With the last two lectures, we make the transition into our
discussions in hip-hop. The most interesting connection I found between the material
from last Tuesday and this Thursday was between the interview with Jeff Chang
and Byron Hurt’s documentary on Gangsta Rap in the 2000’s. In the interview,
Jeff elaborates on what Chuck D meant when he called rap music “CNN for black
people” saying, “At that particular moment if you were a fan of rap music, you
could listen to artists from different cities and find out what was happening
in those cities, whether it was how young people were feeling about the police
situation, how young people partied or danced; all of the stories that were not
getting reported in the media bubbled up through these songs.” From this quote
we can take away that especially in the 80s and 90s rap often played a big
influence on young minorities life, informing them of what the urban environment
was like and providing an often overlooked perspective on social issues at the
time. While this would obviously be a good thing for young minorities, Byron
Hurt’s documentary shows us possible negative repercussions of this influence. In
a clip featuring Jackson Katz starting from 53:26, Katz discusses how the
Gangsta Rap image that has been cultivated by white-controlled record labels
has an adverse effect on young minorities saying, “If the KKK were smart enough
they would’ve created Gangsta Rap because it’s such a caricature of black masculinity
yet young people of color are being presented with this idea that somehow these
people represent us and they’re cool and they’re gonna stand in for us against
the white power structure while they’re completely subservient to that white
power structure.” With these two sides of the coin in mind and the popularity
of rap growing every year, we can see that rap will have an important role in
influencing younger generations to come. I think in today’s industry, while
there is still evidence of rappers exhibiting hyper masculinity in popular
music, there are still a lot of examples of artists, some even being popular,
that are pushing rap in directions that allow for the discussion of current
societal issues and the promotion of feminism.
I chose my two tracks for this week to be examples of this.
As an answer to the homophobia that was rampant in Gangsta
Rap in the 2000s, I wanted to highlight an artist that has made the brave step
to publicly announce themselves as part of the LGBTQ+ community, Lil Nas X. In
his track “C7osure”, he discusses his need to grow in the future but also that
he understands that it might be time to accept who he is as a queer person as
he progresses in his rap career.
Lil Nas X – “C7osure”
Here’s also a song he recorded before “Old Town Road” as
bonus because I love the Bobby Caldwell sample he used on it (which he was also
sued for for not licensing properly before using lol)
My second artist is an upcoming black female rapper, CHIKA,
whose use of gospel-inspired backing vocals on her 2020 Industry Games album I’m
a super big fan of. In “CROWN”, she talks about being strong and optimistic in
the face of troubles at home, her insecurities about herself, and doubts and
criticisms about her as a black, female rapper. Super empowering, and I recommend
checking out the rest of the album or her NPR Tiny Desk Concert on YouTube.
CHIKA – “CROWN”
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