Hip-hop is an important tool to understand race | Arts & Culture

Hip-hop has turned into a global phenomenon during its 50-plus year existence. Its evolution from a disco-adjacent subgenre of dance music — see “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang — to the boisterous, arena-packing juggernaut it is now has certainly been remarkable. Throughout its gradual rise to the top of popular music, hip-hop has stayed the course despite facing its fair share of attempts to delegitimize the genre on the basis of race.

Before I get further into this, I want to make abundantly clear that I am no expert. I am a white man who comes from a middle-class family, and I grew up in one of the whitest cities in this country. I do, however, have decades of experience listening to and consuming this genre of music to help me understand where so much of hip-hop comes from. As a person who is regularly learning about racial issues through hip-hop, I believe I have gained enough knowledge through this avenue to advocate for the importance of using hip-hop as a tool to further one’s understanding of race.

An obviously important aspect of hip-hop’s racial impact is its lyrical content. Dating back to some of the earliest hip-hop tracks, you can find a gold mine of explicitly racialized lyrics, and more often than not, these are written as a response to real-world issues. See the lyrics from Public Enemy’s MC Chuck D from “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”: “I got a letter from the government the other day / I opened and read it, it said they were suckers.” While brief, this lyric epitomizes the core foundations of hip-hop. At the time this song was released, former president Ronald Reagan was nearing the end of his term in office.

In 1984, Reagan signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which had significant implications on the War on Drugs during that time. While on the surface level this bill may have been proposed to counter crime, it had generational impacts on people of color. Mass incarceration, police brutality and the criminalization of poverty — among many other harmful effects — perpetuated racial inequities that have impacted people of color for centuries. From the beginning, hip-hop has been an outlet for people in marginalized communities to creatively express themselves while critiquing the systems that harm them.

Zachary Wallmark, an associate professor of musicology at the University of Oregon, states that a lot of the hardcore movement in hip-hop can be attributed to Reagan’s contributions to the War on Drugs.

“In many ways, the hardcore moment in rap is a direct consequence of increasing numbers of young people in areas that have been neglected being pulled into drugs through addiction, through selling it [and] possession,” Wallmark said. “This is a time where having an ounce of weed in your pocket in certain states could get you a felony charge and prison time, totally derailing your life.”

On the flip-side, a consistent criticism of hip-hop is that it pushes harmful and dangerous messages, particularly those about violence, sex and drugs. While that may be true, that lyrical content is usually a double-edged sword. Many people who critique hip-hop for these “hardcore” elements consume forms of media that put out similarly violent content, just in a form of media that is easier to digest for them.

Wallmark states that all genres speak on the heavier aspects of life to some degree.

“There’s no such thing as a musical genre with its hands totally clean because music is a reflection of human life,” Wallmark said. “Let’s critique this music for its flaws, while also understanding that no form of artistic expression is perfect. But then also, let’s examine why this deep antipathy toward something might be rooted in the way people are socialized in this country.”

While many things have changed throughout the course of the last several decades, many of the problems communities of color face are rooted in the same policies put in place decades ago. Hip-hop music from the mid-to-late 1980s and early ‘90s presented ideas that were considered radical at the time, but in modern-day discourse, are considered to be common knowledge. Musicology graduate employee Matt Yuknas spoke on the dynamics of those lyrics having an impact on policies today.

“Those ideas that were presented, that were radical, have started to become more ingrained into the culture,” Yuknas said. “Seeing how those lyrical tropes became a part of the mainstream is important to see how the racial dynamics began to enter political conversations.”

Artists like Public Enemy, N.W.A. and Ice Cube are a few notable pioneers of blatantly politicized hip-hop. Even though music is a direct reflection of human life, political messages like the ones these artists put out were uncommon up until that point. They also bring up topics that resonate with real-world topics today, with lyrics from Ice Cube’s “My Summer Vacation” ringing particularly true to this day: “And the white pride don’t like Northside / And it’s a riot if any one of us die / No parole or probation / Now this is a young man’s summer vacation / No chance for rehabilitation / ‘Cause look at the motherfuckin’ years that I’m facin’ / I’ma end it like this ‘cause you know what’s up / My life is fucked.”

UO Hip-Hop Ensemble Director Sean Peterson further advocates for hip-hop being an innately human experience.

“Musicking across racial lines has been an important way musicians in America have overcome racial prejudice,” Peterson said. “You may be told that people of a certain racial identity ‘are a certain way,’ but people who musick together have to acknowledge the actual humanity of others as part of lived experience.”

While there is a seemingly endless amount of modern hip-hop to consume to further your knowledge on racial issues, there is a unique perspective to gain from listening to hip-hop from yesteryear. Understanding the history behind the issues at the forefront of so many conversations in current times is an invaluable tool to expand your understanding.

Of course, the lyrical content of a song is essential in understanding the message the artist is trying to convey. But the musical aspect of a song is arguably equally as important in that regard. So much of hip-hop’s production aesthetics come from African diasporic roots, and the production of a song can elevate the meaning and impact of the words.

“Music is such a rich medium, and the lyrics are the low-hanging fruit in meaning,” Wallmark said. “Where does a backbeat come from? Where does heavy bass come from? What is the origin point of this approach to timbre? Without an acknowledgement of the sonic properties of hip-hop music, we might be missing a big part of the story.”

Take this example from the song “Two Worlds Apart” by Little Simz: the laid back soul sample filled with pitched up backup vocals, airy guitar lines and a mesmerizing flute give ample space for Simz to rap freely. There are tons of artists who incorporate traditionally Black styles of music to enhance the sound of their songs, and the inclusion of those sounds makes it an inherently Black experience.

Kobe Anthony, otherwise known as MEMODEMO, is a senior at UO and a member of UO’s Hip-Hop Ensemble. He has vast experience as a producer and creator of hip-hop music, especially within the realm of rhythm games. He incorporates a wide array of sounds into his music, and he connects this with the ever-growing influence of hip-hop’s musical aesthetics on other genres of music.

“Anything that you’re gonna hear that’s popular has some type of hip-hop influence in it,” Anthony said. “It blends so well with everything because people are fundamentally attracted to rhythm, and it makes way for a lot of people to interpret things in a way that they would like.”

However, Anthony notes in recent years hip-hop has turned into a means for mass consumption and content creation, which has induced a loss of art in the genre.

“The idea of hip-hop as a subculture isn’t really a thing anymore, which on one hand is good, but the whole point is for hip-hop to provide a voice for people who don’t really have that,” Anthony said. “But it’s turned into a performative act. It’s a look now.”

Although hip-hop has proven to be a force to be reckoned with in the popular sphere of music for decades, no genre is without its flaws. Part of being a popular genre of music is subjecting its devoted advocates to corporate, washed-out songs that will do numbers. Hip-hop has a long history of perpetuating misogynistic tropes and harmful stereotypes against people of color, but the immeasurable impact of hip-hop cannot be ignored.

It has done wonders for introducing people to the Black experience, political discourse toward drug consumption and gang life among many other things. Understanding hip-hop is to understand it is a Black experience, and hip-hop is an invaluable tool to further one’s understanding of race in America and beyond.