The year was 1972, and seventeen-year-old Clive Campbell, a Jamaican immigrant and the oldest of six siblings, was preparing for a block party in his apartment building in the Bronx. Classmates and neighbors all flocked to the rec room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue to dance and listen to music. Campbell, soon to be known as DJ Kool Herc, armed only with two record players, two speakers and a PA system, was drawing the blueprints for what would eventually become perhaps the most controversial genre of music in the past fifty years: rap. Rap music, an art style crafted by the hands of inner city teenagers and immigrants and brought forth into the heart of popular culture, has been widely misunderstood. Bill O’Reilly, for example, has hailed rap music as harmful for children, the death of organized religion, the cause of violence in society and the perversion of the English language. However, rap music does not exist to piss off old white men or ruin society or whatever hip hop haters think it does. This style of music is a mirror that reflects the societal values and circumstances of the time period from which it comes, and in many ways is the product of a society in which many of its people are silenced by institutional racism and economic instability. Rap music serves as a platform to discuss social issues, uplift and celebrate minority communities, or share for fun or for poetry.
Right wing media particularly likes to paint rap music as pro-violence and anti-government rather than examining the social context. Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly has been both heavily criticized and heavily praised for its highly political lyrical content. The song “Alright,” which he performed at the 2015 BET Awards, stirred up controversy due to the lyrics, “we hate po-po, wanna kill us dead in the street for sure.” Kanye West and Jay Z’s “Murder to Excellence” was dedicated “to the memory of Danroy Henry,” a 20-year-old, unarmed black man who was killed by the Pleasantville Police Department. Is it really any wonder that rappers often discuss racially based police brutality when there is a new hashtag commemorating a victim of police brutality almost every other week? Is a song not a nonviolent response to injustice when little boys like Tyre King, Jesse Romero, and Tamir Rice have their lives and childhoods taken away and then take the blame for it? Is this not the exact same criticism that N.W.A.’s album, Straight Outta Compton, particularly the song “F*ck the Police,” gained when it was first released? Is that song now not only considered a classic but also a valid argument against the racial profiling and racially based police brutality of the time period? Are the black and Latino communities not allowed to be exhausted? In fact, Kendrick Lamar’s controversial song actually promotes hope and positivity in a society that largely stomps it out in minority communities, that “we gon’ be alright” despite the adversity.
Another common theme discussed in rap music is childhood — or rather, lack thereof. Tyre King, Jesse Romero, and Tamir Rice were 13, 14, and 12 respectively. They will never be allowed to grow older than that. Due to centuries of inequality, lack of access to education, and lack of political representation in the United States, minority communities are more likely to be impoverished. These children are forced to grow up much faster than their white or more affluent peers. Chance the Rapper’s “Summer Friends” is a retelling of a his own childhood, growing up on 79th street in Chicago and the effects gang violence had on himself and his peers. The song discusses the camaraderie and familiarity of the children he grew up with, how he would “treat [them] like family members,” and nostalgically recalls “socks on concrete,” “catching lightning bugs,” and chasing the “ice cream truck.” He then describes how violence-wracked the community, how “summer school was losing students” and “the CPD was getting new recruitments.” Summer friends never lasted long because they were either buried or locked up in prison, and this was normal. Another example, Logic’s “Gang Related” similarly retells his childhood through the eyes of his older brother, who sold crack in order to keep the family afloat while Logic was a young child. “Po-po finna bust in the door, got blow in the crib, in the kitchen over there next to the baby with the bib.” He describes praying that his “little brother make it out,” “cling[ing] to the street even though [he wants] to run away,” and imagining “a better life.” The most tragic aspect is that he realizes that he has “a lot to give” to the world: potential that he “never had the chance” to explore. Rap music, more often than not viewed as glorifying gang violence, often does quite the opposite: explores its causes and condemns its effects.
Next, rap music is often dismissed because of its discussion of certain topics such as clubbing, partying, and extravagance. However, I pose the question: is it any surprise that a music platform widely used to discuss poverty and inequality, whose artists often are victims of institutionalized racism and likely were not given equal opportunity, also often glorifies wealth? Emphasis on big houses, fancy cars, expensive alcohol, beautiful women and overall grandiose not only holds up a mirror to a society that values money and materialism but also provides insight into wealth distribution and economic inequality. Why would people who are, due to their race, more likely to have lower income and economic opportunity glorify having expansive wealth and success? Kanye West’s “Clique” offers ample proof; it begins with an introduction by James Fauntleroy: “What of the dollar you murdered for? Is that the one fighting for your soul? Or your brother’s the one that you’re running from? But if you got money, f*ck it, ‘cause I want some.” Big Sean, the next rapper featured on the track, then describes himself as a “young player from the D,” as in Detroit, “killing everything that he see for the dough.” Jay Z, raised in the projects of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, who dealt crack cocaine as a teenager and now has a cumulative net worth of $610 million, brags of turning “that 62 to 125, 125 to a 250, 250 to a half a million.” Finally, Kanye croons that “white people get money, don’t spend it. Or maybe they get money, buy a business. I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ign’ant. […] Blame it on the pigment, we’re living no limits.” In Kendrick Lamar’s song, “The Blacker the Berry,” the chorus reads: “They put me in a chain, ‘cause we black. Imagine now, big gold chain full of rocks. […] The whip left scars on me back, now we have a big whip parked ‘pon the block. All them say we doomed from the start, ‘cause we black. Remember this, every race starts from the block.”
Furthermore, rap music can be appreciated due to its intrinsic artistic value. For example, Chance the Rapper’s song, “Blessings (Reprise)” can be read as poetry:
“I speak of promised lands, soil as soft as mama’s hands, running water, standing still, endless fields of daffodils and chamomile, rice under black beans. Walked into Apple with cracked screens and told prophetic stories of freedom. […] I speak of wondrous unfamiliar lessons from childhood, make you remember how to smile good. […] I speak to God in public, I speak to God in public, he keeps my rhymes in couplets.”
Childish Gambino’s “Flight of the Navigator” reads:
“I had a dream that I was flying all over us. There were so many pretty people, so many pretty faces. I talked to some birds, I fell in love again, and none of this ever ended. […] And even when you laughed, you cried, and even when you were sad you were really happy because you were here. And I got to meet every star, every planet, everything that made me. And we all kissed and became the same. We became the same, we became the same. […] We are all knights fallen, why try at all? Dark calling. So we’re left alone, no one to call upon. Be still now, broken bones, as I travel on.”
How can someone hear these words and dismiss them as anything other than art? Certainly, there is some bad hip hop music. But, though I don’t personally favor country music, I don’t dismiss it because of “Big Green Tractor.” To dismiss a genre of music, particularly rap music, as bad, is myopic at best and false at worst. Rap music has evolved from its two record player roots and blossomed into an expansive genre, encompassing every joy and struggle from every walk of life. Rap music, at its core, is a celebration of history and should be understood as such. Let the speakers blare, let the teenagers down, let the lights flash. May stories be told and may history be understood. May humanity unite, turn up the music, and grow further. May the youth be empowered, not poisoned, by the sounds in their ears.
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