Rap music is treated as a form of commercial propaganda within the American justice system, often held culpable for its direct context without acknowledging its artistic potential. Additionally, rap music is often marginalized for consumption by the ethnic and racial majority it was invented by. Thus, any cultural context awarded through rap music is denoted as black, or pertaining to blackness. Though this context does not discredit rap music, the racial affiliation of the music antagonizes the predominantly white narrative and is militated by the power-holding majority.
Origins
Rap music is and has been, undoubtedly, a vector for black culture in the late 20th century and early 21st in America. The music genre originated, as far as historians can tell, in “…events in the South Bronx, specifically the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway…” amongst a vastly black and hispanic population with lower socio-economic statuses.
“The black and Puerto Rican populations of the South Bronx formed the nucleus of early rap music and hip-hop culture, and Rose asserts that the sound of early rap reflected the disruption in the surrounding environment. For example, rapping itself “privileges flow, layering, and ruptures in line” (39), while “the initial bass or drum line in rap music is abruptly ruptured by scratching” (39).”
Tsitsos 273
In the 6th stanza there is a distinct disruption in the bass line
"I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself:
"Is life worth living? Should I blast myself?"
I'm tired of being poor and, even worse, I'm black
My stomach hurts so I'm looking for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero
"Give the crack to the kids: who the hell cares?
One less hungry mouth on the welfare!"
First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers
Give 'em guns, step back, watch 'em kill each other
"It's time to fight back," that's what Huey said
Two shots in the dark, now Huey's dead"
-2Pac (Tupac) "Changes"
“America has nurtured an environment that some have come to call a culture of violence. If there is in fact a culture of violence, the true parent of rap lyrics is America herself, who financially rewards the glamorization of behaviors deemed socially unacceptable. Rap music, in this context, is merely another creative expression that is an outgrowth of prevailing entertainment practices.”
Richardson & Scott 2
THUG, demonstrates an important shift in the narrative perspective surrounding rap music. Instead of utilizing rap as an opportunity to criminalize black narratives, THUG proposes using rap narratives to elucidate the shortcomings of current legal storytelling.
“Listen! The Hate U – the letter U – Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. T-H-U-G L-I-F-E. Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out. Get it?”
“Damn. Yeah.”
(Thomas 69-70)
While rap music lyrics often refer to societal pressures and stratification influencing their legal transgression, the legal understanding of them tends to view them only so far as a racial context. When held accountable in court for potentially illegal messages found in rap music, the expanse of the American legal narrative disallows for the imperative contextualization of rap narratives within the unjust society they were written. Ultimately, the dissonance between legal understandings of rap narratives and artistic understandings of rap narratives demands an annotation of how rap is often refused its right to jurisprudence by the context of the system itself.
"Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the police
Fuck the Police
"Example of scene one"
"Pull your god damn ass over right now"
"Aww shit, now what the fuck you pullin' me over for?"
"'Cause I feel like it!
Just sit your ass on the curb and shut the fuck up"
"Man, fuck this shit"
"Aight, smart ass, I'm takin' your black ass to jail!"
"MC Ren, will you please give your testimony
To the jury about this fucked up incident?"
Fuck the police and Ren said it with authority
Because the niggas on the street is a majority
A gang, is with whoever I'm steppin'
And the motherfuckin' weapon is kept in
A stash box, for the so-called law
Wishin' Ren was a nigga that they never saw
Lights start flashin' behind me
But they're scared of a nigga so they mace me to blind me
But that shit don't work, I just laugh
Because it gives 'em a hint, not to step in my path
For police, I'm sayin, "Fuck you, punk!"
Readin' my rights and shit, it's all junk"
-N.W.A. "Fuck tha Police"
During the preliminary hearing in March 2013, prosecutor Rachel Fleming successfully ensured a trial in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Jamal Knox and Rashee Beasley. The defendants had been charged with making “terroristic threats” after their rap song “F* the Police” appeared on YouTube. She insisted: “And just because you put your threats to music and just because you make them rhyme, you know, it doesn’t mean that they’re not threats.”
Hirsch 482-483
What is interesting about this case, is how it was addressed in the court of law. Instead of facing copyright or intellectual property law claims, the defendants were pursued for threatening police officers. Evidently, the defining difference is that the GSC song included the names of specific officers. However, instead of affording artistic generosity to the defendants and interpreting their vague allusions to harm like “Takin’ money from Beaz and all that shit away from me? Well your shift over at 3 and I’m gon’ fuck up where you sleep”, they were held legally accountable for the content of their “threats”. This demonstrates a unique value of how the legal system interacts with the creations of young artists of color. This is especially prevalent in the prosecution’s inherent flattening of the artistic legitimacy of to criminalize the defendants.
KMG, who were co-curators of gangsta rap with N.W.A., took a uniquely opposing view to them. While N.W.A chose to comment on their unjust access to jurisprudence, KMG’s narrative recommends that they transcend jurisprudence. The narratives proposed by the two groups represent two different ways in which gangsta rap addresses legal culpability.
Ghetto Gospel
By Tupac ft Elton John
Produce by Eminem
The narratives professed by rap music often promote societal pressures as the motivation for their actions, while main-stream media tends to view the content of the music within a vacuum of racial significance. As later defined, rap is often confounded with hip-hop, and gangsta rap— the latter of which has gained notable recognition for its perceptively hyper-violent content. However, this generalization and chauvinistic narrative towards the rap/hip-hop genre indicates a greater misunderstanding about the culpability of the ideas professed through rap music.
In my essay, I’ll consider these topics in addition to the issue of symbolic violence, narrative violence involved in white artists covering rap songs professing black narratives, and the similar ethical dilemma white rappers face.
(Not all of the following are cited, but all will be used in the essay)
Works Cited
Hess, Mickey. ““Don’T Quote Me, Boy”: Dynamite Hack Covers NWA’s “Boyz‐N‐The‐Hood”.” Popular Music and Society, vol. 28, no. 2, 2005, pp. 179-191, https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760500045295, doi:10.1080/03007760500045295.
Hirsch, Lily E. “Rap as Threat? the Violent Translation of Music in American Law.” Law, Culture & the Humanities, vol. 14, no. 3, 2018, pp. 482-500, https://doi-org.une.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/1743872114556858, doi:10.1177/1743872114556858.
KAJIKAWA, LOREN. “Eminem’s “My Name is”: Signifying Whiteness, Rearticulating Race.” Journal of the Society for American Music, vol. 3, no. 3, 2009, pp. 341-363. Cambridge Core, https://www-cambridge-org.une.idm.oclc.org/core/article/eminems-my-name-is-signifying-whiteness-rearticulating-race/2E62BDCA6816AF711EB789EC9E0CA36C, doi:10.1017/S1752196309990459.
Kumasi, Kafi. “Roses in the Concrete: A Critical Race Perspective on Urban Youth and School Libraries.” Knowledge Quest, vol. 40, 2012, pp. 32+. Gale Academic Onefile; Gale, https://link-gale-com.une.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A290858518/AONE?u=bidd97564&sid=AONE&xid=1203b51a.
Richardson, Chris. ““Can’T Tell Me Nothing”: Symbolic Violence, Education, and Kanye West.” Popular Music and Society, vol. 34, no. 1, 2011, pp. 97-112, https://doi-org.une.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/03007766.2011.539831, doi:10.1080/03007766.2011.539831.
Tsitsos, William. “Race, Class, and Place in the Origins of Techno and Rap Music.” Popular Music and Society, vol. 41, no. 3, 2018, pp. 270-282, https://www-tandfonline-com.une.idm.oclc.org/doi/abs/10.1080/03007766.2018.1519098, doi:10.1080/03007766.2018.1519098.
Watts, Eric K. “An Exploration of Spectacular Consumption: Gangsta Rap as Cultural Commodity.” Communication Studies, vol. 48, no. 1, 1997, pp. 42-58, https://doi-org.une.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/10510979709368490, doi:10.1080/10510979709368490.
