Michael Eric Dyson's "How Real Is This?"

Lyndia Louissaint and Saar Shemesh

The issue of AUTHENTICITY:

“The metaphysical root of hip hop is connected to the ghetto whether or not many of its artists grew up there. It’s almost irrelevant to me whether or not you grew up there. It’s more important to know if you’re able to scrutinize the possibilities, the positions, the moods, the dispositions, the interesting, the sentiments, and the morality that the environment breeds. If you’re able to tap into those things and understand what they might mean – if you’re able to imagine in your art the story and myth that should be told – that’s just as fine as being there.” (Dyson, 11)

The original question we must try to answer is where did hip hop originate? In the above quotation, Dyson remarks on the feeling of the ghetto that hip hop artists attempt to embody. The ghetto was and is the birthplace of hip hop, the nurturing streets that birthed a music culture like none other before it. We must first consider earlier forms of expression through music of the African-American communities; jazz and bebop. Jazz emerged in the beginning of the 20^th century, establishing itself as the primary and popular expression of the black community in America. Jazz satisfied the need of it’s communities to rebel against the music at the time, which didn’t fit the lifestyle or struggle of jazz musicians. Soon after, the white community adopted jazz as their own music and again, black communities needed another outlet for their expression; bebop. Bebop was the answer, it gave artists a new rebellion and a form of self-expression that jazz could no longer give them. Speed up to modern day, and we’re met with the same situation, with hip hop as a the rebellion to pop and rock n’ roll. So what now? Is hip hop as a rebellion a common theme in the music culture of black-Americans, or is this something new, separate from it’s previous generation?

In the 2002 film, 8 Mile starring rapper Eminem (Marshall Mathers) as an aspiring white rapper growing up and trying to make it in the predominantly black, Detroit underground hip hop scene. This movie exemplifies the concept of authenticity and who’s allowed to say what about a struggle that is so specific to one community – the black ghetto. Eminem is a white male trying to make it music culture that was taught to rebel against everything that (on the surface) he is. Throughout the movie, the audience watches as he works harder than he has to, to mark his territory in the field. Below is the IMDb trailer for 8 Mile:

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi615776537/

The concept of PRISON AS A HOME:

“Young black men have embraced – and to an extent transformed –certain elements of the prison-industrial complex: the sagging pants, the baggy shirts, the laceless shoes, and the like. Of course, part of the fascination with prison is the reflection of the sad existential truths of a young black male life; as a philosopher Immanuel Kant might say, a necessity is turned into a virtue…to believe that your manhood is best tested and developed in prison is nothing short of bizarre and tragic. And hip hop has both challenged this and reinforced it at the same time.” (Dyson, 14-15)

Common in the lyrics, the attitude and the swagger of hip hop is the physical and mental reality of prison. Prison is something artists both strive for and resent. On page 17, Dyson comments on prison as a home as “a place of discipline and rest, as well as, ironically enough, nurture and hospitality.” The idea that prison, a place so terrible that no one should aspire to be in, could be the ultimate for members of our society is a concept hard to grasp. Where does this stem from; the idea that prison is your ultimate? Earlier, Dyson explains that young black men are conditioned from a young age that they will inevitably end up in prison so if they aren’t there already by society’s means, they will end up there and might sit there for a while. So now we’re met with a society that pretty much forces its disciplinary institutions on a specific community and are being profiled for it. How does this work though? Domicide, the “murder[ing] of [a] sense of identification, their sense of home-fulness and dwelling with their brothers” (17) runs rampant in the prison-industrial complex. This beaten identification wears on the mind, body and soul of its subject(s). When society constant batters one’s sense of identity, it leads to the need to self-express; precisely what role hip hop plays for members in prison.

A great example of this is when Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and imprisoned during the 1960s for being a civil-rights activist. Although he’s not a hip hop artist, he used prison as a mental and physical birthplace for what he needed to express, which was his relentless struggle for civil rights. Below is his speech, Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963: http://www.mlkonline.net/jail.html

Prison as a home is a concept that exists for all hip hop artists, even if they’ve never spent time. Ironic again, that something so terrible can be something that you embrace, even if you aren’t on you way there. Hip hop artist constantly reference prison and it remains to be a focal point for hip hop musicians. Take Tupac Shakur, still one of the best, if not the best hip hop artist that this world has seen and will ever see. Idealized, Tupac spent multiple times in prison and therefore epitomizes the idea that prison can make or break you as young black male and as an artist. Below are both lyrics and a video of Tupac’s song “Trapped.” http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/2pac/trapped.html (lyrics) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCEmTaWSPTk (video)

And what about WOMEN AND HIP HOP?:

“There isn’t much room for independent women in rap music and hip hop culture…the extension of the crotch politics of black machismo; the subordination of female desire to male desire; the re-colonizing of the black female body by the imperialistic gaze of the black male…This stuff didn’t start with hip hop; the reality is that patriarchy and sexism and misogyny are tried-and-true American traditions from which hip hop derives its understanding of how men and women should behave, and what roles they should play.” (Dyson, 21-22)

Black women, ironically enough, faced a steeper slope in authenticating hip hop expression than their male counterparts. Whereas young black males were facing the subjugation of society, young black female artists were facing the oppression of black males, and consequently also of society. They had to fight through two layers of domination, making it doubly harder for them to express themselves and be seen as legitimate artists.

Essentially, we are met with two different outcroppings of young black female artists, both of which fight the tyranny of the black male and of society that tries to keep them down.

The first group is inclusive of artists like Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown, whose expression was based mostly on the seduction of the black male and thus, the domination of their dominators. Their music is categorized by explicitly vulgar sexual lyrics that exemplify the control over their expression.

The second group is more the likes of artists such as Lauren Hill, Eve and Missy Elliot, who conversely express the “sense of female identity that is independent of black masculinity,” (23). Their lyrics seek to empower the woman and her sense of strength rather than to deal with the domination of a patriarchal society. Below is a link to the lyrics of Lauren Hill’s song “(Doo Wop) That Thing”: http://www.lyrics007.com/Lauryn%20Hill%20Lyrics/Doo%20Wop%20%28That%20Thing%29%20Lyrics.html

OVERALL QUESTIONS:

1. How is hip hop considered a legitimate form of art (meaning that involves inspiration, imagination and creativity)?
   
2. Who has the power to authenticate hip hop?
3. What does home mean to you? Do you think that the concept of home can be universal and why?
4. Immanuel Kant once said that necessity is a virtue. Why or why not do you agree with this statement?
   
5. How does "domicide" affect an individual?
6. How can society's perception of a person or of members of a community affect an individual or a community? Like the chicken or the egg, does the perception, or the individual of question come first?
7. Similar to how Madonna has reinvented herself, can an artist rap about people, places, concepts and ideas that they have not met, been in or been formerly introduced to (think, the ghetto)?
   
8. Do you feel that women face a different oppression than their male counterparts? Is the tyranny they face more, less, or equally oppressive than the subjugation black males face from society?
   
9. Which group (Lil Kim/Foxy Brown v.s Lauren Hill/Eve/Missy Elliot) do you feel does a better job to empower the young black female and why?