreel.org/articles/mambety.htm">Djibril Diop Mambéty</a> in Wolof, a native language of Senegal, and its title loosely translates to “The Hyena’s Journey”. The story of Touki Bouki follows a young couple from Dakar, who steal and scheme to acquire the money to travel to their dream city of Paris. The lead characters are reminiscent of Bonny and Clyde, whom Beyonce and Jay-Z have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm0Xba8eFTg">previously referenced</a> in their work. </p>
<p>This homage, though celebrated by many fans and cultural commentators, was not entirely welcomed by Mambéty’s family (the director passed away in 1998). <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/monicamark/beyonce-jay-z-on-the-run-ii-tour-touki-bouki?utm_term=.srz6oJG1P#.tbV78yeEl">Buzzfeed News reported</a> they were somewhat critical of the press tour material, which was unveiled on social media. </p>
<p>Mambéty’s son, Teemour Diop Mambéty, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/monicamark/beyonce-jay-z-on-the-run-ii-tour-touki-bouki">told Buzzfeed</a>: “We must welcome any creative exchange respecting the integrity of the works and their authors.” Despite this, for many, this referencing is important in that it highlighted an African film that, on release, <a href="http://amper.ped.muni.cz/%7Ejonas/knihy/vizualni_antropologie/questioning%20theories%20of%20an%20authentic%20african%20cinema.pdf">generated intense political debate</a> about colonialism and heritage.</p>
<h2>From pop to politics</h2>
<p>As two of the most prominent African-American musicians in pop culture, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have played increasingly visible political roles – from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/jay-z-beyonce-raise-money-for-obama/2012/09/18/7a8e1190-01f7-11e2-b257-e1c2b3548a4a_story.html?utm_term=.00380c704b22">campaigning for former president Barack Obama</a> to championing the <a href="https://twitter.com/Blklivesmatter">Black Lives Matter</a> movement. </p>
<p>Beyoncé, in particular, has referenced the richness of African culture in recent years. In her visual album Lemonade, Nigerian influences were woven through with <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/siahlwilliams/6-african-gods-you-can-find-in-beyonces-lemonade-2bk2e">numerous references to Oshun</a>, the Yoruba mother deity, whose colour is yellow. Oshun is the goddess of beauty and love who unleashes her wrath when provoked. </p>
<p>Bricolage – or the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of cultural references that happen to be available – is keenly at work in the scope of Beyonce’s artistry. She has an astute ability to plunder high and low culture to make her own output appear completely fresh and relevant. This became even more apparent with the surprise release of Everything is Love, which dropped during the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/beyonce-jay-z-on-the-run-2-tour-review-london-stadium-tickets-setlist-grenfell-tribute-a8402081.html">universally praised</a> On The Run II tour, which itself offers a paean to African American identity. </p>
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<p>Black Effect, which opens with a monologue about self-love, references being in love with your own blackness and becoming a symbol of black wealth. Jay-Z raps: </p>
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<p>Shit I am the culture<br>
I made my own wave, so now they anti-Tidal.</p>
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<p>Here he explores his own contribution to capitalism, which both he and Beyoncé celebrate – but he is equally aware that as a black man, this comes with much public criticism.</p>
<p>He also name-checks <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/trayvon-martin-6488">Trayvon Martin</a>, the 17-year-old African American shot dead in 2012 by a neighbourhood watchman in a Florida gated community – and, in a twist on arena performers call and responses for crowd gesticulation: “Get your hands up high like a false arrest.”</p>
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<h2>Occupying ‘white’ space</h2>
<p>The couples plundering of almost the entire canon of art history for maximum effect is no more on display that in the video for APES** T. This is perhaps the most direct statement concerning the redressing of an oppressive, exclusive power structure that the power couple have ever made. They literally occupy a white space with images of black love and black unity – understanding that it was the institutional exclusion of these images that allowed a pervasive white-dominated narrative to govern the collective consciousness. That narrative being that blackness does not belong in galleries, that black art does not hold the same value structures. </p>
<p>The video, which was directed by <a href="http://rickysaiz.com/">Ricky Saiz</a>, who previously directed the “Yoncé” video, and produced by Iconoclast, intersperses close-ups of the Louvre’s most famous artworks – most prominently Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Jacques Louis David’s Consecration of Emperor Napoleon and Coronation of Empress Josephine. </p>
<p>Shot in a way that allows Beyonce and Jay-Z to almost obstruct the globally renowned works behind them – kneeling, swaying and smiling in the process – images of black bodies directly challenge the limited portrayals of blackness that audiences are used to seeing in museums. This invites the audience to take in an entirely new narrative, one that is direct and beautiful in its celebration of an (often intensely capitalist) sense of the many virtues of blackness.</p>
<p>It is abundantly clear that the power couple are effectively inserting themselves into the Western art canon and deftly highlighting the importance of a diversity of representation in such traditionally hallowed halls. What is so brilliantly relevant is that the pair have claimed white spaces and hosted their own black cultural moment that <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-it-means-when-beyonce-and-jay-z-take-over-the-louvre">has the world talking</a>. Art as an explicit metaphor for power has never seemed so present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98563/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsty Fairclough does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Teeming with references to African culture and experience, the couple’s latest work places ‘blackness'at the heart of the Western canon.Kirsty Fairclough, Associate Dean: Research and Innovation, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/965932018-05-17T10:41:32Z2018-05-17T10:41:32ZDonald Glover and the state of ‘black genius’<p>Donald Glover, under his hip-hop pseudonym Childish Gambino, recently released a provocative music video for his single, “This Is America.” </p>
<p>The video, with its violent imagery and references to blackface minstrels, came as a surprise for Childish Gambino fans previously accustomed to his witty, sardonic style. As a result, it has been the subject of much <a href="https://theconversation.com/childish-gambino-this-is-america-uses-music-and-dance-to-expose-societys-dark-underbelly-96379">analysis</a> by fans and scholars alike.</p>
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<p>As a black popular culture scholar, I find the most intriguing conversations have been about Glover’s creative genius. The focus on Glover’s creativity shifts us away from discussions of his black nerd persona, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tzoqen2moRwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA22&dq=Donald+Glover+for+spiderman&ots=2g5dZ_mEtw&sig=3UvJuTBUbfx1a-loiGzoB7gyXsE#v=onepage&q=Donald%20Glover%20for%20spiderman&f=false">about which I have previously written</a>. Music has been one of the few arenas in which African-Americans have been afforded genius status. The locus for this shift is hip-hop. Hip-hop, however, historically has been subject to criticism, not acclaim.</p>
<h2>Hip-hop and black genius</h2>
<p>These proclamations of Glover’s genius coincide not only with the hip-hop’s coming of age, but also with Glover’s creative growth.</p>
<p>Recently, the genre has been receiving its genius bona fides, with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical “Hamilton” receiving the <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/lin-manuel-miranda">2016 Pulitzer Prize in drama</a> and rapper Kendrick Lamar receiving the <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/kendrick-lamar">2018 Pulitzer Prize in music</a> for his album, “DAMN.” These events coincide with <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8085975/us-music-consumption-up-2017-rb-hip-hop-most-popular-genre">hip-hop surpassing rock</a> as the most-purchased music genre in the United States.</p>
<p>Glover is no stranger to being hailed as a genius, though it mostly has been for his work on his FX series “Atlanta.” “This Is America,” however, represents <a href="https://www.theringer.com/music/2018/2/28/17062250/donald-glover-evolution-childish-gambino-origins">Glover’s maturation</a> as a recording artist. Though also praised for Childish Gambino’s 2016 funk album “Awaken, My Love!” he faced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/arts/music/review-childish-gambino-awaken-my-love-donald-glover.html">concerns</a> about whether it was an ode to or mere imitation of soul and funk legend George Clinton.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, “This Is America,” like “Atlanta,” mostly has been lauded for its authenticity and originality, both of which historically have served as <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-aesthetics/#2.6">hallmarks of genius</a>. Both use hip-hop as the means for, and subject of, Glover’s interrogation of race and representation and suggest that he has shed the frivolity for which Childish Gambino previously had been known. </p>
<h2>Who gets to be a ‘black genius’?</h2>
<p>Genius is often contested and granted to a rare few. Indeed, though Glover and hip-hop gradually have been afforded genius status, <a href="https://www.theroot.com/black-genius-a-privilege-afforded-only-to-straight-bla-1825829527">black women</a> in hip-hop have not.</p>
<p>Who grants genius status? Much of Glover’s critical acclaim has come from white critics, which explains why some black listeners approach Glover and “This Is America” with <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-carnage-and-chaos-of-childish-gambinos-this-is-america">trepidation</a>.</p>
<p>That said, rising filmmaker and Glover’s contemporary Lena Waithe – known best for her work on “Master of None” – <a href="https://twitter.com/LenaWaithe/status/993255456129896448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">heralded</a> “This Is America” as the “truth dipped in chocolate brilliance.” “This Is America” indicates that Glover may be reaching his prime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip L. Cunningham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Glover and hip-hop are reaching their apex at the same time, giving Glover an avenue to enter the ranks of creative geniuses. But does his race matter?Phillip L. Cunningham, Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Quinnipiac UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.