Chronic Murmuring

john mcwhorter on the hip-hop movement

Originally, I thought that Ann Coulter had written the quote Mark posted on his blog, and as such, I was a little turned off. I don't consider Coulter to be the most sensitive, nor thoughtful, cultural/political critic, and the thought of her making such sweeping judgments on hip-hop music and black culture struck me as deeply racist. But Mark corrected my misunderstanding and noted that it was not Coulter who had written the quote (I had thought it was an excerpt from Treason), but rather, John McWhorter. McWhorter is a professor linguistics at Stanford University and the author of the controversial book, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America. He is also an African-American, and the contributing editor for The New Republic and City Journal.

The title of the article to which Mark had linked got my attention (and my goat!) immediately: "How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back". The article opens with McWhorter retelling an event of eating at a KFC in Harlem and witnessing several black kids acting unruly. One thing he noticed, interestingly, is the music they listened to, and how their actions mirrored the message and ethos of the music. He writes,

"What struck me most, though, was how fully the boys’ music—hard-edged rap, preaching bone-deep dislike of authority—provided them with a continuing soundtrack to their antisocial behavior. So completely was rap ingrained in their consciousness that every so often, one or another of them would break into cocky, expletive-laden rap lyrics, accompanied by the angular, bellicose gestures typical of rap performance. A couple of his buddies would then join him. Rap was a running decoration in their conversation."

At first, I was extremely upset and turned off by the article - specifically by those opening three paragraphs - as I felt like it did not take seriously hip-hop as either an artform, or understand culturally how the music connected with the broader young black population. But, the article is very thought-provoking, and clearly McWhorter both understands the music, as well as the attention that the music has gotten by scholars and academics. "Many writers and thinkers," he notes "see a kind of informed political engagement, even a revolutionary potential, in rap and hip-hop. They couldn’t be more wrong."

The article outlines the usual, typical criticisms of hip hop - that it's violent, mysoginistic lyrics are shaping an entire generation to be anti-authoritarian, and therefore, reducing the opportunities of the next black generation as well as making future inequities between whites and blacks more likely. But, McWhorter, unlike most cultural critics of hiphop, actually seems to know what he is talking about. He seems to genuinely understand hip-hop, as well as have an appreciation for soul and funk from the 1970s, yet still manages to make a meaningful argument against the music. For the outsider, he traces the history of the genre - from its earliest beginnings in the Sugarhill Gang, to its evolution into a message expressing the angst and frustration - and even desperation - of life in the inner city ghettos. He notes that the move from the music expressing potential violence to its full embrace of outright violence and rebellion took only a few years. In the hit, "The Message," by Grandmaster Flash (1982), there is a suggestion that the streets and the oppressive forces in the ghetto were so extreme that the life of the pusher and "the big money-makers" was often too attractive to turn down. Likewise, the song issued a guarded warning to its listeners (which seems tame compared to today's hip-hop standards): "Don’t push me, ’cause I’m close to the edge."

McWhorter moves through the 1980s, weaving together the later developments in rap and its continuing evolution into violent, outright promotion of violence. To say that hip-hop glorifies the life of the thug and the gangster is to say the obvious. He notes the work of earlier rappers like KRS-One and Schooly D, and then speaks of the significance of West Coast rapper, Tupac Shakur, NWA ("Niggas With Attitudes"), and Ice-T. The move was complete. Since "Cop Killer" and other songs, the hip-hop movement has been solidly connected with promoting and glorifying the violence of the streets. And as McWhorter notes,

"The idea that rap is an authentic cry against oppression is all the sillier when you recall that black Americans had lots more to be frustrated about in the past but never produced or enjoyed music as nihilistic as 50 Cent or N.W.A. On the contrary, black popular music was almost always affirmative and hopeful. Nor do we discover music of such violence in places of great misery like Ethiopia or the Congo—unless it’s imported American hip-hop."

I do think maybe this is but one side of the argument, and that while he makes many important observations and analysis, there is still other things to say about hiphop, such as understanding why this music is valuable to young blacks and youth, in general. I recently read, for instance, that most young blacks aged 16-24 see the hiphop movement as far more important and meaningful to them than the civil rights movement. I don't know what exactly the implications of that are, except to note that it's simply not an option to dismiss hiphop. And besides, I personally love hiphop, even though I do get frustrated continually with its crass lyrics and lowest-common-denominator marketing. Still, this is a challenging article.

Posted by scott at July 29, 2003 10:00 AM | TrackBack