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Negotiating cultural authenticity in hip-hop: Mimicry, whiteness and Eminem

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 22; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10304310802464821

1469-3666

Liam Grealy,

Race, History, and American Society

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Bakari Kitwana emphasizes hip-hop culture's relationship with blackness, where he states: 'Hip-hop is a subculture of Black youth culture. Those who suggest it isn't are confused, misled, trying to appropriate Black youth culture or too culturally arrogant to realise that they are appropriating' (2005, 126). While Kitwana's polemic inadequately recognizes hip-hop's expansion, incorporation and redeployment within and by non-black and non-youth cultures, his comments demonstrate an investment in the connection between blackness and cultural authenticity shared by many writers and cultural practitioners alike, wary of hip-hop's commercial exploitation. In this paper I primarily use the term 'black', as opposed to 'African-American' or any other synonym in an attempt to acknowledge US hip-hop's roots within African, African-American and Afro-Caribbean cultures. I am, of course, aware of hip-hop's developments outside of the United States, however my focus here, while recognizing the ethnic diversity of US hip-hop also, is largely limited to dominant representations within mainstream US hip-hop, considering the symbolic capital of blackness. 2. I take the term 'the hip-hop generation' from Bakari Kitwana (2002 Kitwana, Bakari. 2002. The hip hop generation: Young blacks and the crisis in African American culture, New York: Basic Civitas Books. [Google Scholar]), which he designates as 'the generation of young Blacks born between 1965 and 1984' (xxii). Kitwana establishes these historical brackets as part of his attempt to provide a basis for strengthening collective political identifications and differentiating the contemporary political milieu from the civil rights and black power eras. His concept is useful as a means to locate the development of hip-hop's cultural representations throughout the late 1980s and 1990s within a particular political milieu, and to suggest a dialectical relationship between political policy and cultural representations (though in mainstream US hip-hop this has rarely been as significant as in, for example, the Black Arts movement). While recognizing that Kitwana's concept (at times) uncritically incorporates a notion of strategically essentialized blackness and thus homogenizes complex racial, political and cultural tensions, both his work regarding political coalition building (see Kitwana 2005 Kitwana, Bakari. 2005. Why white kids love hip-hop: Wankstas, wiggers, wannabes, and the new reality of race in America, New York: Basic Civitas Books. [Google Scholar]) and my considerations regarding 'the hip-hop generation's' multiple political concerns should demonstrate that it is not as fixed a category in reality as he sometimes suggests, and can thus be cautiously employed to signify a cohort of largely black youth within post-industrial America, which is, of course, heterogeneous, especially along class and gender lines. 3. Where I speak of 'political rap informed by Afrocentrism' I have, of course, conflated rappers identified (often contentiously) as 'political rappers', 'conscious rappers', and 'nation-conscious rappers'. Although their interests and styles may differ (consider Public Enemy versus Talib Kweli Kweli, Talib. 2004. The Beautiful Struggle. New York: Rawkus. [Google Scholar] versus X-Clan), they share multiple concerns, rapping about topics such as ancestry, racial history, inclusiveness, political participation, contemporary public policy, feminism, mass media, and hip-hop as a movement, as opposed to a means. My conflation is part of an attempt to signify the general differences between this archetypal performance (as outward looking, 'inclusive' and collective) and that of the gangsta (as focused on the everyday and the individual). 4. 'Afro Connections at a Hi 5 (in the eyes of the Hoodlum)' is an excellent example of De La Soul's earlier style and political focus, emphasizing positive representations and undermining the gangsta performance. The opening dialogue states: 'This is dedicated to all those hard-core acts, you know those brothers we used to look up to that fell the fuck off. And now they doin' all that r&b shit. You mean rhythm and blues? No. Rap and bullshit!' The two MCs parody dominant gangsta performances, particularly the focus on drugs, macho posturing, and consumption. They ironically rhyme (in a slow gangsta style), 'So I puff a blunt / I don't front / I get spliff / get a stiff / and I go hump a stunt / like a pimp pro…Now I hold my crotch / cause I'm top-notch / I run amok, like sasquatch / and I like to eat la crab / I've got five beepers, ya scab' (De La Soul 1991, 13). 5. In 'Tennessee', Speech rhymes 'Walk the roads my forefathers walked / climbed the trees my forefathers hung from / asked those trees for all their wisdom / they tell me that my ears are so young.' In these rhymes, the political rapper's (somewhat nostalgic) emphasis on history and knowledge is evident. Speech continues: 'Now I see the importance of history / while my people be in the mess that they be / many journeys to freedom made in vain / my brothers on the corner playing ghetto games / I ask you Lord why you enlighten me / without the enlightenment of all my folks / He said cause I set myself on a quest / for truth, and he was there to quench my thirst / but I am still thirsty.' He invokes his position as the learned, enlightened rapper, who quests for knowledge, not at odds with, but on behalf of, his people. Emphasis on history, and the support of God are central to his values; however, it is easy to see how these are not relevant to the lives of those 'brothers on the corner playing ghetto games' (Arrested Development 1992 Arrested Development. 1992. 3 years, 5 months and 2 days in the life of … New York: Chrysalis Records. [Google Scholar], 13). 6. In his track 'What More Can I Say?' Jay-Z rhymes 'Never been a nigga this good for this long / this hood, or this pop, this hot, or this strong…I'm in, new sneakers / deuce seaters, few divas / what more can I tell you…Look what I embody / a soul of a hustler, I really ran the street.' These rhymes demonstrate Jay-Z's desire to perform as the successful gangsta, who has moved out of the 'hood but seeks the continuation of his authentic identity through his spatialized history. He plays the white man's game, buying into the individualism and consumption of late capitalism, but still appoints himself 'New-York's ambassador' (Jay-Z 2003 Jay-Z. 2003. The Black Album. New York: Def Jam Recordings. [Google Scholar], 2). 7. For a detailed investigation into how the term 'white trash' was applied in relation to whites in the United States from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century see Matt Wray's Wray, Matt. 2006. Not quite white: White trash and the boundaries of whiteness, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (2006 Wray, Matt. 2006. Not quite white: White trash and the boundaries of whiteness, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]).