photo by Alex Lear
PROFITING FROM THE RAP REVOLUTION
Dance To The Music. My basic contention is: Black popular music in general is abysmal--and Rap in particular is in critical danger of selling its soul for "dead presidents" (money). What we are witnessing (and too often participating in and collaborating with) is the total commercialization of our music. Thus, R&B (whether Disco, Funk, or New Jack Swing) and Rap are both designed mainly not only to sell records but also to sell to an audience which, to a significantly large degree, is not Black. If this audience was the large majority of people in the world who are the descendants of the colonized worldwide, this would be a good development. However, the "auditors" of fame and fortune in America are largely White: White youth in revolt against their parents, a White music industry in capitalist profiteering of the sale of the music, and a White controlled media which exists as an adjunct (and advocate) of the business sector.
The integration of African American artists into the mainstream of the entertainment media necessarily results in a dilution and/or prostitution of the music.
The Words And The Beat--That Is The Music. While some adults still argue about whether Rap is really music, Rap has become a major force in American popular music. Although Rap certainly does not sound like Eurocentric music, Rap is still music, albeit, rhythm-based rather than melody- or harmony-based music.
Initially, Rap artists were more concerned with having a good time within their neighborhoods and expressing themselves to their peers and friends than they were with making a career as a recording artist. Because of Rap's language--which is not only considered vulgar but which is also difficult for adults, in general, as well as non-Blacks, specifically, to understand--few thought that Rap would ever have a big influence in the music business. Oh how wrong the majority was.
Today, Gospel artists are including "raps" in their recordings, as have almost every other category of artist. Even the Pillsbury Doughboy had a rapping TV commercial. What started as an "outlaw" movement is now a major part of the music industry, accounting for millions of dollars in sales.
Rap is the voice of African American youth speaking in the language of the youth. Regardless of what one thinks about the language of Rap, the reality is that Rap, in its non-commercial (i.e. "hardcore") form, speaks directly to and for African American youth. These youth, especially those in the working class and underclass segments of society, are alienated, marginalized, miseducated or uneducated, abused, and socialized into a life of crime and/or dependency. Ultimately, not only are our youth ruined and disregarded, worse they are feared. Adult society looks on our youth as if they were man-eating tigers or some other mythicized menace, albeit a menace which was created by the same society which now fears them.
Our youth, in turn, know that they are not liked and that few adults really want to deal with them. The youth also know that very few adults "know how" to deal with either the youth themselves or the even larger question of the social ills besetting African American communities in the 1990s. Our youth may be ignorant in terms of formal education but they are neither dumb nor stupid. When we listen to Rap closely and make the effort to understand what the youth are saying, all of that, and much more, comes through loudly and clearly.
Most adults today have no idea how hard it is to be an African American teen-ager in an urban setting. In fact, many adults will never understand because much of the more dangerous and damaging social and psychological pressures felt by youth of this generation did not exist in preceding generations.
In addition to being the language of our youth, Rap also represents the power and influence of self assertive expressions whose origins are within the continuum of African American culture, a power and influence that is now worldwide in effect.
Just like the Country Blues of the rural deep south and the Urban Blues of Chicago and other metropoles of the great migration was the matrix for and continually informs and influences the majority of American pop music, and just like Jazz from the streets and parks of turn of the century New Orleans has had a world wide impact on all twentieth century music which views itself as more than entertainment, in a similar way, Rap, which came from the bantustans and townships of modern America, has had a major and worldwide influence on youth culture and pop music.
Moreover, just as the influence of Blues and Jazz were both unprecedented and unpredicted, in a similar fashion the influence of Rap is preceded and predicted only by the continuous presence of African American culture as the predominant force in 20th century music worldwide. In other words, when Rap is seen as part of the same cultural continuum which produced the Blues and Jazz (and the Spirituals and Gospel as well, even though the influence of our religious music on world music has not been as profoundly far reaching), when we consider Rap in that light then the importance of Rap is better appreciated.
It's A Money Thang. Driven by both the need and the greed for profits, the recording industry -- the same industry which commercializes Blues and Jazz -- is now pushing Rap for two reasons: one because there is money in it and two because there is a large talent pool.
The existence of this talent pool (i.e. surplus creative labor) is critical to Rap's profitability as a commodity. Literally thousands of would-be rappers daily submit demo tapes to record companies in hopes of making "mad cash". This talent pool nurtures and grooms itself, and then in many cases delivers "demo" tapes that are virtually finished products. There is no necessity for the recording companies to make a major investment in grooming or buying studio time to record these potential million selling artists. In fact, record companies spend less dollars per artist on Rap groups than on any other genre of popular music. When you further consider that much of Rap's promotion is word of mouth (and promotion eats up a lot of money), you begin to understand that Rap both increases income and reduces overhead at the same time.
A major Rap hit does wonders for a company's bottom line. While it is easy to see how Rap has affected the recording industry, this industry also affects Rap. The major industry driven changes affecting Rap have been two fold: one is the "commercialization" of Rap and the other is the "stylistic fragmentation" of Rap. Once the major record labels became involved in Rap, much of Rap as a genre was unavoidably driven by the goal of making hit records on a national level; appealing to one's neighborhood circle was no longer broad enough.
The commercialization of Rap necessarily affected the stylistic direction of Rap. For example, MC. Hammer, who is the best selling Rap artist of all time, is considered a joke as a hard-core rapper. However, regardless of his skills or absence of skills as a rapper, MC. Hammer is a master entertainer and an astute entrepreneur who understands what it takes to be commercially successful.
Moreover, the success of MC Hammer encourages others to enter the Rap arena because Hammer proves that you don't have to be a good rapper in order to be successful a rapper. Obviously, I am making a distinction between artistic achievement and commercial success.
Fragmentation is also inevitable as major companies compete against each other for airplay and retail sales. Where once the neighborhood audience decided who was good and who was bad, now major Rap artists are validated by a much larger audience. To put it bluntly, White teenagers now have as much, if not a greater influence, in determining who the best selling Rap artists will be. The resultant commercial commification of Rap aimed at White audiences is one of the major reasons that Rap is undergoing severe changes stylistically?
The commodification of Rap (which includes clothing, concerts, paraphrenalia, and the like in addition to records as product) is concurrent with the emphasis on youth in today's American mainstream culture. The record companies benefit because they seldom have to deal with mature and experienced artists. They can concentrate on pushing hungry and upcoming young artists, many of whom will literally do anything to get a record contract, anything--listen to the music for an hour, watch Rap videos for an hour--anything!
In many ways, Rap is like a young teenager thrown into the world of experienced and ruthless adults. The child doesn't have a chance of competing. Not only does the child have to deal with a whole new world, but indeed the child has not had the chance to be fully grounded in its own community. Gospel, Blues and Jazz all retained a strong community base much longer than did Rap. These are the seemingly insurmountable odds that Rap faces in the music industry.
Rap's Contributions. The negatives notwithstanding, Rap as a genre has brought two major innovations into pop music. First, Rap reintroduced the Afrocentric oral tradition as an artform. Second, Rap demonstrated a profound advancement in the use of computer technology in the service of art. Rap's use of electronic instruments and recording equipment is an advancement whose far reaching significance is akin to the African American appropriation and elevation of the saxophone at the beginning of this century.
The verbal wordplay of Rap is a major advance on the general state of lyrics in pop music. Whereas most pop lyrics are content to use end rhymes, commonplace metaphors and similes as their main literary devices, rappers have significantly upped the ante through the employment of a sophisticated approach to word play. It is not uncommon to hear rappers use rhymes within lines as well as at the end of lines, the metaphors and similes range from satirical to surreal, and the use of onomatopoeia, alliteration, and other forms of word wizardry is, in the mouth of a master rapper, astounding.
But Rap is more than just technique. Rap has also reintroduced the relevance of "saying something", i.e. political or social commentary. This is especially important during a period when Black pop had become little more than hip elevator music and commercials for consumerism run amok.
In terms of using computer aided technology to create pop music, rappers are pioneers and originators. Just as today, few people think of the fact that African Americans created the trap drum set, many, many people are unaware of the technological innovations created by Rap artists. Sampling--using selected passages of existing music mixed with other elements to form a new composition--is Rap's best known but, by no means only, innovation. The use of environmental sounds and noise elements as part of the music bed is another example. But perhaps the major achievement is the turning of computer and electronic instruments into drums. It is an incredible development, the used of computerized electronic instruments to create polyrhythms--and not just simple backbeats, but complex cross rhythms of "found" (sampled) and "created" (programmed) sounds, creatively patched together like an aural quilt of musical scraps turned into a magic carpet of head bopping motion. While Charles Murray et al argue about the ability of inner city Blacks to intelligently compete in the information age, Rap DJs and producers have taken the computers and created the first truly postmodern music of the 20th century. As an aesthetic Rap is both a throwback to basic voice and body percussion ("beat box" i.e. the use of the mouth and body to make percussion) and a look into the future when music becomes simultaneously more natural (in that it draws on every available sound in the environment) and completely synthetic (in that it can be created without using "musicians" per se). Rap is both the creation of music without traditional musicians and is simultaneously a major redefining and expanding of our perception of what a musician is and does.
Although the technical achievements are awesome, perhaps the most significant effect of Rap has been to create more space for musical artists in every genre to overtly make political statements and social commentary in their music. The political immaturity of "gangsta" rap notwithstanding, Rap has reintroduced the concept of the artist as social critic at a time when popular entertainment threatened to inundate us with romantics, clowns and minstrels.
Philosophically, the major deficiency of Rap artists is buying into the mainstream assertion that "racism" is the only problem stopping African Americans from enjoying the good life, and to the degree that racism is overcome, then to that same degree we are all alike. Unless and until rappers confront the need to oppose commercialism and other divisive "isms" such as patriarchal sexism, the music will never achieve its full potential and will always end up debasing itself for the dollar.
The current status quo decries "raw racism" yet is unapologetic in its sustained economic exploitation in the name of "free enterprise". The economic underpinning of our bondage remains in place, except that today our labor is expendable to a heretofore unmatched degree. In short the system no longer needs us. To the status quo, our only value is our contribution to maintaining the status quo--this is no where more true than in the music industry.
Within this context, the socalled "controversy" about Too Live Crew's alleged obscene lyrics is more accurately understood as a major assault on independent Black controlled business with the music industry. Following the age old Black aesthetic principle of adapting existing reality, Luther Campbell had formed a company called Luke Skywalker, an obvious play on the Star Wars theme. Eventually, this company was making mega-bucks by creating, manufacturing and retailing recordings completely outside of the existing major industry network. Then the firestorm of controversy hit, with court cases, suits, arrests and an attendant media circus. What was lost in the shuffle is that once the Two Live Crew inked a deal with Atlantic Records, the controversy all but disappeared. Today, controversy about socalled obscene lyrics would rarely surface based on sexual content. Two Live Crew has been brought in from their maroon outpost in the hills and are safely ensconced on the Atlantic plantation. Another challenge to the system has been successfully co-opted.
From the very beginning the controversy at rock bottom was structural in nature. The music industry was not going to tolerate real alternatives to its dominance. The klan kills, capitalists co-opt (and then pat themselves on the back for not being racists)!
If You Had A Choice Of Colors, Which One Would You Choose? Whites now seriously compete with African Americans both as producers and as artists in all genres of GBM (Great Black Music). This was not always the reality, except in Jazz. Although White domination of the genre has not yet happened in Gospel or Rap, they've got our Blues, have placed a firm down payment on Jazz, and are making significant inroads into R&B.
Some critics argue that White artistic domination will never happen with Gospel and Rap because both forms are "too Black". But for a long time that was the same argument about both Blues and Jazz. In fact, not long ago there were serious statements that one could tell if a Jazz musician was White or Black simply by listening to them. Obviously, that is no longer the case. Not only do some Whites sound Black, but a number of Blacks sound White--assuming that one even entertains a discussion of sound being synonymous with biology.
On the other hand from a cultural and conscious perspective, sounding White is simply accepting the status quo and attempting to technically conform to a standard that has been established as the paragon of sound. Sounding Black is making an individual statement within the broad social context, utilizing the basic principles and traditions of GBM. Thus, any person, be they White or Black, can sound White or Black depending on their culture and consciousness.
We need warriors who understand that, in the American context, "sounding", i.e. making music, can not uphold the status quo and at the same time free (i.e. liberate from oppression and exploitation) African Americans. You can't sound Black and act White. Any and all music worthy of the designation GBM must oppose the status quo both in how it sounds and how it is produced, distributed and consumed by its audience.
Throughout the history of GBM artists have struggled to create their own record companies, to secure their publishing rights, to control venues and how the music is presented, and to form collectives and associations to effect these objectives. To the degree that young musicians ignore issues such as these, to that same degree their music will be, or will quickly become, largely irrelevant to the lives of the majority of African Americans regardless of the music's explicit message. The challenge facing GBM, and facing both Rap and Jazz in particular, is how to regain the independence they had when the artists and the music existed either on the periphery of or totally outside of the music industry mainstream.
There are many other challenges, e.g. no major African American owned publications which seriously focus on and critique GBM; the declining significance and existence of Black-owned radio stations; the almost total lack of community-based, Black-owned music venues; the lack of GBM festivals, conferences and special events which are controlled, organized and curated by African Americans.
Today we have more African American musicians who are millionaires than ever before. At the same time we have less control, less ownership, and less independence than at any time in the history of GBM. What we face is the neocolonialism of individual musicians who, in exchange for big salaries, do nothing to confront some of the very real problems and deficiencies GBM faces. What we face is the near total control not only of the production and distribution, but also of the discourse about and documentation of GBM by forces who are de facto siding with the status quo in the continued exploitation of GBM.
A truly sober look at our current condition will show that ain't nothing shaking but the leaves on the tree / and they wouldn't be shaking if it wasn't for the breeze.
In the final analysis it's all about context and control--what we do in and with our own space and time. Everything is informed by it's time of creation, existence and demise; what was happening when it was going on.
The music is not a "Topsy" like creation that just grew. Our music is our mother tongue. Our music is a language used not only to express ourselves, but also to assert ourselves in world affairs. Additionally our music serves as a unifying force in our external conflict with our colonizers and as a unifying force in encouraging us to struggle against the internalization of oppressive concepts as well as struggle against our own weaknesses.
As our present state of "emancipation without liberation" makes clear, the ultimate struggle is the struggle around internal conflicts. Internalized oppression and our own human weaknesses must be fought against and rooted out or else they will lead us to colonize, oppress and exploit each other as well as other human beings. Unless we fight the principled fight, politically and economically we will become just like the racists we claim we hate.
The social and aesthetic significance of African American music is neither abstract nor biological. The social and aesthetic significance of GBM is very precisely its warrior stance in the face of the status quo and its healing force for the victims of colonialization. Ultimately, the best of our music helps us resist colonization and reconstruct ourselves whole and healthy.
That is why Great Black Music is such a joyful noise.
POSTSCRIPT
I wrote this analysis back in the nineties. Since then we have seen a major change in the production and distribution of music. Through the use of digital technology, artists can now produce, distribute and market their music without the intervention of capitalist companies. Rap is a legal way for black youth to make money, youth who are otherwise incapable of making money within the mainstream. Although people talk about being artists, the major pursuit is commercial. The money to be made in the rap game is both a blessing and a curse.
Digital production and internet distribution notwithstanding, the core issue of our relationship to the status quo remains a major factor in any attempt to understand the impact and importance of our music. Our communities are fractured, broken into pieces that are often not only mutually exclusive (for example, the strong conflict of street culture with two feet into drugs contesting with church culture that is anti-drugs) but the diverse social segments of our communities are ineffective in providing the medical, educational, and social organizational services any people require in order to be whole and healthy. With violence at unprecedented levels in impoverished neighborhoods and incarceration of poor people of color at an all time high, there are many, many questions that need to be answered, questions that are far beyond the scope and reach of musical production but which are necessary to consider if we are making a serious analysis of our music.
To be continued…
—kalamu ya salaam
September 2012
