Rap music and its violent progeny: America's culture of violence in context

Journal of Negro Education, The, Summer 2002 by Richardson, Jeanita W, Scott, Kim A

RAP IN THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE

The critique of hip-hop and rap has become a popular scholarly topic. Perkins' (1996) edited book provides a historical analysis and attends to some of the controversies inherent in the movement and the music-White artists, women as objects, derogatory language, and promotion of debauchery. As an overview to some of these contestable points, many of the essays in his book rely on outsider perceptions.

Despite the differential critiques of rap music and hip-hop culture, most discussions of rap and/or hip-hip describe the musical and cultural expressiveness as: a monolithic scourge on society contributing to the downfall of the "our" youth; a sociopolitical vehicle, replete with possibilities of a postmodern Black community based revolution; or, an artistic expression that can best be understood through academic microanalysis. These narrow categories tend to prioritize the critics' and interpreters' voices rather than the artists creating the objects for analysis-the lyrics.

A limited number of hip-hop and rap studies have examined rap as a social phenomenon manifesting the cultural resiliency of Black America. Examination of the integration of African American discourse practices (e.g., African American language, semantic inversion) rap music is categorized by Smitherman (1997) as a, "cultural evolution of the Black oral tradition and the construction of contemporary resistance rhetoric" (p. 21). She highlights how rap demonstrates the intersecting lines between language, history, culture, and self within Black America. Further, Smitherman (1997) describes the contribution of rap and hip-hop as a response to the noted author James Baldwin's (1992) challenge for artists to disturb the peace. Given its popularity and economic profitability, one could argue that rap music and its genre have been quite successful in fulfilling Baldwin request.

Dimitriadis (2001), Dyson (1995), hooks (1994), and Rose (1994), among others, collaboratively work with rappers to explore the deeper sociological significance of their messages. Given society's treatment of children, particularly Black youngsters, these heuristic approaches stand out. While Rose (1991) tends to analyze rap music and highlight its connection to certain Black American traditions, she also pays attention to the social, cultural, and artistic dimensions of the music and the movement. Similar to Potter (1995) and Dyson (1995), Rose defends rap with a clearly defined heuristic framework including the voices of the participants of whom she speaks. More recent works (see Dimitriadis, 2001), follow in Rose's ethnographic tradition to explore the effects of hip-hop on self and communal identity formation. Rose does not give voice to the artists-a method many researchers slip into when presenting their participants' perspective. Rather, she provides a space in which their voices can be heard and appreciated by a normally critical public-academe.

Some researchers have argued that society in some ways, needs rap music-no matter how seemingly misogynous, hypermaterialistic, and hedonistic-to illustrate cultural norms of the urban poor. As hooks (1994) explains, a lack of critical evaluation of the roots of rap music allows mainstream White culture to avoid challenging the culture of violence it engenders. The point that gangsta rap is "a reflection of the prevailing values in our society, values created and sustained by White supremacist capitalism patriarchy" (hooks, 1994, p. 116), remains narrowly understood. The most well-meaning critiques often limit themselves to intracultural commentaries. Controversies abound with respect to White artist imitation of Black art (e.g., Beastie Boys, Vanilla Ice, Cyprus Hill, Eminem), women as sex objects, derogatory language, blatant sexuality, and promotion of debauchery (see Perkins, 1996 for example), but fail to contextualize the real issues behind these topics and hide behind academic jargon (see Potter, 1995).