The Politics of Hip Hop - Part Two of Two

There has always been a fundamental struggle for the "soul" of hip hop culture, represented by the deep tension between politically-conscious and "positivity" rap artists versus the powerful and reactionary impulses toward misogyny, homophobia, corporate greed, and crude commodification.

The most recent example of this struggle for hip hop's "soul" was vividly expressed at the recent West Coast hip hop conference. Respected rappers such as Mike Concepcion and the D.O.C., and Def Jam founder and conference leader Russell Simmons, emphasized the need to mobilize artists around progressive goals, such as supporting voter education and registration campaigns. Solidarity was expressed for progressive feminist poet/artist Sarah Jones, who is suing over the Federal Communications Commission's fine imposed against an Oregon radio station's playing of her song, "Your Revolution." Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, in his keynote address, urged the hip hop community to renounce lyrics promoting violence and social divisiveness. "From the suffering of our people came rap," Farrakhan observed. "That should make you a servant of those that produced you."

The forces of negativity were also present, reflected in the controversial remarks of the founder of Death Row Records Marion "Suge" Knight. Launching into an attack against artists such as Dr. Dre, Master P, and Janet Jackson, Knight criticized sisters in attendance for "wanting to be men." When Knight then argued that women "were not strong enough to be leaders," observers were stunned. Hip-Hop Summit Action Network President Minister Benjamin Muhammad later observed: "A summit is where diverse forces come together.... You saw the compassion side and the raw side of hip-hop. You saw the focus on economics and the side that focuses on social transformation."

Years before the 1986 release of Run DMC's "Raising Hell," which became the first rap album to go platinum, music industry executives saw the huge profit-making potential of this explosive new art form. Many of the "Old School" rap artists were brutally exploited by unscrupulous business practices of both white and black managers and music executives. Some artists were willing (and eager) to sell themselves and their creativity to manufacture music that was designed largely for commercial purposes, promoting negative values that were antithetical to blacks' interests.

Yet also from the beginning, the tradition of politically progressive and socially-conscious hip hop has been central to this youth-oriented culture. In 1982, rap moved decisively from party-oriented themes to political issues with the release of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message." The following year Keith Leblanc of Tommy Boy records released "No Sell-out," incorporating the powerful voice of Malcolm X into the rap single. This marked the beginning of the incorporation of Malcolm's uncompromising words and political message, which would be sampled in hundreds of hip hop songs, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Also in 1983, Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel released their anti-cocaine anthem "White Lines (Don't Do It)," which was designed to promote greater anti-drug social awareness within black and Latino communities. Nearly a decade later, as hip hop migrated to the west coast, seminal rap group NWA recorded the song "Dope Man," which upon close examination, reveals an emphatic anti-drug message, despite its explicit lyrics.

Social critics like Kevin Powell have described the period between 1987 and 1992 as the "golden age" of hip hop music, a time of enormous creativity and artistic originality. More than any other group at that time, Public Enemy (PE) set the standard for progressive, socially conscious rap. Though not as commercially heralded as PE, the emergence of KRS One and his group Boogie Down Productions, also changed the content of rap albums, beginning with the 1987 album "Criminal Minded." Other similar examples include: the 1989 release of "Daddy's Little Girl" by MC Nikki D (Nichelle Strong), who was the first female rapper to rhyme about abortion, from a young woman's perspective; the emergence of the brilliant (and underappreciated) rapper Paris, the self-proclaimed "black panther of hip hop," who called for radical social change and incorporated the images of Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party into his videos; the 1989 release of the debut record by A Tribe Called Quest, preaching Afrocentric awareness, collective love and peace; the establishment by KRS One, also in 1989, of the "Stop the Violence Movement," and the release by Boogie Down Productions of "Self Destruction" to promote awareness against black-on-black violence, featuring legendary artists such as Public Enemy, MC Lyte, and Kool Moe Dee; Salt-n-Pepa's 1991 remake of the song "Let's Talk About Sex" into "Let's Talk About AIDS," a public service announcement that promoted HIV/AIDS awareness and sex education, with all the proceeds from the sale of both the single and the video donated by the group to the National Minority AIDS Council and the TJ Martell Foundation for AIDS Research; and the collective protest response to the brutal police beating of Rodney King in March 1991, by progressive rap artists such as Chuck D, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and Sister Souljah.

The most progressive black "womanist" artist in hip hop's "golden age" was Queen Latifah. Although Latifah did not describe herself as a feminist, her video "Ladies First" depicted powerful images of freedom fighters Angela Y. Davis, Winnie Mandela, and Sojourner Truth. Her strong support for the struggle to overthrow the apartheid regime of South Africa and her criticisms of corporate power at that time opened new avenues for the development of other women hip hop artists.

While art and politics are indeed connected, it is not the case that cultural workers, musicians, and even entertainment entrepreneurs like Simmons, coming out of hip hop culture represent a new political leadership. Yvonne Bynoe, one of hip hop culture's most insightful observers, paraphrased Chuck D by saying that "we do not need hip-hop doctors or hip-hop politicians. The leadership that will come from the post-civil rights generation must be able to do more than rhyme about problems; they have got to be able to build organizations as well as harness the necessary monetary resources and political power to do something about them."

Bynoe's argument makes absolute sense, because the most politically-committed artists throughout history, such as Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, and Bernice Reagon, understood that while all art is always political, artists usually shouldn't be politicians. As Bynoe notes: "A rap artist who aspires to be a community leader cannot lead a dual life.... The electorate for instance would not be expected to call their representative, Congressman Ol' Dirty Bastard.... Political activism is a full-time, contact sport, necessitating players who are fully dedicated to learning the rules of the game, then playing to win."

It must be emphasized, however, that hip hop artists can lend their legitimacy (or in the hip hop vernacular, their "juice") to many different political causes or public figures. Their very presence or words can act as lightning rods of attention for the masses of youth who identify with hip hop. When Public Enemy's Chuck D rhymed "Farrakhan's a prophet that I think you ought to listen to," many listeners were attracted to the Nation of Islam's message of black nationalism. As a result, rappers such as PE and Ice Cube in his prime helped the NOI to reach a whole new generation of disaffected youth. Political leaders have often sought the aid of influential musical artists, and in the realm of black liberation and struggle, hip hop culture has provided an undeniable galvanizing platform.

What the essential "politics of art" is about is the politics of collective imagination, the transformative politics of freeing one's mind. In a recent interview, KRS-One observed that hip hop "is the only place where Dr. Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech is visible.... Today, with the help of hip hop, they're all hip-hoppers out there... I mean black, white, Asian, Latino, Chicano, everybody. Hip-Hop has formed a platform for all people, religions, and occupations to meet on something." KRS-One adds, "that, to me, is beyond music."

There is no longer any question about the significance and power of hip hop music and culture as a transnational commercial force. One recent example of this was last year's release of Tupac Shakur's "Until the End of Time," which debuted at number one on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart, selling more than 425,000 copies in the first week. Since his murder on September 8, 1996, Tupac has sold more than three times the number of albums than during his lifetime.

In my recent conversations with Russell Simmons, he estimated that rap music's consumer market in the United States is approximately 80 percent white. This brings into sharp focus the central political contradiction socially conscious hip hop cultural workers must address: how to anchor their art into the life-and-death (and "def") struggles of African-American and Latino communities, which largely consist of poor people and the working poor, the unemployed and those millions who are warehoused in prisons and jails. Even "a nation of millions" cannot "hold us back," if we utilize the power embedded in hip hop art as a matrix for constructing new movements and institutions for capacity and black empowerment.