An Analysis of Rap Music as the Voice of Today’s Black Youth. *

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An Analysis of Rap Music as the Voice of Today’s Black Youth.

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A Paper submitted to the Department of Theatre and

Communication Arts of Gannon University.

HB 400 Senior Seminar & Thesis

Spring 1999

Marc T. Parker

Panelists:

AJ Miceli

MC Gensheimer

Tom Weber

Presentation- April 23, 1999 1:00 Palumbo Center

1. ***Introduction*

1. **Thesis Statement

1. Origin and history of rap music.
2. Rap music’s relationship to other forms of Black expression.

1. ***Body*

1. **Negro Spirituals

1. Definition

1. Origin, meaning and societal conditions.

1. The Blues

1. Definition

1. Origin, meaning and societal conditions.

1. Soul Music

1. Definition

1. Origin, meaning and societal conditions.

1. Rap Music

1. Definition

1. Origin, meaning and societal conditions.

1. ***Conclusion*

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An Analysis of Rap Music as the Voice of Today’s Black Youth.

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For the Negro, expression through the use of voice and instruments or
both has provided him with the means to release joy, pain, hurt and
agony, while at the same time becoming a powerful medium which is heard
by both those who can identify with it and those who aren’t willing to,
but are quick to judge and condemn it.

For today’s Black youth, rap music is this medium. It is a musical voice
and expression of the unjust and violent society in which they live. Is
rap music a trend that has never been witnessed in America before? No,
rap music is a continuing line of Negro expressions including;
Spirituals, Blues, and Soul, all of which were inspired in trying times
in our society, even more so than that of today’s. However, because of
rap’s much more violent and explicit content, it isn’t viewed in the
same sense of its predecessors nor is it taken in the serious manner
that it should be.

"Rappers and hip-hop music have been getting a bad rap. This music is no
different from the many other forms of expression used by Blacks of a
different generation. The blues, jazz or even spirituals reflect the
concerns of Black people as a whole. To devaluate this form of
expression is to miss the point, the point being our youth's way of
telling us the kinds of things that amuse and anger, and the experiences
they go through in today’s world. To ignore these feelings would be to
deny their very existence" (Federic 94).

There’s much more to rap music than just beats and rhymes. After two
decades of ridicule and criticism, rap music has emerged as the voice of
today’s black youth while



also transforming the culture of America . To understand rap music you
must first understand the culture from which it comes. From the
beginning of the century Black music has been a form of expression that
has impacted not only the Black community but America as a whole. Negro
spirituals laid the foundation for what has continued to be a way for
its people to express the pain and hurt that could not other wise be
expressed without physical violence. These songs played a crucial role
in the development of the blues and soul music which continued to voice
the social problems, personal problems, and injustice of their times.
Not being able to voice their opinions and feelings in any other ways
without being threatened or allowed by laws, forced Blacks to create
ways to express themselves legally and in a language that they understood.

Every form of Black music from spirituals to rap has a melody, a rhythm,
and a sound track. From the early blues with artists such as Robert
Johnson selling his soul to the devil at the "Crossroads." Leading up to
jazz and then soul with artists such as Areatha Franklin and James Brown
who played major roles in the fight for social equality during this
time. It was then in the mid 1970’s that rap music was served up by
artists such as Kool Herc, Sugar Hill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash.

What is rap and why is it said to be the voice of today’s Black youth?
Simple, even if we’re not into rap, the hip-hop culture it speaks of is
all around us. It stems from the films we watch, for an example, have
you seen a Will Smith movie lately? It stems from the commercials we
see, for an example, have you seen a Sprite commercial lately?

Rap music was once called a fad, however, it now celebrates its 20^th
anniversary of actually being recorded in 1979, although Kool Herc had
started rapping

in parties eight years earlier. Today, many people say that rap has
changed in its message from being one form of music that is creative and
expressive of society to another form of music that is too violent and
explicit. In considering this view held by many, one must realize and
remember that rap music is a reflection of society and its problems. We
live in a much more violent and immoral society than twenty years ago
when rap music first began. The feelings expressed in the form of rap
music may not be done in a way that pleases most of us, but rap artist
aren’t the first generation to use music and lyrics as an artful form
and way of expression. "Black people have always used music as a conduit
for expression" (Nelson 11). Recall the music of the Caribbean. Artists
like Sparrow, of calypso fame, and Bob Marley, the reggae king, used
their music to give us their observations of the world in which they
lived. Calypso, with its driving beat, often criticized for its subject
matter, made fun of the colonial powers who inhabited the land. Reggae,
like spirituals, blues, and soul, talks about the never-ending struggle
and fight for

opportunity and equality of our time, and now although its not the
first, so too does rap music.

Negro spirituals are the earliest form of song expression by African
Americans. Negro spirituals are defined as, "Black religious songs that
possess a lyrical quality and express a wide range of emotions
including; hope, pain, fear, and joy" (Brooks 32).

Examples of some Negro spiritual titles include; "Nobody’s Fault But
Mine," "Precious Lord," and "Trouble In My Way" (Brooks 34). There are
three types of songs usually included to form spirituals and they are
"jubilees, shouts, and spirituals themselves,



though it is difficult to distinguish one from another with any degree
of precision" (Brooks 32).

"Spiritual" was used as a term to describe the relationship between the
song and the "Holy Spirit." The jubilee was a song described to come
from the heart of that person, causing them to sing to God of their
happiness. The shout is described to be either of the other two forms
when it was used as a dance song. "Since it was often too difficult to
distinguish one of these forms from another, and because the terms seem
to be used interchangeably, all the religious songs are referred to as
spirituals" (Brooks 32).

There has been a great amount of discussion as to the origin of the
Negro spirituals as to if they originated in Africa or if they had been
taken from the context of religious songs practiced by white Americans.
However, James Weldon Johnson, Alain

Locke, and John Lovell, all of whom are writers and historians, have
concluded that Negro spirituals had indeed originated in Africa where
they were thought to have began.

"The African Slaves came from a strong tradition of vigorous singing and
continued to sing once they were brought to these shores, the only
change being the language and conditions, which now were enslavement"
(Brooks 33).

As for the content of the spiritual and how it was expressed, spirituals
consisted only of voice. This held true in that the use of any type of
instrument was forbidden by

slavemasters, who believed and viewed the use of instruments as means of
inciting a revolt against them and their families. "The experiences of
the African in the New World milieu did not drive out of existence the
musical tradition that he brought with him from Africa, but it did
change some of the meaning for which it was now used. Blacks lived in

a society in which separation of the races was at least the custom if
not always the law, which minimized the outside musical influences and
perpetuated the survival of African musical characteristics" (Brooks 33).

Most importantly, the spiritual songs themselves reflected the
relationship to God and the source of strength that enabled Negro slaves
to continue living for the hope and promise of a better day. The
spiritual connection of the songs provided hope in conditions that were
inhumane. "It is obvious that working one’s own field in his own land is
quite different from forced labor in a foreign land. Thus, the
references in the songs and there meanings changed dramatically" (Brooks
43).

After the Emancipation Proclamation, which set the slaves free, a new
form of musical expression called the blues, was created by the Negro.
Blues is defined as being "a form of song and music derived from
spirituals which focused on personal pain and struggle, which now could
be and was accompanied by music, usually a guitar" (Davis 2). Some
famous blues artists were; Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Robert
Nighthawk, and B.B King. Examples of some blues song titles include:
"St. James Infirmary," "Cold in Hand Blues," and "Thrill is Gone" (Davis 3).

The blues was a continuing musical expression of the earlier spirituals
and was created in the early 1900’s. "The blues has its origins in field
hollers and work songs(spirituals)"(Davis 2). The first blues performers
were Negroes who were exempted from picking cotton by virtue of
blindness or some other physical handicap, or those for whom music
served as a way of avoiding backbreaking labor. However, not only was
the blues a musical expression of one’s self, but like the spirituals
before it, the blues also served as a social expression. During this
time in which slavery had just been abolished, Negroes continued to be
greatly oppressed and discriminated against by people and laws. "Blues
is a reflection of the isolation of the Negro in American society, who
forced to live outside of the dominant culture, developed his own
culture and found within the difficulties and pain of his experiences
the materials for a rich and vital music"(Brooks 52). With the
Emancipation Proclamation, Negroes were promised the kind of freedom
enjoyed by other Americans. However, due to prejudice and injustice, the
failure of Negroes to gain true freedom and equality created the
psychological milieu in which the blues were created and expressed.

As a form of expression, the blues are a statement of personal misery.
These were feelings that included love and heartache in relationships in
which the blues artists would open their hearts and relate the deep
feelings of pain to a partner that wasn’t present. "The blues may be
said to be an expression of criticism or complaint that serves as a
relief from the troubles being experienced by the musician"(Brooks 53).

It was after the creation of the blues from the 1930’s to 1960’s that
voiced expression from the Negro began to dwindle and die down. This was
a period in which war was very prevalent in America. Negroes had began
to enlist in the army and fight for America, while at the same time for
the first time Negroes were allowed to play in such professional sports
as baseball, football and basketball. Things seemed to be improving but
nonetheless they were not good enough. In the early 1960’s, Blacks, as
they were now referred, began to react to inequality and discrimination
in ways that they had never practiced before and from these social
happenings came the birth of soul music.

Soul music is defined as being a form of music derived from spirituals
and blues, that spoke of and to the Black condition. Some of the most
famous soul artist of this time were James Brown, Areatha Franklin,
Ottis Redding, and Marvin Gaye. Examples of some of the soul song titles
include; "Black and Proud," "Smiling Faces," "Respect," and "What’s
Going On."

A symbol of the Black’s effort to achieve cultural definition was the
emergence of the term "soul" during the mid to late 1960’s. "Soul is the
manifestation of the bittersweet Black experience and/or Black
lifestyle"(Brooks 151). This was a critical period in American history
in which Blacks struggled and fought for civil rights through marches,
rallies, and other non-violent demonstrations that were almost always
met with by violent opposition. However, it was also during this period
that Blacks were concerned with defining their own culture and pride in
its broadest terms. Blacks were good enough to

fight in wars and win gold medals for the United States, but they were
not good enough to eat in the same restaurants nor attend the same
schools as whites. Soul music addressed all these issues in more way
than one. While expressing the dissatisfaction of the conditions for
Blacks in America, soul also provided a sense of Black pride that had
been lost in all the previous years of slavery and segregation. Now,
there wasn’t only talk about the problems in society for Blacks, but the
much needed actions of the people as a whole, which certainly included
some whites and establishment of the civil rights laws.

Soul music now was used increasingly as a forum for Black expression as
well as to designate an entire field of Black music. " In the Black
ghettoes, singers were referred to as "soul brothers" and "soul
sisters"(Brooks 151). A precise, objective meaning of the

word "soul" in terms of music is almost impossible to isolate, since its
use depends on personal responses. In the sixties, during these times of
rebellion and uproar, soul emerged not only as a concept of Black
identity, but also of black musical expressiveness and creativeness.
"Black music gives the Black artist the vehicle by which he can express

that profound, religious feeling"(Brooks 152). Unlike any of the Black
musical forms before it, soul music now used a variety of musical
instruments and dubbing, to establish style and creativeness in it’s
message.

However, the kind of records that were most popular in the Black
community at this time indicated that soul was more of a general feeling
than it was a particular style. America could now relate to the Black
condition which was expressed in the ever popular songs heard throughout
the country. "Soul music actually became nationally popular and

commercially successful. For the first time, the music of Blacks was
accepted on the Black’s terms and was not censored or modified to suit
the musical taste of white audiences"(Brooks 152).

The majority of the music was designed principally for the black
community and its movements by way of its loud down-to-earth messages.
Even still, spiritual themes remained and soul music continued in the
footsteps of the spirituals and blues it had been rooted in. "The Black
performers, singers, and players, produced a music based in the
gospel-blues tradition. Mowtown produced this style which provides much
of the foundation for soul music as we know it today"(Broooks 153). Its
no wonder why many of the songs from the soul era are almost always
being sampled by today’s generation of rap music artists.

There’s no question that like the soul, blues, and spirituals before it,
rap music and communicative practices of hip-hop are rooted in the
African American tradition of voiced expression. Rap music is defined as
"a form of rhythmic speaking in rhyme, usually from its culture"(Basu
4). Some of rap music’s most successful and controversial artists
include: Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., Ice Cube, and Public Enemy.
Examples of some rap song titles include; "Changes," "Warning," "Hard
Knock Life," and "Fight The Power."

Rap music and hip-hop culture’s on-going and bewildering love/hate
relationship with the American society requires a fresh evaluation of
the role Black culture plays in the continuing evolution of American
popular culture. Rap music has been subjected to lawsuits and criticism
before courts, a topic of harsh sermons by preachers, and even as
political stands for presidents and presidential candidates. Rap has
transformed America not only with its message, but with dress, language,
and all the culture that comes with it. While rap is said to be the
voice of today’s Black youth, it has also help fuel the African American
cinema resurgence in Hollywood, while also providing opportunities of
leading roles in film(Will Smith in "Men In Black") and television
series(LL Cool J’s "In The House"). Even still, rap music’s hyped
commercialization can’t dampen its tough, raw, hard-core street essence.
Rap music’s most powerful tool in remaining this way has been its
ability to "keep it real," in the words of one of Tupac Shakur’s most
important rhymes.

Rap music and its hip-hop culture have not been the subject of much
serious study or scholarship. Therefore, it needs a broad-based
historical account as the form continues



to grow and becomes more complicated in both music and style in its
message to mainstream America as well as its own community.

"Rap in general dates all the way back to the motherland, where tribes
would use the call-and-response chants. In the 1930’s you had Cab
Calloway pioneering his style of jazz rhyming. In the 1960’s you had the
love style of rapping, with Isaac Hayes, Barry White, and the poetry
style of rapping with The Last Poets, The Watts Poets and the militant
style of rapping with brothers like Malcom X and Minister Louis
Farrakhan. In the sixties you also had "The Name Game," a funny rap by
Shirley Ellis, and radio dj’s who would rhyme and rap before a song came
on" –Afrika Bambaata, 1993(Perkins2).

Afrika Bambaata, one of rap music’s founders, alludes to several
important roots of rap music. Without doubt the African elements are
part of rap’s foundation as it was in spirituals, blues, and soul alike.
"It is at the level of interpersonal relationships and expressive
behavior that the black American proletariat has preserved a large part
of [its] African character. It is in this area, therefore, that we
should expect the survival of African linguistic features. It is clear
that rappers, like their ancestors, draw on the call-and –response form
so common in the ritual chanting to the gods, ancestors, or both; and

the accumulated traditions of story telling are an essential element in
rap music’s overall structure"(Perkins 2).

Just as their ancestors did in their forms of expressions, rappers
invent and reinvent their own vocabulary, adjusting it as the moment may
require for recording, seeing how most explicit forms of rap aren’t
given any radio airplay, or just the routines of everyday life. Just as
the early Negroes adapted English to fit the rules and formal

structure of the language they carried with during enslavement, the rap
artists of today have also adapted English to their own conventions and
cultural style. When this verbal sorcery is fused with a beat, the
resulting product becomes "very African"(Watts 4).

The first rappers who adapted this style and its knowledge have
instructed the new-school rappers of today in the importance and
historical significance of this verbal mastery, in order that rap can
claim a place alongside spirituals, blues, and soul in the African
cultural consciousness as well as paying homage to them as in the case
of the legendary, Cab Calloway.

Afrika Bambaata, as well as other rappers, acknowledge Calloway as the
grandfather of rap music. "I was rappin’ 50 years ago, my rap lyrics
were a lot more dirty than those in my songs. And I did the moonwalk 50
years ago too" –Cab Callloway,1991(Perkins 1). Calloway’s vocal style
borrowed the smooth elegance of scat

singing(European vocal formalism joined to a distinctly African rhythm)
and translated it into a street vernacular. Calloway called this early
style of rap "jive scat," and it swept the country during the depression
and lasted well into the 1940’s.

Calloway didn’t merely invent a new vocal style but created an entire
culture around jive, as hip-hop culture today is reflected from rap
music. Jive scat features the improvisational style characteristic of
much African music, but includes the call-and-response form. Calloway’s
signature tune, "Minnie the Moocher," is a well-formulated example of
this ability to mix both vocal and music styles.

"During one show that was broadcast over the national radio in the
spring of 1931, not long after we start using "Minnie the Moocher" as
our theme song, I was

singing in the middle of a verse, as it happens sometimes, the damned
lyrics went right out of my head. I forgot them completely. I couldn’t
leave a blank there as I might have done if we weren’t on the air. I had
to fill the space, so I just started to scat sing the first thing that
came into my mind. "Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho. Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho. Oodlee-
oodlee-oldyee-oodlee-doo. Hi-de-ho-de-ho-de-hee." The crowd went crazy.
Then I asked the band to follow it with me and I sang,
"Dwaa-de-dwaa-de-dwaa-de-doo." And the

band responded. By this time, whenever the band responded some of the
people in the audience were beginning to chime as well. So I motioned to
the band to hold up and I

asked the audience to join in. And as I sang the audience responded.
They hollered back and nearly brought the roof down"(Perkins 3).

However, the message-oriented poetry of The Last Poets and Gil
Scott-Heron laid the groundwork for the majority of rap music as we know
it today. The Last Poets set lyrics to the beat of a conga drum, Gil
Scott Heron to the rhythms of a talented small band, to create a
distinctive rap performance style that would have an almost infectious
appeal for the masters of today’s rap and their successors. "What
characterized this version of rap was its political and social
commentary, which did not spare African Americans from criticism. Coming
to the fore at the end of the Civil Rights/Black Power movements, these
poets invoked the most accessible form of black cultural
nationalism-message word play- to reeducate and awaken the masses from
the numbering sleep of the Nixon era and the emergence of benign
neglect"(Perkins 5). What makes Heron’s and The Last Poet’s style so
important to the emergence of rap music is its orality. "The poetry’s
effectiveness comes through only when it is spoken, just like
rap"(Perkins 5).

This brief overview of the sources of the rap tradition suggest the
infinite complexity and variety of rap’s origins, each of which deserves
major research. However, one fact remains constant, and that being the
fact that rap, as its predecessors before it, now serves as the voice of
today’s Black youth in which the tradition has been nurtured on the
accumulated and residual forms of African and African American music,
verbal

art, and personal style as well as the constant process of self
innovation within each of these elements. This cultural residue is the
source of much of the strength and vitality of rap and its hip-hop culture.

"Rap music is not only a black expressive cultural phenomenon; it is, at
the same time, a resisting discourse, a set of communicative practices
that constitute a text of resistance against white America’s racism and
its Eurocentric cultural dominance"(Smitherman 3). Hip-hop’s rappers are
showcasing a culture in America which represents the case of America’s
still dispossessed slave descendants, people who forced against their
will, were subject to a life of slavery and oppression. Then after 400
years, were let free only to be subject to the same cruelty and
discrimination, and now some years later with more of the same, if not
more problems, are expected to be happy with the situation that they are
in. Except now, they express in explicit and violent terms and language,
the unjust and violent society that still hasn’t changed. Legendary
entertainment artist Stevie Wonder stated, " I learn from rap… listen
hard, and you’ll hear the pain. Without feeling the pain yourself,
you’ll never understand. And what we don’t understand, we can’t change
and can’t heal. I hate it when the very folks who should be listening to
rap are attacking it so hard they miss the point. The point is that

children and the neighborhoods-the whole country… is drowning in
violence"(Smitherman 12).

Even still, Black music has proved potent in American culture throughout
history and will continue to do so through rap music. "Rap music and
it’s hip-hop culture are a part of this continuum-the voice of today’s
Black urban America, born out of violence, and destitution and attrition
that make up decaying inner-cities"(Basu 1). The cultural imperatives of
Black music from spirituals, blues, and soul to rap, illustrate the
historical contingencies upon which black music articulates race,
gender, and class-related experiences. "Spirituals can be linked to
slavery, blues to segregation, and soul to the inequalities that led to
the civil rights movement"(Basu1).

Rap music itself consist of lyrically formed words that can be
accompanied with or without music. "Rap music is performed verbally by a
gifted storyteller and cultural historian. It is a Black rhetorical
strategy to explain a point, for example, why selling drugs is genocide
in the Black community, to persuade holder’s of opposing points of views
to one’s own point of view, and to create word pictures about general,
abstract observations about life, love, and survival, For example,
growing up in the ghetto"(Smitherman 6). With a blend of reality and
fiction, rap music is a contemporary response from one’s spirit and
heart to the conditions of joblessness, poverty, and disempowerment,
which continues to be the norm for black Americans. "Rap music is
petulant, raw, and screaming with vibrant and violent images. This music
has become a-or, perhaps the principal medium for black youth to express
their views of the world and to seek to create a sense of order out of
the turbulence and chaos of their and our, lives"(Watts).

Two decades ago when rap music was born, many wondered if it had a
future. Today, tens of millions record sales later, surprisingly, some
still wonder about the message, because rap music is definitely here to
stay. Rap music has emerged as a way for our nation’s black youth to
express a voice about their feelings, problems and community, that
otherwise wouldn’t be heard at all. It also provides a way of living for
young African Americans that otherwise would become victim to the
unfortunate means of drug-selling and other crimes, but that is the ugly
reality of life that is so often expressed in rap music. From the
beginning of time, Blacks have expressed themselves in song and dance
through such forms as spirituals, blues, and soul, with rap music
continuing the tradition in being a musical expression for Blacks to
convey the pain, hurt, and everyday life experiences they go through in
America.

As previously stated, spirituals laid the groundwork for Negro
expression in America, in being a form that was voiced to God for
strength and relief of the evil slavery and bondage that they faced.
These songs, not accompanied by any form of music, provided an outlet
for the slaves to relate to one another, God, and to look forward to a
day of freedom. Musical expression continued for Blacks in the early
1900’s with the birth of the blues. After having been freed by the
emancipation proclamation, Blacks began to voice displeasure of being
confined to the same conditions of injustice and discrimination,
although slavery had ended. It was during this time in society that
Negroes created the blues which had derived from spiritual songs, but
could now be accompanied by musical instruments. We see that these
conditions continued without much opposition until the 1960’s, in which
through civil rights marches and protest, soul music was born. As we
know, this music played a role as an musical expression derived from
both spirituals and blues, which contributed to the uplifting of Black
pride, love and power. Soul music continued the fight for the rights the
had been promised to Negroes after the emancipation proclamation, along
with rights of equality and opportunity. Soul music had also become
unique because it began to cross-over to the previously white-dominated
music industry and audience. Now all America became familiar with the
songs that described the pain and struggles of Blacks in America, that
now dominated the music scene.

However, we also see that during the mid 1970’s, soul music began to
lose its "soul" during a time when Black pride began to die due to the
rise of drugs and crime in the Black communities. When conditions began
to worsen, a new form of Black expression called rap began to emerge,
thus following previous forms of Black expression that related the
Negroes hardships and struggles in society that America itself ignored.
This is a music which began as a creative expression of joy and fun, but
quickly turned into a way to also release pain and anger.

This so-called hip-hop culture began in the Bronx, NY in 1971. A girl
named Cindy needed a little money to go back-to-school, so she asked her
brother Clive to throw a party on her behalf. Clive, who loved reggae,
use to watch dance-hall revelers back in his hometown of Kingston,
Jamaica. He loved the deejays with their big sound systems, and the way
they’d "toast" in a singsong voice before each song.

The party Clive would throw for his sister was a success. After a while,
Clive was asked to do more and more parties, and in 1973 he gave his
first block party. Clive was now called Kool Herc and at the age of 18
he had become the first break-beat deejay, reciting rhymes over the
"break," or instrumental part of the records he was spinning. Who knew
that some 28 years later, that Clive would have started a form of music
that now represents the voice of today’s Black youth.

However, this voice continues to be criticized by mainstream America and
even some members of the African American community. All major modern
musical forms with roots in Negro spirituals, blues, and jazz faced
criticism early on. Langston Hughes, in 1926, defended the blues and
jazz from cultural critics. "Hardcore rap triumphed commercially, in
part, because rap’s aesthetic of sampling connects it closely to what is
musically palatable"(Farley 5).

"The underlying message is this: the violence and misogyny and lustful
materialism that characterize some rap songs are as deeply American as
the hokey music that rappers appropriate. The fact is, this country was
in love with outlaws and crime and violence long before hip-hop. Think
of Jesse James, and Bonnie and Clyde-and think of the movie Bonnie and
Clyde, as well as Scarface and the Godfather saga"(Farley 6).

However, While most of what’s seen on the big screen is fiction, the
majority of rap is real. Most of the rap songs we listen to mirror the
situations that exist in urban America. In rap music, the artists
express and relate what they see and what they may have experienced.
Whether these experiences are related in a bad or explicit way is not



the problem, the problems remains in these neighborhoods in our society
where these problems are occurring and what isn’t being done to help
solve it.

Instead, there continues to be a concerted campaign against rap music
despite its political and moral messages and its celebration of the
Black oral tradition. On June 5, 1993, African American minister
Reverend Calvin Butts held a "rap in" in Harlem, New York, to which he
had invited participants to bring offensive tapes and CD’s to be run
over with a steamroller. However, the act was met with supporters of rap
music who blocked off the steamroller. As a result, Reverend Butts and
supporters took the pile of CD’s and tapes to the Manhattan office of
Sony and dumped them there. In 1994, Dr. C. Delores Tucker, head of the
National Political Congress of Black Women, was successful in getting
the U.S. Congress to hold hearings against rap music. She joined forces
with a White male conservative, former Secretary of Education William
Bennett, to mount an all-out campaign against rap music. By late
September 1995, Tucker and Bennett had succeeded in forcing Time Warner
to sell off their interest in Imterscope, the recording company for the
most prominent of the so-called "gangsta" rappers.

"Admittedly, rap has its violence, its raw language, and its
misogynistic lyrics. However, it is an art form that accurately reports
"the nuances, pathology and most importantly, resilence of America’s
best kept secret… the black ghetto"(Smitherman 3).

The hip-hop and rap culture is a resistance culture. Rap music is a
loaded gun of lyrics and language that used to shoot at and protect
against White America’s racism and cultural dominance. Through their
bold and talented productions, rap artists are fulfilling the mission
rap music’s mission of disturbing the peace. Only when this subject
matter caught the ear of White America’s youth, which accounted for 70%
of all record sales in 1998, did mainstream America really start paying
attention to rap music. Many people blame rap music for the way their
children behave in society, when the fact is, society itself is to
blame. Like any other form of media, rap music is entertainment first.
It just so happens that the entertainment being provided in rap music is
the harsh reality of people in our society who relate well to the music,
but unfortunately for others, it serves as a fantasy world in which they
have no real clue about, its just cool and intriguing.

In the history of music, no other form of music has been as ridiculed or
criticized more than rap has. Many would have thought that after Senate
hearings and lawsuits, rap would have just folded and given up, but
isn’t that the very same thing most of it conveys to fight against. It
would be wonderful if the majority of rap music expressed good and
positive things for black people, but although opportunities are better
for Blacks today, prejudice and violence among other problems continue
to plague the Black community. Rapping about their pain and the violence
they live with has rescued several rappers from the "thug life" and
given them legitimate, productive careers, while also sending a
disturbing message to America about the state of its "forgotten
communities."

America must realize that this is the voice of the Black youth today who
stand up and say "this is what’s going on, and this is how we feel about
it." This message isn’t just for mainstream America, it also for the
communities which it has derived from. Communities themselves need to
also take responsibility for the chaos being revealed in these rap
songs. In the absence of a national movement to provide a cohesive
political framework, such as that which emerged during the 1960’s, the
hip-hop nation today grapples with contradictions it lacks the political
experience to resolve.

The hip-hop nation employs African American communicative traditions and
discursive practices to convey the Black struggle for survival in the
face of America’s abandonment of the descendants of enslaved Africans.
Rap music is and will continue to be the voice of today’s Black
generation that simultaneously reflects the cultural evolution of the
Black oral tradition.

Of course one might be moved to reflect the words of Maya Angelou, "My
people had used music to soothe slavery’s torment or to propitiate God,
or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness,
but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom. As a woman
activist from back in the day, I applaud the hip-hop nation for seeking
to disturb the peace lest the chain remain the same"(Smitherman 12).





























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* Davis, Francis. _The History of The Blues_, Hyperion: New York, NY, 1995.

o Perkins, William. _Droppin’ Science_, Temple University:
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o Brooks, Tilford. _America’s Black Musical Heritage_,
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o Farley, Christopher John.(1999, Feb.8), Hip-Hop Nation.
_Time_, pp.54-59.
o Federic, Stephenie.(1998 May), Charlie Hustle. _XXL_, pp.94-99.
o Watts, Eric K.(1997 Spr). Gansta Rap as Cultural Commodity.
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o Smitherman, Geneva.(1997, Sep). Communicative Practices in
The Hip-Hop Nation. _Journal of Black Studies_, pp. 3-25.
o Dippanita, Basu.(1997, Mar.16). Hip-Hop and Culture. _The
Los Angeles Times_, p.M3:1.

















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