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DebatingHipHop.pdf
Debating Hip-Hop Does gangsta rap harm black Americans?
S ince exploding from the streets of New York in the
1970s, the cultural phenomenon known as hip-hop
has morphed from hard-driving dance numbers into
sex- and violence-filled “gangsta rap” — and a record-
label goldmine. Gangsta lyrics have sparked periodic outbreaks of
indignation, but the outrage intensified after white shock jock Don
Imus was fired in April for describing black female athletes in the
degrading terms used commonly by hip-hop performers. African-
American leaders, including Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey and the
Rev. Al Sharpton, claim the genre’s glorification of thug culture —
often for the entertainment of white youths — drags down the
black community. In response, a few top hip-hop figures have
called for cleaning up gangsta content. Meanwhile, a school of
socially conscious hip-hop remains vibrant, embraced by political
activists, school reformers and artistic innovators who call it an
inspiration no matter what happens to the gangsta style.
I
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THE ISSUES ......................531
BACKGROUND ..................538
CHRONOLOGY ..................539
AT ISSUE ..........................545
CURRENT SITUATION ..........546
OUTLOOK ........................547
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................550
THE NEXT STEP ................551
THISREPORT
Rapper 50 Cent refuses to “compromise myself” and tone down his “gangsta” lyrics in response to critics, playing up his bullet scars from a drug-dealing past.
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CQ Researcher • June 15, 2007 • www.cqresearcher.com Volume 17, Number 23 • Pages 529-552
RECIPIENT OF SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE ◆ AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILVER GAVEL AWARD
530 CQ Researcher
THE ISSUES
531 • Is hip-hop harmful toblack America? • Is hip-hop a genuine artistic/social movement transcending rap and break-dancing? • Is hip-hop becoming a political force?
BACKGROUND
538 Made in the BronxHip-hop was born at a dance party in the Bronx in 1973.
538 Going GlobalRapping to a recorded beat began spreading around the world in 1979.
541 Sex and ViolenceIn the late 1980s, some rap evolved from sociopolitical commentary to violent, misogynistic “gangsta” rap.
543 The Big TimeAs the 1990s ended, rap was a billion-dollar business.
544 ControversyMany African-Americans bitterly criticized gangsta rap for glamorizing thugs.
CURRENT SITUATION
546 Imus FalloutThe shock jock’s firing prompted some to try to clean up street music.
546 Good WorksSome hip-hoppers use music for social betterment.
OUTLOOK
547 New and OldSome think hip-hop is reviv- ing older musical styles.
SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS
532 Hip-Hop Trails Rock andCountry It accounted for only 11 per- cent of all music sales in 2006.
533 T.I.’s “King” Leads RapSales The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Duets” was No. 5, nine years after his death.
536 Colleges Embrace Hip-HopStudies “It’s worthy of scholarship.”
539 ChronologyKey events since 1973.
540 Hip-Hop Stars BranchingOut Tycoons have clothing lines, TV shows.
545 At IssueShould hip-hop artists pro- duce material that is socially uplifting to African-Americans?
FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
549 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.
550 BibliographySelected sources used.
551 The Next StepAdditional articles from current periodicals.
551 Citing CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.
DEBATING HIP-HOP
Cover: Getty Images/Scott Gries
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Debating Hip-Hop
THE ISSUES C ritics of hip-hop havemuch to deplore. Theposturing about the “gangsta” lifestyle. The os- tentatious displays of “bling” — big diamonds, big cars and big houses. And the ever- present young women who are portrayed as rappers’ sexual playthings, draping themselves around star per- formers and shaking their booties through hundreds of near-pornographic videos. Not to mention the incessant use of the N-word.
“They put the word ‘nigga’ in a song, and we get up and dance to it,” actor and comedian Bill Cosby fumed last year. 1
Anger over hip-hop has been simmering for more than a decade, largely among African-Americans. Much of the concern has focused on its glorification of violence, sex- ual exploitation and crime. At a time when black males are increasingly endangered — six times more likely than white males to die in homicides — critics like Cosby say gangsta rappers are terrible role models for impressionable inner-city youths. 2
Superstars Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) fell to hitmen’s bullets in 1996 and 1997, respectively. A protégé of hip- hop tycoon Sean “P. Diddy” Combs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a nightclub shooting eight years ago that Combs had fled. Rapper Cam’ron (Cameron Giles) survived getting shot in 2005 in his $250,000 Lamborghini. And a bodyguard for rap- per Busta Rhymes (Trevor Smith) was killed last year at a Brooklyn, N.Y., video shoot. 3
But outside black America, the heat didn’t get turned up on gangsta rap until an aging white radio shock jock, Don Imus, unleashing a word from black street vernacular, offhandedly described the Rutgers University women’s basket- ball team as “nappy-headed hos.” 4
In the uproar that followed, Imus’ show was canceled, and critics of gangsta rap intensified their demands for change. Notably, TV talk-show host and communications mogul Oprah Win- frey threw her considerable power into demonstrating that tolerance was erod- ing for rappers’ language and lifestyle.
Winfrey broadcast two programs in which African-American writers and en- tertainers confronted hip-hop magnates. The critics included writer and newspa-
per columnist Stanley Crouch, who has been thundering for years that hip-hop performers are retailing destructive black stereotypes for the entertainment of a largely white audience. 5
Entrepreneur Russell Sim- mons, whose hip-hop empire has been valued at more than $325 million, had defended rap- pers’ artistic freedom in the past. But after Oprah’s shows, he changed his tune. “We recom- mend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misog- ynistic words ‘bitch’ and ‘ho’ and the racially offensive word ‘nigger,’ ” Simmons and Ben- jamin Chavis, co-chairmen of the advocacy group Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, said in a statement. Two major per- formers, Master P (Percy Miller) and Chamillionaire (Hakeem Seriki), took similar stands. 6
The Rev. Al Sharpton — who helped force Imus off the air — supported the de- mand. “We plan to continue to march until those three words are gone,” he said. 7
In effect, Sharpton and his allies are trying to return hip-hop to its origins as a street art form that was largely free of violence or sexual exploitation.
Hip-hop emerged in the Bronx in the early 1970s, when the first MCs chant- ed their raps, and the first DJs spun their vinyl disks, for neighborhood youths who wanted to groove to the music. Hip- hop’s venues weren’t velvet-roped clubs, or stadiums, but apartment building community rooms, playgrounds and street corners. 8
“B-boys” and “b-girls” — the ‘b’ stands for the rhythm-heavy “break” in a song — invented a whole new form of “break” dancing to the new kind of sound. And the so-called graffiti writ- ers who considered themselves radical
BY PETER KATEL
A P P
h o to
/F ra
n k F
ra n k li n I
I The Rev. Al Sharpton leads a protest march for cleaner
hip-hop lyrics on May 3, 2007, in New York City. Sharpton, who criticized shock jock Don Imus in April for using degrading hip-hop lingo to describe female
basketball players, has called for equal accountability among hip-hop artists and music-industry executives.
532 CQ Researcher
street artists became part of the hip- hop culture as well. But New Yorkers in general and city government offi- cials saw the graffiti crews as vandals. In retrospect, their activities seem in- nocent in light of the violence that now seems inseparable from hip-hop. 9
As they waited to see whether Oprah, Sharpton and other critics had caught a wave of public revulsion, most rappers stayed silent. But not David Banner (Levell Crump), a leading member of the sex-heavy “dirty south” school of rap. He argues that rappers are taking the fall for an entire culture’s pathology.
“What does America want?” Banner asks, his voice ringing with outrage. “People go to NASCAR because they want to see somebody crash. They want to see [the movie] ‘The Departed,’ with people blowing each other’s heads off — that’s cool, that’s trendy. We see what people buy. Gangsta rap is just
a reflection of America. America is sick. There’s so many other things we should be complaining about, and we’re talking about hip-hop.”
Banner (the name is borrowed from the comic hero “The Incredible Hulk”) agrees with critics that white suburban kids are rappers’ biggest audience. “Truth is, there’s somebody mad at rap because their son is walking around looking like a black dude. That’s what the problem is.”
But while Banner expresses con- tempt for Sharpton and other old-school black political leaders, they are voic- ing views that have been percolating for years, among ordinary people as well as public figures.
“There’s a big correlation between rap and the breakdown of the black community in general,” says Chris Eng- lish, a Web site developer and fledg- ling rapper and record producer in
Pocono Summit, Pa. “Regardless of what people say, it is affecting kids. I still love hip-hop, I still believe in artis- tic freedom. But I see kids who would rather be on the corner, drinking 40’s [40-ounce bottles of malt liquor] and smoking [marijuana] blunts.”
Anti-violence educator and filmmak- er Byron Hurt explored this territory in his PBS documentary, “Hip-Hop: Be- yond Beats and Rhymes.” “The more I grew, and the more I learned about sex- ism and violence and homophobia, the more [rap] lyrics became unacceptable to me,” he says in the film. 10
Other critics within the hip-hop world draw a line between mass-marketed rap and what they consider the real thing. They point to independent-label rappers who disdain the gangsta ma- terial, as well as a handful of so-called “conscious” performers who’ve broken through to the mainstream with songs that reject celebrations of violence and exploitation. Among the latter is Talib Kweli, whose new single includes the line: “I’m stayin’ conscious to radio playin’ garbage.” 11
Indeed, rappers who’ve based their careers on glorifying the thug life might find a censored environment impos- sible. “For me, don’t expect me to compromise myself,” rapper 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) told a hip-hop Web site on June 1. “Fitty” has built his public persona on bullet scars from a drug-dealing past and a (now-settled) gangland-style feud with a rival that included threats of violence and at least one episode of gunplay. 12
“If it’s over then it’s over,” 50 Cent said. “I’ll find something else to do.” 13
Mass-marketed hip-hop may not be over, but rap/hip-hop has slipped to No. 3 in nationwide music sales, ac- counting for 11.4 percent of a record- ed-music market whose total retail value was $11.5 billion in 2006. The country category, which hip-hop had surpassed in 2000, now holds the No. 2 spot. Rock music maintained the lead it has held for years. 14
DEBATING HIP-HOP
Hip-Hop Trails Rock and Country
Despite its popularity among youth, hip-hop/rap music sales in the United States only accounted for 11.4 percent of all music purchased in 2006, trailing both rock and country. Over the past nine years, hip-hop/rap sales essentially have remained constant. The figures do not include illegally downloaded computer files, which are believed to contribute to hip-hop’s overwhelming popularity.
* Yearly percentages do not total 100 due to omission of other genres.
Source: “2006 Consumer Profile,” Recording Industry Association of America, 2007
U.S. Music Sales by Genre (as a percentage of overall sales)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35%
2006200520042003200220012000199919981997
Rock Hip-hop/Rap R&B/Urban Country
June 15, 2007 533Available online: www.cqresearcher.com
The statistics don’t reflect the irony of the hip-hop market. “Record exec- utives, if you talk to them privately, will say that it’s white kids who have the disposable income to buy this stuff,” says hip-hop historian Yvonne Bynoe. 15 “Black kids are going to buy bootlegs or dupe songs themselves. But you need young black people to give a rap record the imprimatur of authenticity.”
To hip-hop marketers, “authentic- ity” is a code word for thug culture and a never-ending source of some black intellectuals’ contempt for mass- market hip-hop. “There was a time when Malcolm X the liberator was the patron saint of hip-hop,” says Chicago-based poet Heru Ofori-Atta, speaking of the assassinated African- American leader who earlier in life was a drug dealer named Malcolm Little. “Now it’s Malcolm Little the pimp, the hustler, the fool, who is given the microphone.”
Indeed, when “60 Minutes” corre- spondent Anderson Cooper asked Cam’ron if he would tell police if a serial killer lived next door, the rap- per declared, “No, I wouldn’t call and tell anybody on him. But I’d probably move.” After an outcry, the rapper apologized for his remarks. 16
The retraction reflected the sudden change in tolerance for anti-social be- havior. Even pioneer gangsta rapper Ice-T (Tracy Marrow), who now plays a detective on the popular TV show “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” challenged Cam’ron. “When you and your partner are involved in a crime, and both of y’all get caught and you tell on your partner, that’s snitching,” Ice-T said in a video interview on the hip-hop Web site, sohh.com. “Let’s get that straight. . . . If I know some- body’s in the neighborhood raping lit- tle girls — you supposed to tell the police about that sucka. That’s not snitching.” 17
As criticism of hip-hop intensifies, here are some of the questions being asked:
Is hip-hop harmful to black America?
Debates over hip-hop have taken place mostly within the black com- munity. Some of hip-hop’s fiercest crit- ics, including black intellectuals and entertainers, argue that hip-hop pre- sents a caricature of black America that damages how young black peo- ple view themselves and how they’re viewed by others.
Author and jazz critic Crouch has decried for years what he calls the ravages of hip-hop. In a 2003 column in the New York Daily News — one of dozens he has devoted to the theme — he lamented that ordinary African-Americans were bearing the consequences of a genre in which “thugs and freelance prostitutes have been celebrated for a number of years.”
The result: “Thousands upon thou- sands . . . have been murdered or beaten up or terrorized. After all, the celebration of thugs and thuggish be- havior should not be expected to bring about any other results.” 18
Though white suburban teenagers make up the vast majority of hip-hop fans, Crouch added, the class privileges they enjoy largely shield them and their communities from the outcome. “With black teenagers . . . street behavior is defined these days as being ‘authen- tic’ and ‘not trying to be white.’ Those who take that seriously have been committing intellectual suicide for years by aspiring downward.” 19
Younger cultural critics, even those who partly agree with Crouch, reject such sweeping condemnations. Instead, they insist on distinguishing between
T.I.’s “King” Leads Rap Sales
Southern-style rapper T.I., who leads the group Pimp Squad Click — better known by the acronym P$C — led all rappers in album sales in 2006 with “King.” The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Duets: The Final Chapter” was No. 5 on the list, nine years after his death.
Source: Billboard, www.billboard.biz
Top-Selling Rappers, 2006 (by album sales)
Artist Album Label
T.I. “King” Grand Hustle/Atlantic/AG
Lil Wayne “Tha Carter II” Cash Money/Universal Motown/UMRG
Eminem “Curtain Call: The Hits” Shady/Aftermath/Interscope
Ludacris “Release Therapy” DTP/Def Jam/IDJMG
The Notorious B.I.G. “Duets: The Final Chapter” Bad Boy/AG
Chamillionaire “The Sound of Revenge” Universal Motown/UMRG
Yung Joc “New Joc City” Block/Bad Boy South/AG
Rick Ross “Port of Miami” Slip-N-Slide/Def Jam/ IDJMG
Juelz Santana “What the Game’s Been Diplomats/Def Jam/IDJMG Missing!”
Busta Rhymes “The Big Bang” Aftermath/Interscope
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mass-marketed hip-hop and what they see as its purer, original form, less taint- ed by the demands of the marketplace.
“I like conscious hip-hop, and the stuff that you just dance to,” says Lisa Fager, a former promotional special- ist at commercial radio stations and record labels, “but I don’t like stuff that demeans me as a black woman, or a woman, period — or degrades my community. People don’t want to be called bitches, niggas and hos.” Fager co-founded an advocacy orga- n i za t ion in the Washington area, In- dustry Ears, largely to call attention to the Federal Com- munications Com- mission’s responsi- bility to regulate radio content during hours when children may be listening. 20
Virtually the entire school of hip-hop that focuses on social criticism is kept off commercial radio, Fager contends, mak- ing a point that echoes widely in African-American in- tellectual circles. “The gatekeepers don’t want us to be polit- ically active,” she says, referring to pro- gramming and record executives who decide what gets recorded and broad- cast. “Hurricane Katrina, you don’t think that was something the black commu- nity talked about? But there were no songs on the radio about it.”
Rapper Banner doesn’t dispute Fager on what gets played. “The labels don’t want to deal with anything that cre- ative,” he says. “They don’t want to de- velop an artist; they want the quickest thing people will buy. And as soon as one feminist gets mad, they back up.”
But Banner reacts explosively to African-Americans who attack hip-hop
as degrading. Hip-hop mogul Simmons’ proposal to ban offensive words is “stupid,” Banner says. “There was a time in history when we didn’t have a choice about being called a nigger. Now that we’re making money off it, it’s a problem.”
He adds, “If I try to change my music, I’m not going to sell my records, and that’s the truth. My fans have literally come to me and they say, ‘We put you on for pimp [songs]. You put anything else on, you’re betraying us.’ ”
Other blacks argue that rappers who blame profit-motivated companies and the market are copping out. “If what you are doing is not lifting people up to a better day, then I don’t think it’s valuable and necessary for our people,” says poet Heru, a native of Ghana, who practiced law in Florida until he took to poetry full time in 2001.
“For us, and for me, music is more than just music,” says Heru. “In Africa- based communities, whether on the con- tinent or in the Western Hemisphere, music is ceremonial and music is used for everything. So what ceremony are we introducing to people? If it’s about
killing random people in your com- munity or degrading women of your community, that’s not a ceremony I want to celebrate.”
For others, viewing hip-hop only through the prism of race is simplistic. James McBride, a writer, jazz saxophonist and bandleader, says, “the music has demonstrated that it’s bigger than race.” In a recent article for National Geo- graphic, McBride examined hip-hop’s global reach and existential pull: “It’s about identity — ‘this is what I am, this
is what I know.’ This is what every 15-year-old kid feels. This music is the music of all young peo- ple. White people loved jazz in the ’40s, too.” 21
But rappers do get sub- jected to a higher stan- dard of scrutiny and in- dignation, McBride says. “If it weren’t promoted or initiated by young black men, then I think some of this debate wouldn’t even be a debate,” he ar- gues. “Alice Cooper used to do disgusting things on stage” without provoking storms of condemnation. In the 1970s and ’80s, Cooper’s “shock-rock” stage shows depicted a woman being decapitat-
ed and Cooper being hanged. 22
Is hip-hop a genuine artistic/social movement transcending rap and break-dancing?
Cultural critics argue that after evolv- ing for more than 30 years, hip-hop has become an artistic and social move- ment extending far beyond rapping over rhythm tracks, break-dancing and spray-painting graffiti.
Like blues, jazz and rock, hip-hop has emerged from the underground to be studied in universities, examined in scholarly tomes and celebrated in mu- seum shows. (See sidebar, p. 536.) 23
DEBATING HIP-HOP
Gangsta rapper David Banner defends his “dirty south” rap style and misogynistic lyrics, arguing that hip-hop has been used as a scapegoat for society’s problems. “Gangsta rap is just a reflection of America,” he says.
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“Political context, lack of resources and reappropriation . . . provide an aesthetic context from which hip-hop has sprung,” writes actor, playwright and director Danny Hoch in a recent anthology of essays on hip-hop. “They have also informed — and continue to inform — our artistic practice, even when the form or genre varies.” 24
By “reappropriation,” Hoch means “sampling,” or taking snippets from other peoples’ work and using them in creating something new.
A fellow essayist, playwright and ac- tress, Eisa Davis, pushes hip-hop’s boundaries even fur- ther. “ ‘Scarface,’ ‘Boil- er Room,’ ‘Ghost Dog’ — these are all hip-hop films even though there is nary a graf artist, MC, DJ or b-boy in sight,” she writes. “Instead, the protagonists are dealers, schemers and samurai stylists — and through the narrative and the soundtracks comes a stance that reveals hip-hop vision.”
But, Davis points out, “The hip-hop stance is not a lifestyle, it’s a thinking style, and if you try to define [it], those brain waves will run away from you and set up shop on another corner.” 25
Trying to equate rap music with a samurai film could indeed overload brain circuitry. But even hip-hop artists of less sweeping vision argue that their art form should be seen as expandable. “It’s a culture,” says Miami-based Mecca aka Grimo (Patrick Marcelin), a Hait- ian-American hip-hop performer. “It ex- presses views and opinions; it has its own language, fashion, the way we walk — that bop, that swagger. It’s a subculture that’s evolved in the inner
city and has become global.” He adds: “We’ve got to take the
good with the bad. I can’t tell you the pants hanging down or the cursing isn’t part of the culture. But music can definitely be used as an educational tool to change these things.”
Performance poetry, recited with- out accompaniment and known in its rap-spinoff form as “spoken word,” is the clearest example of hip-hop culture extending itself beyond its turntable-spinning roots.
In its original form, hip-hop con- sisted of DJ-ing, or manipulating turntables, volume levels and other features of music tracks; MC-ing (rap- ping over an accompaniment); graf- fiti spray-painting and break-dancing.
“I still believe in hip-hop as its four original elements,” says hip-hop his- torian Bynoe. “When you talk about hip-hop movies, I don’t know what that means. Is it a movie about black people? A lot of times, ‘hip-hop’ is, like ‘urban,’ a euphemism to mean ‘black people.’ I don’t think ‘hip-hop’ is a concrete enough definition to make it valid beyond the four elements.”
Bynoe doesn’t object to using hip- hop as a device to get students inter- ested in academic subjects. And she ac- knowledges that hip-hop theater may be the one valid extension of the hip- hop genre. But she cautions those in- volved in such projects against assum- ing “just because you’re poor or of color that hip-hop is the only thing you’re in- terested in.” In her own case, she says, “There have been some old, dead white guys whose writing and work were rel- evant to me.”
In May, Chicago’s Mu- seum of Contemporary Art hosted the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, which sought to introduce theater to inner-city residents who aren’t part of the high- culture scene.
The festival showcased work “that has been em- braced by a younger pop- ulation,” says Yolanda Cesta Cursach, the museum’s as- sociate director of perfor- mance programs. She says hip-hop theater is charac- terized by “a young atti- tude toward politics in the urban environment — race, class, getting a job, getting incarcerated. It’s really about putting a creative face on the politics of urban life.”
The performers included a women’s ensemble, “We Got Issues,” which pre- sented rhymed tales of women’s lives; Jerry Quickley, a performance poet whose antiwar piece, “Live from the Front,” tells of his adversarial reporting experiences in Iraq; and “Still Fabulous,” a story-telling and singing group that was formed at the Illinois Youth Center, a female juvenile detention center.
Rapping on a stage without music may not be a far cry from MC-ing on a dance floor. But writer-musician McBride argues that trying to extend hip-hop much further from its origins may be a fruitless exercise. For ex-
Reflecting hip-hop’s international popularity, 20-year-old French “b-boy” Lilou performs during the Red Bull BC One break-dancing tournament in Berlin in 2005. Break-dancing is a core element of
hip-hop, along with rapping, DJ-ing and graffiti-writing.
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536 CQ Researcher
ample, he says, “I don’t see hip-hop in ‘Spider-man 3.’ Other than quick cuts, the snap-crackle-pop immediacy of in-your-face imagery — if that’s what hip-hop is, then yes, it’s in ‘Spider- man 3.’ But I see hip-hop as a deep- er question about identity and pur- pose and sense of place.”
Is hip-hop becoming a political force?
Hip-hop and politics have been en- twined since the genre’s birth. Musical- ly, hip-hop may have started as good- time dance music, but the spray-painted graffiti art style that “taggers” adopted as the visual counterpart of DJ-ing and
MC-ing was illegal. Its practitioners and fans celebrated graffiti “tagging” as a re- claiming of urban space by its margin- alized inhabitants. “Graffiti writers had claimed a modern symbol of efficiency and progress and made it into a mov- ing violation,” writes hip-hop chronicler Jeff Chang about subway-car taggers.
DEBATING HIP-HOP
When David Cook submitted his undergraduate thesis —“The Power of Rap” — at the University of California,Berkeley, in 1987, he didn’t include sources. “I handed it in without footnotes,” he recalled recently. “I
mean, [I was] talking about something I was a part of, some- thing I knew a lot about, and [my professor] was like, ‘Foot- note something. There’s got to be books about hip-hop.’ ”
But 20 years ago there were few academic works on the subject, so Cook ended up citing Davey D — the alias he still uses as a hip-hop journalist — as somebody quoted in Bomb magazine. He received an A on the paper. 1
Today’s students would have no trouble crafting bibliogra- phies — or even taking college courses — on hip-hop and its origins. From “American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac” at Harvard to “Beginning Hip Hop Funkamentals” — a dance class at UCLA — colleges and universities in- creasingly are offering courses in tune with the current gen- eration of students. Stanford University’s The Hiphop Archive — an educational and artistic repository and research center dedicated to hip-hop culture — estimates 300 such courses are being offered nationwide, with many being taught by pro- fessors who themselves were involved in the movement’s ear- lier stages. 2
Historically black Howard University, in Washington, D.C., became the first college to offer a hip-hop course in 1991 and aims to become the first university to offer a hip-hop minor by 2009. “If you look at the overall impact of hip-hop on youth in the United States and abroad, you see why it’s wor- thy of scholarship,” says Howard history graduate student Joshua Kondwani Wright, who is spearheading efforts to es- tablish the minor.
Mark Anthony Neal, an associate professor of black pop- ular culture at Duke University who helped organize Hip- Hop Appreciation Week on campus, adds, “Pop culture, and especially hip-hop now, has a large influence on how peo- ple see the world. That demands we take it seriously. We also know that popular culture is a place where ideology is introduced.”
Although the study of black culture has been a prominent fixture on college campuses since the end of the civil rights
era, the study of hip-hop has been controversial. In 2004, then- Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers declined to offer tenure to noted hip-hop scholar Marcyliena Morgan despite unanimous support from the Department of African and African-American Studies. Many speculated the decision reflected Summers’ lack of respect for hip-hop’s presence in the ivory tower.
Morgan eventually accepted a tenured position at Stanford, taking The Hiphop Archive with her. Just last month, an ad hoc committee at Harvard and Interim President Derek C. Bok of- fered a tenured professorship to Morgan, reversing Summers’ decision. 3
But only a few within academia belittle the study of hip-hop. “It’s a continuum of African-American history and African-American culture,” says Wright. Moreover, some scholars are using their knowledge of the subject to propose remedies to social ills.
“We cannot ignore the sociological and economic circum- stances out of which the hip-hop culture emerges,” says James Peterson, assistant professor of English at Bucknell University, who teaches a course on hip-hop culture and composition. “And effectively addressing many societal problems requires an examination of the hip-hop culture.” Peterson, who is also an educational consultant, has often been asked to assess the role of hip-hop in issues such as urban crime.
But will hip-hop remain a viable academic pursuit a gen- eration from now, when society’s problems are unlikely to be associated with hip-hop and today’s regular fixtures on MTV and Black Entertainment Television are reduced to archives in VH1 Classic?
“If anything, it strengthens authenticity within the academy,” says Peterson. “If studied from a historical perspective, hip-hop will become similar to what jazz or blues studies are now.”
— Darrell Dela Rosa
1 See Reyhan Harmanci, “Academic Hip-Hop? Yes, Yes Y’all,” The San Fran- cisco Chronicle, March 5, 2007, p. F1. 2 For a list of courses, see www.hiphoparchive.org. 3 See William Lee Adams, “Ivory Tower: Teachings Of Tupac,” Newsweek, Oct. 4, 2004, p. 45; Lulu Zhou, “Hip Hop Scholar Offered Tenure,” The Harvard Crimson, May 25, 2007, www.thecrimson.com.
Colleges Embrace Hip-Hop Studies ‘It’s worthy of scholarship’
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“Authorities took their work as a guer- rilla war on civility. They were right.” 26
All of hip-hop was shaped, Chang writes in his definitive history, by the social and political upheavals of its time. These include the end of the civil rights era, the crack epidemic, the incarceration boom and globalization.
Hip-hop stars recognize the polit- ical roots of their genre and have lent their talents and checkbooks to a va- riety of causes. In 2003 , h ip -hop moguls Combs and Simmons helped or- ganize a movement that campaigned for repeal of New York’s harsh Rockefeller drug laws. 27 When the campaign failed, some polit icians and activists blamed Simmons for settling for small-scale re- forms. 28
Star power may have worked better in registering young people to vote. In 2004, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Net- work — Simmons is co-chair and Combs is a director — launched a campaign to sign up 2 million new, young voters. The organization’s other directors include the top executives of three major record labels and an ex- president of the powerful Recording Industry Association of America. 29
Combs ran his own registration-and- turnout campaign as well, under the slogan “Vote or Die!” “When the pres- ident is running your country,” he said in 2004, “he is running you, closing you out of a hospital, or taking you to war. Not just Bush. Every president.” 30
Perhaps aided by the campaign, the number of overall registrations of Amer- icans under age 30 between the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections increased by 3.1 million, according to George
Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. Mea- sured as a share of the general vot- ing public, the percentage of young registered voters rose from 55 percent of the general population to 60 per- cent. And turnout among young vot- ers rose by 4.3 million between the two elections — with African-Americans and Latinos accounting for more than half the surge. 31
Youth turnout increased by at least two percentage points in the 2006 midterm elections, compared to 2002 (with Democrats reaping most of the benefits), according to the school’s Young Voter Strategies project. 32
Even so, the question remains whether hip-hop represents a margin- alized subculture or a rising tide of political protest.
Some politically minded hip-hop community members argue that to focus on big-scale projects led by entertain- ment-industry giants is to miss the point, in part because they work with the conventional political structure. “Our country has to change, and I don’t think it’s going to happen through this Democratic-Republican Party medi- um we have,” says Bakari Kitwana,
co-founder of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention. “That’s one party to me. Why can’t we get money into education the way we’ve dumped money into Iraq? That would be rev- olutionary, and it would be hip-hop.”
Kitwana, former executive editor of The Source, a leading hip-hop maga- zine, argues that the real power of hip-hop politics can be felt in com- munity organizations that have led
fights to improve schools or oppose police bru- tality. “What I’m talking about is off the radar,” he adds. “You’re not going to see it on CNN.”
But Marc Lamont Hill, an assistant professor of urban education and American studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, cautions against overestimating the power of hip-hop. “If Jay- Z did a song tomorrow criticizing multinational capitalism, that’s great,” he says, “but even if that happens, it has to be con- nected to a real struggle. We need people who
consume hip-hop culture to think about political conditions they can af- fect through their activism. If we don’t think about it that way, all we’re doing is making some cool music. We hip- hop scholars and academics sometimes romanticize cultural politics.”
Davey D (David Cook), a radio DJ, blogger and newspaper columnist in Oakland, Calif., suggests hip-hop pol- itics is in flux. Some influential voic- es in the community, for instance, challenge the usefulness of voting. The rapper Nas (Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones) “would get on the stage and say, ‘Don’t vote, they’re not counting our votes.’ And his message gets re- inforced inadvertently by grass-roots people who feel that the system is too corrupt.”
Sean “P. Diddy” Combs announces his Citizen Change Campaign schedule for the 2004 election season, with Democratic political
consultant James Carville. The campaign is one of several hip-hop- driven efforts to register young voters and promote political awareness.
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The mass-market political side of hip-hop suffers from its own weak- nesses, Davey D says. “Russell [Sim- mons] and them have raised aware- ness, but they didn’t do voter education. There’s not a lot of activism with them. I would describe activism as being po- litically engaged and seeing the sys- tem, or various touch points in that system, as something that needs to be dealt with day in and day out.”
Still Davey D remains committed to the idea that the hip-hop community represents a political force, whether at the polls or in community matters. On the other hand, Southern-style rapper Banner sees a wave of political disillu- sionment spreading as a result of the 2004 Republican presidential victory.
“We had all these kids hyped, and when it didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to, they’re not going to vote for the next 10 years,” Banner says. “A lot of people from the Republicans said, ‘If it was about vote or die, then most of you people are dead.’”
So far, events haven’t borne out Banner’s gloomy outlook. But activists who see themselves as part of the po- litical hip-hop community are trying to avoid the outcome he predicts.
“We rap, we utilize the art,” says T. J. Crawford, 31, a community orga- nizer whose Chicago Hip-Hop Politi- cal Action Committee registered 17,000 young people in 2004 and is now working on voter education. “The most important thing is making voting rele- vant, so that people understand how the system works.”
BACKGROUND Made in the Bronx
T he cradle of hip-hop lies in theBronx, a borough of New York City that has nurtured generations of
middle- and working-class families, many newly arrived in the United States, including Colin L. Powell. The former chairman of the joint chiefs and Sec- retary of State grew up there in the 1940s and 50s, the son of Jamaican im- migrants. 33
But the engine of upward mobil- ity that propelled Powell and thou- sands of other Bronxites into college and greater prosperity was sputtering by the late 1970s. New York was shedding its role as a manufacturing center, losing thousands of factory jobs in the process. At the same time, the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements had created a current of social rebelliousness that was still running strong. 34
Amid this sociopolitical heavy weath- er a new musical style blew in from Jamaica, where many musicians and singers were leaving for jobs in Britain and the United States. The migration of performers forced disc jockeys to take over the top spots in an active song-and-dance culture. “Outfitted with powerful amplifiers and blasting stacks of homemade speakers, one only need- ed a selector and turntable to trans- form any yard,” writes Chang in Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip- Hop Generation. 35
In 1967, the DJ’s role expanded even further when a record-spinner happened upon a disk with the vo- cals missing — the result of an engi- neer’s error. The DJ used the record on his next gig, as a rhythmic foun- dation for spouting rhymes. Dancers loved it, and the trend took off.
That same year, the emigrés in- cluded 12-year-old Clive Campbell, who arrived in New York with pow- erful memories of Jamaica’s sound-sys- tem DJs. Clive’s father took up DJ-ing as a sideline, buying big speakers and an amplifier to play for house parties.
By the time he reached high school, Clive was following in his father’s foot- steps. But he rewired the equipment to push more power to the speakers
and to mix echo and other effects with his patter as DJ Kool Herc — borrowing from a popular brand of cigarettes and the name of the mytho- logical strongman.
When his sister Cindy threw a dance party on Aug. 11, 1973, in the com- munity room of the family’s apartment building on Sedgwick Avenue, Kool Herc made his debut — and so did hip-hop. Cindy used her share of the entrance fee to buy clothes for school.
Going Global
A s news of the event spread anddemand for Herc’s services rose, he came up with a trend-setting in- novation. Other DJs were already using two turntables, so that a new song could start when the first one ended. But Herc would put the same tune on each turntable, allowing him to continue the bass-and-drums “break” section of a dance song as it was fad- ing away on the other record. Dancers — who loved the breaks — went wild.
Other Bronx DJs soon adopted the technique, adding the Jamaican tech- nique of rhyming over the beat. “Rap- ping” spread through other neighbor- hoods and eventually to clubs. All it took for the national spotlight to hit the localized craze was one record — the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” which came out in 1979.
“Imitations popped up from Brazil to Jamaica,” Chang writes. “It became the best-selling 12-inch single ever pressed.” 36 The tune’s first words: “I said uh hip-hop. . . .”
By 1980, even The Washington Post was taking notice of “the newest craze among the 14-to-21-year-olds, the record-buying majority who are putting rap records on the national charts and making money for the nightclub disc jockeys capitalizing on a bit of New York City party culture.” 37
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Chronology 1970s-1980s Hip-hop is born in the Bronx and spreads throughout New York City before starting to take off elsewhere.
Aug. 11, 1973 The first recognized hip-hop event takes place in the Bronx at a dance in an apartment building’s community room.
October 1979 “Rapper’s Delight,” by the Sugar Hill Gang, becomes the first hip- hop record to be released.
March 1981 Afrika Bambaataa and the Jazzy Five release “Jazzy Sensation,” which fuses dance-funk beats and so-called electronica sounds and helps widen hip-hop’s appeal.
1984 Hip-hop powerhouse Def Jam Recordings issues its first record.
1988 Public Enemy releases “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” which merges hip-hop with black nationalism.
1989 The Los Angeles-based group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude), creates “gangsta rap,” characterized by the song “Fuck Tha Police.”
•
1990s Hip-hop becomes a force in the entertainment industry, even as rap becomes increasingly identified with graphic depictions of sex, misogyny and glorification of violence and drugs; criticism mounts, as do sales.
1992 Supreme Court lets stand an appeals court’s ruling that Miami-based 2 Live Crew’s “Nasty As They Want To Be” is not obscene. Bill Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, attacks rap performer Sister Souljah (Lisa Williamson) for comments about the Los Angeles riots, calling her remarks racist.
Feb. 23, 1994 Rap lyrics are both attacked and described as reflecting the lives of urban youths at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Sept. 13, 1996 Gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur dies after a gangland-style hit on the Las Vegas Strip. About six months later, rival rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) dies in a similar shooting in Los Angeles.
Dec. 27, 1999 Sean Combs (then known as “Puff Daddy”) is arrested for gun posses- sion outside a New York nightclub; he is later acquitted, though a bodyguard gets prison time for having opened fire.
•
2000s Music industry steadily loses steam; hip-hop magnates and stars diversify and take up politics, while “dirty south” rap, with its raunchy lyrics that many say degrade women, gains in popularity.
December 2003 Rapper Jay-Z joins a consortium that eventually buys the NBA’s New Jersey Nets.
2004 In April, students at Atlanta’s Spel- man College demand rapper Nelly meet with them to discuss his
raunchy “Tip Drill” video, but he refuses and also cancels a charity fundraising appearance at the women’s college. . . . The Hip- Hop Summit Action Network and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs each orga- nize national voter-registration cam- paigns focused at African-American youth. . . . Chicago Hip-Hop Polit- ical Action Committee registers 17,000 young voters.
2005 Record and cable TV executives at a Spelman panel discussion try to explain why they market videos that portray women as sex toys.
2006 Hip-hop recordings slip to 11.4 per- cent of U.S. market share, from 13.3 percent in 2005.
2007 On Jan. 1, Atlanta police raid a major mixtapes production opera- tion. . . . In April, radio shock jock Don Imus is fired for describing the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos,” spurring debate about hip-hoppers’ use of similar language. . . . Under pressure from TV personality Oprah Winfrey and other African-American leaders, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network calls for a ban on “bitch,” “ho” and “nigger” in recordings. . . . Rappers Master P and Chamillionaire an- nounce plans to tone down street language in the future. . . . Rapper Cam’ron is criticized after telling “60 Minutes” he wouldn’t call the police even to protect neighbors from a serial killer; he later apologizes for the comment. . . . The “Hip-Hop Project” opens; the Bruce Willis-pro- duced documentary depicts young people learning artistic expression through rap. . . . “Dirty south” rap- per David Banner transports relief supplies to Hurricane Katrina-ravaged areas and organizes a fundraising concert for hurricane victims.
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As rap’s popularity soared, its home turf was becoming a grittier, tougher place. City government was headed toward bankruptcy. Education, garbage collection and other public services were strained to their limits.
Meanwhile, the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 marked a turn toward conservative policies that hit poor communities across the country. Reagan’s first years in office saw a tax cut that he championed swing the country into a recession
marked by unemployment and cut- backs in state and local assistance programs. 38
Although the national economy slow- ly improved, many poor communities were assaulted by the arrival of a cheap, addictive stimulant — crack co- caine — and barely felt the change. The ensuing crack epidemic devastat- ed inner cities across the country. Crack left users wanting another hit almost immediately. High demand helped make crack a big business in job-starved ghettoes, where local drug sellers served
neighborhood customers as well as users driving in from the suburbs. 39
As addiction and warfare between rival drug-trafficking gangs ravaged poor neighborhoods, law enforce- ment cracked down. New sentencing laws imposed tougher penalties for crack trafficking than for dealing in powdered cocaine, which didn’t make an inroad in inner cities because of its relatively high price. 40
Inevitably, popular culture, includ- ing hip-hop, began to reflect the dis- tressing, new inner-city realities.
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Hip-hop has come a long way from the communityrooms and street corners where pioneers in the 1970sand ’80s developed the arts of sampling and rapping and sold cassettes out of car trunks.
And in the view of hip-hop tycoon Russell Simmons — who has branched out into fashion, TV and jewelry — the genre still has a long way to go. “Hip-hop is not fully exploited,” Simmons said. 1
He should know. Simmons’ hip-hop enterprises are worth upwards of $325 million. But music sales — traditionally hip- hop’s top moneymaker — are hurting, as the music business struggles to adjust to a digital world in which consumers can easily and cheaply acquire music over the Internet.
Sales of hip-hop recordings and downloads in the United States reached about $131 million in 2006 — or 11.4 percent of the $11.5 billion U.S. music market — according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). 2 And while breakdowns by genre aren’t available for the $33 billion global recorded-music market, two hip-hop albums — by 50 Cent and Eminem — were among the world’s top 10 bestsellers in 2005, the most recent figures available. 3
But music sales are plunging, both nationally and globally — by 6.2 percent in the United States and 3 percent world- wide in 2005. And sales of “physical” products, such as CDs, are down 6.7 percent, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. 4
The diversified Simmons doesn’t worry about those prob- lems, however. The co-founder of hip-hop’s first record label, Def Jam Recordings, is out of the music business now; his Rush Communications produces movies, TV shows, yoga DVDs and “urban wear.”
Simmons’ fellow hip-hop pioneers haven’t done too shabbily either. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs — a performer as well as entre- preneur — is a designer, actor and international fashion icon. Def
Jam co-founder Rick Rubin, whose work ranges far beyond hip- hop, won his fifth producer-of-the-year Grammy in February and is considering an offer to become co-chairman of Columbia Records. And Lyor Cohen, another Def Jam alum, is chairman and CEO of U.S. Recorded Music for Warner Music Group. 5
A handful of other rappers have also hit it big, though not quite on Simmons’ level. Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson), once a member of the much-condemned N.W.A., has diversified into acting, producing and screenplay writing for mainline Hollywood features. Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter) sold his Rocawear clothing line in March for $204 million, owns a chain of upscale clubs and helps promote Budweiser Select beer. He recently bought a minority share of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and is still president and CEO of Def Jam. And Lil Jon (Jonathan Smith), a rapper and producer in the Southern “crunk” style, also produces clothing and has starred in a video game and a Com- edy Central cartoon show. 6
With the push for diversification, it might appear that rap- pers are hedging their bets on the recording business. Rap album sales dropped 20 percent in 2006, and the top 10 best- selling albums that year included no rap records — an occur- rence not seen for more than 10 years. “Hip-Hop Is Dead,” declared the title of a late-2006 album by rapper Nas. 7
No funerals are scheduled, but rap has slipped to third place (after country music) in U.S. music sales — from 13.3 percent of market share in 2005 to 11.4 percent in 2006. “It’s not los- ing popularity,” says David Banner (Levell Crump). “Down- loading is up, and the music industry is going down.” 8
A top industry-watcher agrees. “I don’t have any data that supports that hip-hop, particularly, is down,” says Don Gorder, chair of the Music Business/Management Department at Berklee College of Music. In general, he adds, “Demand for music has never been greater. It’s a strong market. The business models are having to adjust.”
Hip-Hop Stars Are Branching Out Tycoons have clothing lines, TV shows
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Sex and Violence
T he lighthearted dance-party flavorthat characterized early rap soon took a turn toward hard-edged social commentary with a black-nationalist spin. A key source of inspiration was a pre- hip-hop group of African-nationalist verse writers, The Last Poets, who had re- leased a groundbreaking album of po- etry recited over percussion backing in 1970. The Long Island, N.Y., group Pub- lic Enemy took the idea into the hip-
hop age with an album, “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” released in 1988. 41
Public Enemy soon became engulfed in a controversy over anti-Jewish com- ments by Professor Griff (Richard Grif- fin), the group’s “minister of informa- tion.” After he blamed Jews for “the majority of wickedness that goes on across the globe,” Griff was dropped by the group and then rehired, before it broke up for a time.
Public Enemy’s founder, Chuck D (Carlton Douglas Ridenhour) became,
and remains, a leading spokesman for rap as a form of social and political commentary and activism. His descrip- tion of rap as “the black CNN” stands as one of the most widely circulated observations ever coined about hip-hop.
But the comment had a perhaps- unintended consequence — it tended to validate “gangsta” rap. The new hip- hop genre seemed to spin off from Public Enemy’s work but departed from its message of social improvement: Violence and the drug trade were glorified; police were threatened; and
One adjustment may be dealing with “mixtapes” — CD albums with songs not yet officially released, de- signed to test the market and keep a performer’s work before the public be- tween formal releases. The little-known sector of the business — the name is a holdover from the old days of cassettes — came under scrutiny after an Atlanta recording studio was raided in January by police. Ac- companied by RIAA offi- cials, the police grabbed two men — along with 25,000 CDs — on charges of illegally producing CDs. (The RIAA later said the police, not the as- sociation, had instigated the raid, but industry insiders were skeptical.) 9
The men, Tyree Simmons and Donald Cannon, turned out to be two of the country’s best-known DJs and are well known for producing mixtapes. 10
Derrick Ewan, an XM Satellite Radio DJ who goes by the name Furious Styles, says the record companies actually help get mixtapes made. “The label wants you to make tapes,” Ewan says. “They give you the songs and in some cases pay you to make a mixtape. They don’t care if you sell them.” Ewan says he hasn’t received such payments or run afoul of copyright laws because the CDs he makes showcase unsigned acts — his DJ niche.
Still, mixtapes are easily available at independent record stores and even online, and the business has its own wholesalers. For
all the millions made in hip- hop clothing and jewelry, the old hip-hop hustle is still alive and well at street level — and some mixtapes are even sold out of car trunks.
1 See Mindy Fetterman, “Russell Sim- mons can’t slow down,” USA Today, May 14, 2007, p. B1. 2 “2006 Consumer Profile,” Record- ing Industry Association of America, undated, www.riaa.com/news/mar- ketingdata/pdf/2006RIAAConsumer- Profile.pdf. 3 See Jeff Leeds, “Music Industry’s Sales Post Their Sixth Year of De- cline,” The New York Times, April, 1, 2006, p. C2; “Digital formats continue to drive the global music market —
World Sales 2005,” International Federation of Phonographic Industries, March 31, 2006, www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20060331a.html. 4 “The Recording Industry World Sales 2001,” International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, April, 2002, www.ifpi.org/content/library/world- sales2001.pdf. 5 See Fetterman, op. cit.; Alana Semuels, “Rappers hear siren song of op- portunity,: Los Angeles Times, March 12, 2007; Sia Michel, “A New Sound for Old What’s-His-Name,” The New York Times, Sept. 10, 2006, p. B67; Robert Hilburn, “The Music Industry Titans — Rick Rubin; A balance of rattle and om,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 11, 2007, p. F1; Charles Duhigg, “Q&A; Getting Warner Music More Upbeat,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 28, 2006, p. C1; “Lyor Cohen,” (official biographical sketch) Warner Music Group, undated, www.wmg.com/about/biography/?id=contact400004. 6 See Yvonne Bynoe, Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture (2006), pp. 178-181; Semuels, op. cit; Steve Jones, “Jay-Z is a very busy man,” USA Today, Nov. 21, 2006, p. D5. 7 Semuels, op. cit. 8 For market-share statistics, see “2006 Consumer Profile,” op. cit. 9 See Samantha M. Shapiro, “Hip-Hop Outlaw (Industry Version),” The New York Times Magazine, Feb. 18, 2007, p. 29. 10 See ibid.
Hip-hop entrepreneurs Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Jay-Z and Russell Simmons (from left) have built multi-million-dollar
businesses involving street clothing, jewelry, sports, television and film.
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women were treated purely as sex ob- jects and prostitutes.
The Los Angeles-based group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude) is considered the founder of gangsta rap, though ar- guably it was depicting the drug war rather than celebrating it, as the group’s imitators did. In 1989, sales of N.W.A.’s second album, “Straight Outta Comp- ton,” reached gold-record status — 500,000 copies sold — within six weeks and eventually racked up 3 mil- lion sales. Its degradation of women and profanity made radio airplay im- possible, so the album sold initially through a below-the-radar distribution system of mom-and-pop record stores in black communities, then through word-of-mouth among white teenagers. Once stores in white neighborhoods stocked it, “That’s all it took,” a record salesman said years later. Eventually, white suburban kids accounted for about 80 percent of sales. 42
One of the album’s cuts, “Fuck Tha Police,” was structured as a snapshot of life on the street:
. . . Searchin’ my car, lookin for the product
Thinkin’ every nigga is sellin nar- cotics . . .
Just cuz I’m from the CPT [Compton], punk police are afraid of me
A young nigga on a warpath And when I’m finished, it’s gonna
be a bloodbath Of cops, dyin’ in LA. 43
“Gangsta, gangsta” was the title of an- other selection, giving the genre its name.
A pushback against gangsta rap began almost immediately, fueled by black ac- tivists and police. An assistant director of the FBI sent the record company a letter accusing the firm of encouraging “violence against and disrespect for the law-enforcement officer.’ ” The letter stoked consumer interest even more. 44
Some politically minded hip-hop radio D.J.’s, led by Davey D, in the San Fran- cisco Bay area, organized a boycott of N.W.A., largely because of its repeated use of the N-word. But “progressive”
DEBATING HIP-HOP
Hip-Hop Pioneers
Kool Herc (top) introduced break-beat DJ-ing in the 1970s, in which the percussive instrumental “breaks” of songs are isolated and repeated during dance parties. Bronx DJ Afrika Bambaataa (middle) pioneered the use of electronic drum machines to create hip-hop beats. In the 1980s, Public Enemy (bottom) became one of the first mainstream hip-hop groups to promote social and political activism.
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college radio stations re- fused to take part in what they called censorship of black rappers, whom col- lege kids considered voic- es of the inner city. “They were fascinated with anger from the ghetto,” Davey D says now. “I live in the ’hood, and I’m not fasci- nated by it.”
Opposition to gangsta rap merged with anoth- er current that had been building since 1985. A group of political wives began decrying rock songs’ lyrics, especially explicit sexual references. Tipper Gore, wife of then- Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn., and Susan Baker, wife of then-Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, a Re- publican, founded the Parents Music Resource Center to demand ratings and voluntary warnings on albums, which perform- ers and record companies opposed during a congressional hear- ing. But in 1990, record companies began putting warnings on albums with language that could be consid- ered offensive. 45 That year, with hip- hop’s popularity soaring, Gore began echoing African-American concerns over gangsta rap lyrics. 46
At roughly the same time, explicit- ly sexual lyrics in albums produced by Luther Campbell of Miami led to liti- gation that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Campbell was an entrepreneur- turned-rapper who produced and then joined the group 2 Live Crew. Among its songs: “We Want Some Pussy” and “Dick Almighty.”
A series of court battles in Flori- da led eventually to a 1992 ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Ap- peals in Atlanta that one of the group’s albums, “Nasty as They Wanna Be,”
was not obscene. The Supreme Court let the decision stand. The years that followed saw gangsta rappers in- dulging in vulgarity as enthusiasti- cally — and profitably — as they did in violence.
The Big Time
B y the end of the 1990s, rap wasa billion-dollar business — much of the revenue generated by gangsta rap purveyors like California-based Death Row Records. 47
But the boom had been started on the East Coast by Simmons, then a budding rap promoter, and Rick Rubin, a white hip-hop fan with ambitions to manage rappers and produce record- ings. In 1979, they founded Def Jam Productions.
Def Jam soon branched out from promoting and producing rap shows to recording rap- pers. After signing an unknown rapper who became a big-time hitmaker, LL Cool J (James Todd Smith III), the fledgling Def Jam signed a distribution deal with CBS/Columbia records and went on to produce some of the biggest hip-hop acts.
The money rolled in. Sim- mons and his partners (Rubin had left the firm) sold Def Jam to Universal Music Group for $130 million in 1999.
Another sign of hip-hop’s new status was MTV’s entry into the rap world, following years in which the channel didn’t show black artists’ videos. In 1988, the TV show “Yo! MTV Raps,” began a swing toward rap that, a year later, had the channel showing rap videos 12 hours a day. Black Entertainment Television (BET) likewise came to rely heavily on hip-hop videos.
Hip-hop’s sudden new sta- tus grew out of an appeal that reached beyond the inner cities. White subur- ban appetites for gangsta rap grew all the more intense as some stars began living up to the name, none more than Tupac Shakur. The California rapper reached the heights of hip-hop stardom during a five-year solo career that ended in September 1996 when he died at age 25 in a hail of bullets in Las Vegas. 48
Shakur, who combined genuine tal- ent with an attraction to the “thug life,” was seen by many as a player in an East Coast-West Coast feud between California-based Death Row Records — for which he recorded — and New York-based Bad Boy Entertainment, headed by Combs. The label’s biggest star, The Notorious B.I.G., was gunned down in Los Angeles six months later. Both murders remain unsolved. 49
Continued on p. 522
Rapper Tupac Shakur was a major player in the feud between California-based Death Row Records — for which Shakur
recorded — and New York’s Bad Boy Entertainment. Shakur was killed in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in 1996. The
Notorious B.I.G., Shakur’s rival and Bad Boy’s most popular artist, was killed in a similar shooting in 1997 in Los Angeles.
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Controversy
T he revulsion to rap engenderedby N.W.A. and 2 Live Crew in- tensified. In New York, columnist Crouch kept up a steady drumbeat of fierce criticism beginning in the 1990s. “Illit- erates with gold and diamonds in their teeth” Crouch called hip-hop enter- tainers. He slammed them for, among other things, marketing a stereotype of inner-city life that both titillated white kids and damaged black inner-city kids by mak- ing the thug a hero. 50
Throughout the ’90s, a growing number of African-American critics — especially women — joined in the criticism. C. Delores Tucker, a Democratic politician from Philadelphia who had founded the National Political Congress of Black Women, spoke for “many disillusioned, middle-class, middle- aged people of color,” writes hip-hop chroni- cler Chang. 51
With generational and class fault lines in black America becom- ing exposed, Democra- tic presidential candi- date Bill Clinton — renowned for his con- nection to the African-American public — harshly criticized popular rapper Sister Souljah (Lisa Williamson) for com- ments she’d made after the near-fatal beating of a white truck driver by black youths during the Los Angeles riots of 1992. “I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?” she said. 52
She went on to indicate that she was describing rioters’ state of mind rather than espousing violence. But Clinton
pilloried her anyway. Speaking at a meeting of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, he said: “If you took the words white and black and you re- versed them, you might think [former Ku Klux Klan leader] David Duke was giving that speech.” Political writers showered Clinton with praise for what they saw as a courageous challenge to an outspoken member of one of the De- mocratic Party’s major constituencies. 53
In 1994, attacks on gangsta rap converged with growing concern
about violence on TV and in video games, prompting House and Senate hearings.
“It is an unavoidable conclusion that gangsta rap is negatively influencing our youth,” Tucker told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 23, 1994. “This explains why so many of our children are out of control and why we have more blacks in jail than we have in college.” 54
Others argued that Tucker and her allies were, in effect, advocating killing
the messenger. “Gangsta rappers are an easy target,” Michael Eric Dyson, now a professor of humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, told law- makers. “We should be having a hear- ing on crime and on economic mis- ery.” 55 Dyson authored the provocative 2006 book Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost its Mind?
None of the hearings led to legis- lation. Instead, the debate continued bubbling, especially within the African-American community.
The outrage flared in 2004 at Atlanta’s Spelman College. Rapper Nelly had been scheduled to visit the prestigious, historically black institution for women to encourage bone-marrow donations. But then students became aware of a Nelly song and video, “Tip Drill” — street slang for a homely woman with a good body. The video, in which David Banner appeared, featured the usual gyrating, bikini-clad women and an offensive scene in which the rapper swipes a credit card between a woman’s buttocks. 56
The s t uden t s had planned to confront Nelly about the song, but he canceled his appearance. “Spelman is 10 blocks from a strip club,” Nelly said. “You’re not out in front of
the strip club picketing.” 57
A panel discussion held the fol- lowing year at the school showed that opinions on both sides remained firm. Bryan Lynch, an executive with TVT Records, a leading independent label that’s home to some gangsta rappers, told the audience that record companies catered to record buyers’ tastes. Panel mediator Michaela Davis, fashion editor of Essence magazine, snapped back: “Crack sells, too.” 58
Continued on p. 546
New York rapper Nas, who leans toward “conscious” hip-hop, titled his controversial 2006 album “Hip Hop Is Dead” because he
thinks the genre has become too commercialized and has lost its street credibility.
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At Issue: Should hip-hop artists produce material that is socially uplifting to African-Americans?Yes
yes HERU OFORI-ATTA POET, AUTHOR OF THE UNAPOLOGETIC AFRICAN: INSIDE THE MIND OF A FRONTLINE POET *
WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, JUNE 2007
a ccording to the American worldview, an artist shouldbe “free” to do whatever he wants as long as hedoesn’t disrupt capitalism and/or white supremacy. In an intact African worldview, the village is more important than any one person. As an unapologetic African, I care about my people more than I care about hip-hop. I care about the minds of black children more than I care about my freedom of speech. I care about setting high standards for my people more than I care about capitulating to the low cultural standards set by white culture.
Any art form created by people of African descent must speak to the best of who we are and our aspirations. Art that doesn’t must be thrown away. History will show that this is the correct position of a people who are still oppressed — socially, economically, politically and religiously. In fact, history judges a people based on the cultural artifacts they have left behind. In 3007, what would an archaeologist or anthropolo- gist deduce about the African-American culture of today? The conclusion would not make our descendants proud.
I recently appeared on a panel with an artist who said if he wakes up in the morning and feels like writing about hav- ing sex with groupies and smoking crack, he would write it and feel “proud” to perform it. After all, that’s what freedom of speech is about. Panelists said they didn’t want to preach to their fans. I informed them that when an artist sings, raps or performs poetry bragging about shopping for acquisitions of illusory splendor, he is preaching for materialism.
The powers that be, who have always been against the progress of people of African descent in this country, have made sure the only artists to wield power are the village idiot and not the village freedom fighter and sage. The ruling elite saw the effects on the tastes, interests and values of American society when political dissenters were popular musicians in the 1960s and ’70s.
As Nigerian musician and activist Fela Anikupalo Kuti said, “Music is a weapon.” A weapon can be used to 1) commit suicide, 2) unjustly hurt others or 3) defend oneself, one’s family and home. Black artists must ask themselves what are they using this weapon for? I proudly and unequivocally choose No. 3.
* Forthcoming in 2007.No
MARC LAMONT HILL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF URBAN EDUCATION AND AMERICAN STUDIES TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, JUNE 2007
more than any other musical genre in history, hip-hop has been linked to the sociopolitical fortunesand futures of African-American and Latino youth. Critics, fans and even artists themselves argue that hip-hop practitioners should produce music that socially uplifts its con- stituents. Although such efforts are highly valuable, it is both unfair and unrealistic to expect all artists to produce “socially uplifting music.”
To be sure, artists have always played a critical role in our collective struggles for freedom, justice and equality. From the plantation to the pulpit, black and brown creative expression has been an indispensable weapon against the most vicious forms of oppression. While hip-hop artists should not be excluded from this tradition, we must expand our understanding of “social uplift” in ways that move us beyond the explicitly political.
From its birth in the streets and parks of post-industrial urban spaces, hip-hop has been more than a reflection of our political predilections. In addition to speaking truth to power, hip-hop, like its cultural forebears, has enabled us to find joy, love and community in the midst of the most absurd circumstances. While songs about a fresh romance, a newborn baby or a fun party may not end sexism, racism or poverty, they allow us to sustain a sense of hope and possibility against the most discouraging odds. Such sensibilities are as important to social-justice struggles as political education or cultural nationalism. From this perspective, Public Enemy’s exhortations to “Fight the Power” and dead prez’s critiques of the school system are just as valuable as Lupe Fiasco’s stories about his skateboard.
Additionally, by placing exorbitant political demands on hip- hop artists, we easily misplace our political hopes in ways that compromise our progress. Despite the importance of an incisive lyrical critique or a provocative slogan, such things cannot re- place the critical work of organizing, voting, striking or march- ing. By overestimating the power of cultural politics, the hip- hop generation absolves itself of the responsibilities of real, on-the-ground engagements with the public and its problems.
Like all human beings, hip-hop artists have moral obligations that necessarily inform their professional and personal lives. As such, they should feel compelled not to create any music that degrades, assaults or otherwise contradicts the values and goals of our respective communities. But they should also feel em- powered to produce art that reflects their own feelings, desires and beliefs about the world — uplifting or not.
546 CQ Researcher
CURRENT SITUATION
Imus Fallout
A fter the brief outburst of remorsethat followed Imus’ sudden fall, the captains of the hip-hop industry are keep- ing their microphones switched off. Calls and e-mails from reporters (including CQ Researcher) to top record and radio ex- ecutives are going unanswered. A press conference that Simmons’ Hip-Hop Summit Action Network had announced for a date in May to discuss language in rap songs was canceled. 59
“I expect them to wait it out,” says Don Gorder, chairman of the Music Busi- ness/Management Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. “I would be surprised to see any strong policy statements. In pure business terms, peo- ple vote with their pocketbooks. Is it record companies’ responsibility to steer them away from [gangsta rap]? I don’t think they’d say that.”
Some rappers made their own eval- uations of how the wind was shifting — or re-examined their consciences — and acted accordingly. Master P found- ed Take a Stand Records to market “street music without offensive lyrics.” 60
In an open letter to the news media, he said, “Oprah Winfrey is ab- solutely right. We need to grow up and be responsible for our own ac- tions. . . . Most artists’ mission is to sell records. My mission is to help save and change lives.” 61
Best-selling rapper Chamillionaire spoke in similar terms. “On my new album, I don’t say the word n***a,” he told the hip-hop news site, All- HipHop.com. “I guarantee if I don’t go out and say it in the media they’re not even gonna realize that. People go back and listen to all of my old mixtapes
and don’t even realize that I wasn’t even doing all that type of stuff. I was saying n***a, but I wasn’t saying the F- word or [the] B-word. I was never say- ing those types of things. . . . I hear that so much, and it restricts your creativity and how far it can go.” 62
Nevertheless, for members of the hip- hop world who had been sounding the alarm for years over rap lyrics, the record and radio executives bear the biggest responsibility. “Nobody is saying that porn stars need to make more substantive and dramatic films,” says Industry Ears co-founder Fager. “Why are we looking at rappers to change their content? It’s the gatekeeper who allows this stuff to be made and seen.”
That take on the matter can be found throughout the loosely knit community of the hip-hop world’s internal critics. “Certainly we’ve heard rap artists make [sexist] comments,” says historian Bynoe, “but they don’t own record companies, for the most part, or radio stations or cable companies. The decisions about what content will be aired or produced isn’t up to rap artists. If tomorrow these entities decide that material is not going to be broadcast, it would end.”
Whether broadcasters and cable companies are likely to be forced into that position is another question. “Con- gress has bigger targets in its sights,” says Adam D. Thierer, senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Founda- tion, a think tank funded by telecom- munications and entertainment giants, including Sony Music Entertainment and Time Warner. “They are so obsessed with regulating violence on cable TV. That has sucked all the oxygen out of the room.”
But that picture could change. A hip- hop equivalent of Janet Jackson’s breast-baring “wardrobe malfunction” on live TV during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show would likely put serious pressure on radio and/or radio execu- tives. “It could lead to them being drug in front of a congressional committee to testify,” Thierer says. The Jackson
episode led the FCC to fine CBS $550,000. And then Congress raised fines tenfold for broadcasting “indecent” material. 63
So far, the recent indignation over rap lyrics has the industry avoiding the congressional witness table. But the flare-up that followed Cam’ron’s controversial statement on CBS’ “60 Minutes” might have blazed brighter if he hadn’t beat a retreat.
Days after saying that talking to po- lice about a crime “would definitely hurt my business,” Cam’ron acknowl- edged having refused to help in an in- vestigation in which he himself had been shot. “But my experience in no way justifies what I said,” he said. Look- ing back now, I can see how those comments could be viewed as offen- sive, especially to those who have suf- fered their own personal tragedies or to those who put their lives on the line to protect our citizens from crime.” 64
Good Works
I t’s not just “hos and clothes.” That’swhat an orphaned young Brooklynite tells a group of other hard-luck kids he’s brought together at an alternative high school to make a hip-hop record. Chris “Kharma Kazi” Rolle’s idea is to show them how to turn their experi- ences into material.
After considerable struggle, the kids eventually did make their record, and two New York University film students document their progress. The fledgling filmmakers assembled their material into a movie, “The Hip Hop Project,” which opened in May. 65
Both the record and the movie at- tracted impressive support — from Sim- mons, Queen Latifah and movie star Bruce Willis. “In five years, hopefully, there’ll be 25 programs in 25 other cities in this country” that replicate the New York project’s methods, Willis says in a promotional Web video. 66
In effect, the movie illustrates what some hip-hop advocates have been
DEBATING HIP-HOP
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insisting for years: that the music is a tool for social betterment, not merely a soundtrack for street crime. “If you’re just seeing it on TV, you’re only going to see the bad hip-hop,” says rapper Blitz the Ambassador, who greets the movie as validation. “Hip-hop helps these kids cope with extreme environ- ments they are born into,” he says.
In effect, the project also supports the vision of hip-hop theater activists, who argue the art form is made to order for artistically undernourished kids who need to express themselves. “Let’s not isolate the voices of these young people,” says Clyde Valentín, executive director of the Hip-Hop Theater Festi- val, which travels from city to city. “Let’s encourage them to write their voices.”
A native of Brooklyn, Valentín was a break-dancer in the early days of hip-hop. Like others, he argues that using hip-hop as a vehicle of expres- sion also combats the “criminalization” of young people, especially blacks and Latinos, by enabling them to break free of stereotypes.
Miami’s Mecca aka Grimo has a contract with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to run poetry work- shops, which he describes in terms similar to those that resonate in the new film. “My main purpose is to stim- ulate their brains,” Mecca says. “It’s not just putting words together. I want these kids to start making sense. Being able to recite lyrics, come up with messages — that’s a beautiful thing.”
Paradoxically, the self-expression that Mecca tries to encourage is aimed at combating impressions large- ly created by mass-marketed hip-hop. “I do believe that the hip-hop cul- ture — rap music and visuals — has definitely gone in a direction that’s detrimental to black youth,” he says. “You gotta get shot, you got to be a gangsta to be cool in the streets. Hip- hop became part of a system that’s implemented in urban communities to keep people down or make money off them.”
To be sure, even rappers who do work the seamier side of the hip-hop street get some credit for good works.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Banner used his tour bus to deliver emergency supplies to southern Mississippi and organized a fund-raising concert in Atlanta starring other much-criticized rappers, includ- ing Nelly. 67
“I am definitely critical of both of them for some of the stuff they do,” says Davey D. “But David Banner — I can’t write him off. I didn’t go to Mississippi. He did.”
OUTLOOK New and Old
N o one could have predicted thata Jamaica-born, Bronx-developed combination of turntable music and spontaneous versifying would morph into a global entertainment force. Now the people who follow hip-hop’s fortunes are fairly cautious about pre- dicting its future.
The starting point for looking to- ward that future is to recognize the ex- tent of the change already wrought by hip-hop, says writer and musician McBride. “This music has changed the way all of us think about music. It’s hard for those of us who grew up lis- tening to music as melody. When rap artists pull samples from different records, there’s no tonality, the center of gravity is gone, so it’s hard for us listeners of Western music to lock into where the center of the song is.”
With those changes in the nature of music has come a break in the chain of musical heritage. “We’ve had whole generations growing up without hear- ing the great songs of the ’40s,” McBride says. “Their idea of an old song is Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.”
That severing of the link between pre- sent and past musical styles might not be as widespread as McBride argues. Some hip-hop fans haven’t abandoned what might be termed old-fashioned music, the kind that you play on in- struments other than a turntable. In- evitably, that practice links them with musicians of the past.
Among the hip-hop performers who put the old and new together are The Roots, a Philadelphia group, and Wyclef Jean, a Haitian-American superstar. Jean, for instance, performs on guitar, playing Santana-style solos and even picking the guitar from behind his head, and then with his mouth, tech- niques made famous by Jimi Hendrix. And in 2004, Queen Latifah went back even further in musical time, record- ing an album of standards, (including some from the ’40s). This year, Mecca aka Grimo performed in Miami in May with guitar and drums behind him. 66
Generally speaking, Mecca says, “We need to explore the art form of live music. That will jump us off into a bigger genre of music. Eventually we could be classified as world music if we take to live instruments.”
Meanwhile, the debates about lyrics that have dominated discussion of hip- hop for nearly two decades strongly influence others’ views of the future. “People are getting tired of gangsta hip-hop,” Mecca adds. “In 10 years, you’ll see another high point of good, clean, conscious hip-hop.”
For others, the lessons of the re- cent past inspire more caution. “I had no clue in ’98 that by 2007 hip-hop would have taken such a blow,” says Blitz the Ambassador, describing what he calls the ill effects of Southern rap. “That whole wave of music just took over and killed the lyrics.”
Still, he holds out hope that old- school hip-hop at least will survive. “I really hope we can find a way to positively progress,” Blitz says. “And if it’s another genre, I hope it’s more positive.”
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English, the fledgling independent record label owner, voices the identical hope. But he adds, “I don’t see that happening. The major labels haven’t said anything. This is their moneymak- ing machine.”
Meanwhile, English says, he plays non-gangsta hip-hop to his 7- and 11- year-old daughters — but exposes them to soul and disco as well. “They need to know what good music really is.”
Davey D, the Oakland-based DJ and writer, sees more room for hope, large- ly because of his sense that gangsta rap’s appeal is fading.” I want it to be dead,” he says. “If ratings are going down, that’s great. I’m not trying to save that manifestation of hip-hop. We’re very clear that there’s been an enabling of people to just be immature.”
But if gangsta rap dies, what will replace it? “We might not even call it hip-hop,” says Davey D. But he’s sure that whatever kind of music grabs hold of the public will help them bet- ter understand their world.
It will be, he says, the “soundtracks to conditions that people are living in.”
Notes 1 Quoted in Brent Jones, “Cosby calls to absent fathers,” Baltimore Sun, Aug. 23, 2006, p. B1. 2 See “The State of Black America,” The Na- tional Urban League, 2007, p. 37. 3 See Robert Hilburn and Jerry Crowe, “Rap- per Tupac Shakur, 25, Dies 6 Days After Am-
bush,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 14, 1996, p. A1; Chuck Phillips, “Bad Boy II Man,” Los An- geles Times, May 25, 1997, p. 8 [Calendar sec- tion]; Katherine E. Finkelstein, “Combs Protégé is Sentenced to 10 Years in Shooting,” The New York Times, June 2, 2001, p. B2; Andrew Jacobs, “Security Guard Killed Outside of a Busta Rhymes Video Shoot,” The New York Times, Feb. 6, 2001, p. B1. 4 For background, see Marcia Clemmitt, “Shock Jocks,” CQ Researcher, June 1, 2007, pp. 481- 504. See also, Teresa Wiltz and Darragh John- son, “The Imus Test: Rap Lyrics Undergo Ex- amination,” The Washington Post, April 25, 2007, p. C1. 5 See “A Hip-Hop Town Hall,” April 17, 2007, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” www.oprah.com/ tows/slide/200704/20070417/slide_20070417_ 284_101.jhtml. For a sample of Crouch’s views, see Bakari Kitwana, Why White Kids Love Hip Hop (2005), pp. 107-109. 6 Quoted in Reuters, “Hip-Hop Mogul Simmons Calls For Ban on 3 Epithets,” The Washington Post, April 24, 2007, p. C5. See also Kelefa San- neh, “How Don Imus’ Problem Became a Ref- erendum on Rap,” The New York Times, April 25, 2007, p. B2; Marcus Franklin, “Music Execs Silent as Rap Debate Rages,” The Associated Press, May 11, 2007; Wiltz and Johnson, op. cit. 7 Franklin, op. cit. 8 See Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (2005), pp. 67-88. 9 Ibid., pp. 118-125. 10 For information on the film, see Hurt’s Web site, www.bhurt.com. 11 See Talib Kweli, “Say Something,” Talib Kweli Message Board, April 20, 2007, http://board.tal- ibkweli.com/index.php?showtopic=850. 12 See “AllHipHop Direct 9 — Censorship 2007,” AllHipHop.com (on YouTube), June 1, 2007, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzdwISAjdos.
For background on 50 Cent, see Stephanie Utrata and Tracy Connor, “The Game Fires Back at 50,” New York Daily News, March 6, 2005, p. A4. 13 See “AllHipHop Direct 9,” ibid. 14 “2006 Consumer Profile,” Recording In- dustry Association of America, undated, www.riaa.com/news/marketingdata/pdf/2006R IAAConsumerProfile.pdf. 15 See Yvonne Bynoe, Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture (2006). 16 See “Stop Snitchin,’ ” “60 Minutes,” April 22, 2007, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007 /04/19/60minutes/main2704565.shtml. 17 Interview, Ice-T, undated, www.fresh- flixx.com/channel/sohh-tv/index.php?bcpid= 376530222&bclid=440748065&bctid=823328719. 18 See Stanley Crouch, “Hip-Hop’s Thugs Hit New Low,” New York Daily News, Aug. 11, 2003, p. 35. 19 Ibid. 20 See Industry Ears Web site, www.indus- tryears.com/index.php. 21 See James McBride, “Hip-Hop Planet,” Na- tional Geographic, April 2007, p. 100. 22 See Jim Sullivan, “When shock art goes too far,” Boston Globe, Nov. 1, 1989, p. 75. 23 See, for example, Jeff Chang, ed., Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop (2007), which includes Oliver Wang, “Trapped Between the Lines: The Aesthetics of Hip-Hop Journalism;” and Danny Hoch, “Toward a Hip-Hop Aesthetic: A Manifesto for the Hip-Hop Arts Movement.” 24 See Hoch, ibid., p. 355. 25 See Eisa Davis, “Found in Translation: The Emergence of Hip-Hop Theater,” in Chang, Total Chaos, op. cit., p. 72. 26 Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, op. cit., p. 122. 27 See John J. Goldman, “Rally Protests N.Y. Drug Laws,” The New York Times, July 5, 2003, p. A28; Marcus Franklin, “A hip-hop voting bloc,” St. Petersburg Times, Aug. 31, 2003, p. A1. 28 See Leslie Eaton and Al Baker, “Changes Made to Drug Laws Don’t Satisfy Advocates,” The New York Times, Dec. 9, 2004, p. B1; and Dasun Allah, “Movement Hijacked by Hip-Hop?” Village Voice [New York], June 17, 2003, p. 24. 29 See “Hip-hop group announces voter reg- istration drive,” The Associated Press, Jan. 19, 2004; and “Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, Board of Directors,” www.hsan.org/Con- tent/main.aspx?pageid=10. 30 Quoted in Ann Gerhart, “Citizen Diddy; the Rapper-Designer is Out to Make Voting Hip,” The Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2004, p. C1.
About the Author Peter Katel is a CQ Researcher staff writer who previ- ously reported on Haiti and Latin America for Time and Newsweek and covered the Southwest for newspapers in New Mexico. He has received several journalism awards, including the Bartolomé Mitre Award for coverage of drug trafficking from the Inter-American Press Associa- tion. He holds an A.B. in university studies from the Uni- versity of New Mexico. His recent reports include “New Strategy in Iraq,” “Prison Reform” and “Real ID.”
June 15, 2007 549Available online: www.cqresearcher.com
31 See “The 2004 Youth Vote,” Center for In- formation & Research on Civil Learning & Engagement, University of Maryland, www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/2004_votereport _final.pdf. 32 See “New Lake-Goeas Poll Analysis Shows Iraq, Pocketbook Issues & Candidate Contact Spurred Large 2006 Youth Vote,” Dec. 14, 2006, Young Voter Strategies, www.youngvot- erstrategies.org/index.php?tg=articles&idx=More &topics=37&article=284. 33 See Rick Hampson, “Memory is all that’s left of Powell’s South Bronx,” USA Today, Jan. 22, 2001, p. A8. 34 Except where otherwise indicated, this sec- tion is drawn from Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, op. cit. 35 Ibid., p. 29. See also David Gonzalez, “Will Gentrification Spoil the Birthplace of Hip-Hop?” The New York Times, May 21, 2007, p. B1. 36 Ibid., p. 131. 37 Quoted in Leah Y. Latimer, “Recording the Rap: Jive Talk at the Top of the Charts,” The Washington Post, Aug. 31, 1980, p. G1. 38 For background, see Bob Benenson, “Reaganomics on Trial,” CQ Researcher, Jan. 8, 1982, available at CQ Researcher Plus Archives, http://cqpress.com. 39 For background, see Mary H. Cooper, “The Business of Illegal Drugs,” CQ Researcher, May 20, 1988, available at CQ Researcher Plus Archives, http://cqpress.com. 40 For background, see Kenneth Jost, “Sen- tencing Debates,” CQ Researcher, Nov. 5, 2004, pp. 925-948. 41 This subsection also draws from Bynoe, op. cit., and David Gates with Peter Katel, “The Importance of Being Nasty,” Newsweek, July 2, 1990, p. 52; Linda Geenhouse, “Supreme Court Roundup,” The New York Times, Dec. 8, 1992. p. A22. 42 Quoted in Terry McDermott, “Parental Ad- visory: No One Was Ready for N.W.A.’s ‘Straight Outa Compton,’ ” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2002. 43 See N.W.A., “Fuck Tha Police,” www.lyrics- depot.com/n-w-a/fuck-tha-police.html. 44 See McDermott, op. cit. 45 See Dennis McDougal, “Music Group, ACLU Join Forces in Lyric Battle,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 16, 1985, Calendar Sect., p. 2; “Indus- try Offers Voluntary tag for Recordings,” The Associated Press, May 9, 1980. 46 See Tipper Gore, “Hate, Rape and Rap,” [op-ed], The Washington Post, Jan. 8, 1990, p. A15.
47 See Shelley Branch, “Goodbye Gangsta; Can Jimmy Iovine Make Interscope a Mainstream Success?” Fortune, July 7, 1997, p. 40. 48 Hilburn and Crowe, op. cit. 49 See Chuck Phillips, “Who Killed Tupac Shakur,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 6, 2002, p. A1; Chuck Phillips, “Slain Rapper’s Family Keeps Pushing Suit,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 4, 2007, p. B11; and Phillips, May 25, 1997, op. cit. 50 See Stanley Crouch, “Merchants of Filth Have Worthy Foe,” New York Daily News, April 3, 2006, p. 31. 51 Quoted in Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, op. cit., p. 452. 52 Ibid., p. 394. 53 Ibid., pp. 395-396. 54 Quoted in Linda M. Harrington, “On Capi- tol Hill, a Real Rap Session,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 24, 1994, p. A1. 55 Ibid. 56 See Gracie Bonds Staples and Vikki Con- well, “Spelman women dis sex-laden rap videos,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 21, 2004, p. A1. 57 Quoted in Elliott C. McLaughlin, “Spelman continues its war on hip-hop,” The Associ- ated Press, Feb. 25, 2005. 58 Ibid. 59 See Franklin, op. cit., May 11, 2007. 60 Quoted from AllHipHop, in Franklin, ibid. See also Take a Stand Records Web site, www.takeastandrecords.com/index.html.
61 Quoted in Larry “The Blackspot” Hester, “Music News: 50 Cent Pushes Back Release Date, Master P Speaks Out,” BET.com, Music, News & In te rv i ews , May 25 , 2007 , www.bet.com/Music/News/musicnews_50_5. 25.htm?wbc_purpose=Basic&WBCMODE=Pre- sentationUnpublished. 62 See Danielle Harling and Dove, “Grammy Award-Winning Rapper Chamillionaire Pro- fanity Free,” AllHipHop, April 27, 2007; www.allhiphop.com/Hiphopnews/?ID=7007. 63 “Bush Signs Broadcast Decency Law,” The Associated Press, June 15, 2006. 64 See “Stop Snitchin,’ ” op. cit. 65 See Mark Olsen, “More than words to tell their stories,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2007, p. E6; Teresa Wiltz, “No Rhyme or Rhythm,” The Washington Post, May 11, 2007, p. WE29. 66 See “The Hip Hop Project,” film Web site, http://pressurepointfilms.com/thehiphoppro- ject.html. 67 See Michael Brick, “Cultural Divisions Stretch to Relief Concerts,” The New York Times, Sept. 17, 2005, p. B7. 68 See “Wyclef Shreds in Haiti,” MiamiVideo, Dec. 1, 2006, www.brightcove.com /title.jsp?title=494388358&channel=474448254& lineup=-1; “Mecca Live From Oxygen,” Mi- amiVideo, undated, www.brightcove.com/title. jsp?title=900691975&channel=474448254&line- up=-1; Lorraine Ali, “God Save The Queen,” Newsweek, Oct. 4, 2004, p. 59.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AllHipHop, www.allhiphop.com. Widely consulted site for news, music down- loads and video interviews with stars and fans.
Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner, http://daveyd.com. A combination news site, collection of essays about hip-hop-related topics and hip-hop history archive.
The Hiphop Archive, Department of Communication, Building 120, McClatchy Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; (650) 725-2142; http://hiphoparchive.org. Vast trove of material on multiple aspects of hip-hop.
Hip-Hop Association, P.O. Box 1181, New York, NY 10035; (212) 500-5970; http://hiphopassociation.org. Harlem-based community-development organization that uses hip-hop as a tool in educational and leadership-development projects.
Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, www.hsan.org. The organizational home of hip-hop’s tycoons, who have involved themselves in voter registration and, more recently, in an effort to clean up rap lyrics.
Hip-Hop Theater Festival, 57 Thames St. #4B, Brooklyn, NY 11237; (718) 497-4240; www.hiphoptheaterfest.org. Organizes hip-hop events in major cities.
Industry Ears, http://industryears.com. Advocacy organization that presses the Federal Communications Commission to regulate radio stations that broadcast hip- hop songs with sexually explicit lyrics.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
550 CQ Researcher
Books
Bynoe, Yvonne, Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture, Greenwood Press, 2006. A prominent critic of some aspects of hip-hop produced
this systematic look at the major players and trends.
Chang, Jeff, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip- Hop Generation, Picador, St. Martin’s Press, 2005. A leading hip-hop journalist provides a detailed but fast-
moving account of hip-hop in the context of social and po- litical developments.
Chang, Jeff, ed., Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, Basic Civitas Books, 2007. A variety of scholars and hip-hop creators examine the
artistic significance of hip-hop in its various musical, theatrical and other incarnations.
Cobb, William Jelani, To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic, New York University Press, 2007. A Spelman College historian takes a close look at the mes-
sages, imagery and techniques of imaginative and inventive hip-hop songs.
Kitwana, Bakari, Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, Basic Books, 2005. Race and hip-hop, one of the most complicated topics in
the field, gets an insider’s look by a leader of the political- activism side of the hip-hop world.
Morgan, Joan, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks it Down, Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, 1999. A former staff writer at Vibe, a major hip-hop magazine,
discusses hip-hop as part of an examination of male-female relations among African-Americans.
Articles
Boles, Mark A., “Breaking the ‘Hip Hop’ Hold: Looking Beyond the Media Hype,” in “The State of Black America 2007: Portrait of the Black Males,” National Urban League, 2007, p. 239. A market researcher and member of the Urban League Board
of Trustees examines the role of hip-hop — especially music videos — in distorting young African-Americans’ values.
Davey D, “Why commerce is killing the true spirit of hip-hop,” San Jose Mercury-News, March 1, 2007, p. M4. A veteran of the hip-hop world finds “corporate” hip-hop
losing ground — and salutes that outcome — given what he calls its vulgarity and perpetuation of racial stereotypes.
Fetterman, Mindy, “Russell Simmons can’t slow down,” USA Today, May 14, 2007, p. B1. One of hip-hop’s biggest success stories radiates confidence
to a reporter who looks at Simmons’ success in branching out from record sales.
McBride, James, “Hip Hop Planet,” National Geographic, April, 2007, p. 100. An author and musician — who’d spent years ignoring hip-
hop — travels throughout the country and to Africa to un- derstand its wide appeal.
McDermott, Terry, “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 14, 2002, p. 12. In a long narrative filled with colorful characters, a Los Ange-
les Times correspondent traces gangsta rap to its very beginnings.
Michel, Sia, “A New Sound for Old What’s-His-Name,” The New York Times, Sept. 10, 2006, Sect. 2, p. 67. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs gets ready to release a new album
and takes a reporter on a tour of his world.
Span, Paula, “The Business of Rap is Business,” The Washington Post, June 4, 1995, p. G1. A Washington Post reporter takes an early look at rap stars’
efforts to turn musical success into something more durable.
Williams, Clarence, “Outreach Group Tries to Foster Greater Cooperation With Police,” The Washington Post, May 13, 2007, p. C5. In a violence-plagued Washington, D.C., neighborhood, activists
encourage residents to report crime to police — defying the “no-snitching” message of some rap stars.
Video
“Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” Byron Hurt, director-producer, IndependentLens, PBS, 2007. A college football star turned violence-prevention educator
examines hip-hop’s role in fostering stereotypes that widen the gulf between men and women.
“Stop Snitchin’,” “60 Minutes,” Anderson Cooper, corre- spondent, April 19, 2007, www.cbsnews.com/sections/ i_video/main500251.shtml?channel=60Sunday. The CBS TV newsmagazine takes on rap stars — and their
record companies — who urge crime victims and witnesses not to cooperate with police.
“Wild Style,” Lee Ahearn, director/writer, 1983. A fictional film starring hip-hop fans who helped found
the movement is considered a key document of its early days, with a heavy emphasis on graffiti “taggers.”
Selected Sources
Bibliography
June 15, 2007 551Available online: www.cqresearcher.com
Commercial Rap
The Associated Press, “Out of Rhyme; Plummeting Sales and Criticism of Its Focus on Negative Images are Fueling the Rap Against Rap,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 2007, p. 32. Rap is in decline, with artists and labels struggling to cope
with the rejection of many aspects of the genre.
John-Hall, Annette, “Racist Fad Feeds off Rap’s Decay,” editorial, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 14, 2007, p. D1. The widespread popularity of rap music in popular culture
has led to a fad of racist-themed college parties.
Le Beau, Emilie, “Bummed by Rap,” Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2007, p. C12. Young people have grown disillusioned with rap music
that has become focused on money and ego.
O’Neal Parker, Lonnae, “Why I Gave Up on Hip-Hop,” editorial, The Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2006, p. B1. The author recounts her love affair and ultimate divorce
from the genre she grew up with.
Conscious Hip-Hop
Kyles, Kyra, “Hip-Hop Keeps Getting an Unfair Rap,” editorial, Chicago Tribune, Sept. 1, 2005, p. 2. A vocal minority of obscene and violent rappers over-
shadows the positive and politically conscious majority.
Samuels, Adrienne P., “Aiming for an Alternative Hip- Hop,” The Boston Globe, Jan. 30, 2006, p. A1. Black colleges are teaming up with Essence magazine to
push for more socially responsible approaches to rap music.
Sulaiman, Folarin, “Two Groups Take on Hip-Hop’s Bad Rap,” The Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 24, 2006, p. 13. Two up-and-coming conscious hip-hop acts show a “gangsta”
image is not required to sell records.
Hip-Hop Culture
Chang, Jeff, and Dave Zirin, “Beyond Hip-Hop’s Misogyny,” Los Angeles Times, editorial, April 23, 2007, p. A17. Most of the carping we’ve heard against hip-hop is more
scapegoating than serious. Rather than sustain social problems, hip-hop has attracted young people to arts and politics.
Downing, Andy, “Is it Rap? Is it Hip-Hop? The Debate Continues. . . ,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 2, 2005, p. C1. Rap and hip-hop have come to mean wildly different things
to different people.
Harmanci, Raymond, “Academic Hip-Hop? Yes, Yes Y’all,”
The San Francisco Chronicle, March 5, 2007, p. F1. Hip-hop studies is one of the most explosive subjects to
hit academia in decades.
Williams, Thomas Chatterton, “Black Culture Beyond Hip- Hop,” The Washington Post, editorial, April 28, 2007, p. A17. Conversations about hip-hop risk a mistaken, and dangerous,
conflation of that culture with black culture.
Self-Censorship
“Limits on Lyrics?; Reaction Mixed over Simmons’ Move to Clean Up Rap Music in Wake of Imus Controversy,” Chicago Tribune, April 25, 2007, p. 46. Russell Simmons’ call for self-censorship met applause but
was also harshly criticized as disingenuous or incomplete.
Franklin, Marcus, “Russell Simmons: Three Epithets Should be Banned Consistently from ‘Clean’ Rap Music,” The Associated Press, April 23, 2007. A major hip-hop entrepreneur demands that three racist
and sexist epithets be uniformly banned from rap songs.
Rodman, Sara, “Policing Rap Lyrics is Near-Impossible Task,” editorial, The Boston Globe, April 25 2007, p. F1. Simmons’ attack on three specific epithets is inconsistent
with his previous defense of rap lyrics, and eliminating them does not change the genre’s sexism.
Sanneh, Kelefah, “How Don Imus’s Problem Became a Referendum on Rap,” editorial, The New York Times, April 25, 2007, p. E1. The current debate about rap lyrics isn’t entirely fair, but
the genre must change to remain commercially viable.
The Next Step: Additional Articles from Current Periodicals
CITING CQ RESEARCHER Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography
include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats
vary, so please check with your instructor or professor.
MLA STYLE Jost, Kenneth. “Rethinking the Death Penalty.” CQ Researcher
16 Nov. 2001: 945-68.
APA STYLE Jost, K. (2001, November 16). Rethinking the death penalty.
CQ Researcher, 11, 945-968.
CHICAGO STYLE Jost, Kenneth. “Rethinking the Death Penalty.” CQ Researcher,
November 16, 2001, 945-968.
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