Oppression and Expression in Hip-Hop

Although the influence hip-hop can be felt in the bass that pumps through sound-systems around the world, there have been relatively few documented accounts of hip-hop's global appropriations. One of the accounts I did find was about the French banlieues-- the lower-income, multi-ethnic and reputedly rough suburbs that surround Paris. Although the article's scope was limited, it did explore aspects of the banlieue's relationship to hip-hop's foundation in oppression and expression. I will use these dynamics within the banlieue's appropriation to explain expression and oppression's importance in hip-hop culture and tie together some of the other recurrent threads of authenticity, ideology and bodied context. This will lead to an exploration of some of the reasons behind different cultural adaptations and hopefully will provide a springboard into more conclusions on hip-hop and its mutations in Nairobi and on the Internet.

Rich kids from the 16th Arrondissement were returning from trips to New York, laden with the latest flavors: not just rap records but Air Jordan sneakers, break-dance steps, the slang, the attitudes. "It was funny for them," says Massenya. "We didn't have any real underground music except rock. They came back with this music that was talking about life on the street." Though it started as simple appropriation, the French hip-hop scene-- rap, break-dancing and graffiti-- soon developed its own voice. It is now less derivative of the United States than contiguous" (Leland and Mabry, 1996: 42).

Although I doubt the wealthier French rap fans were appropriating hip-hop out of humor, the fact that Massenya and the article's writers credited the less privileged banlieues with giving French hip-hop its "own voice" is suggestive. In relating to the "music from the street," the French banlieues seem to grab hold of hip-hop's embodied expression to reflect a specific oppression. As another French rapper, Rico, said, "The ghetto is an energy source; it inspires me. If I lived in Paris, I wouldn't have the same rage, the same hate." (1996: 38) Rico's rage and hate serve as muses for his rap and without them, his hip-hop would have less fuel for "contiguous" expression.

This implies a connection to the idea that United States hip-hop was born from hardship and reflected the lifestyle that inspired it. Though it is now being appropriated by people from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, its privileging of the black body and inner-city space speak to and for social oppression and resistance of a dominant hegemony. Whether it be in the lyrical references on the role of capital, the recycled reproduction of musical material, or the stylistic emphasis on the black cultural body, hip-hop's form and content revolve around using limited resources to express specific, counter-hegemonic experiences.

The importance of expression can not be over-emphasized. The rapper's individual posture, production and boasting are all born from a specific and significant community. Rap is now an industry and commodification has changed many underground aspects of its historical foundations, but this has not changed hip-hop's roots in personal expression. If anything, rap's commercial success has only made its purposes more clear. When rappers began appropriating the economically-profitable gangsta posture, the calls to "represent the real" surfaced in almost every hip-hop album and "fronting" was universally condemned. As De La Soul rapped on "Wonce Again Long Island": "Like an alcohol scenario, rap be on the rocks. Authenticity's the admission fee they pay to join the flock of MC's." Authenticity might have been fixed in a particular body and space, but these criticisms of the exploitation of that "authentic" posture showed that the credibility behind the rappers' image was more important than the signifiers alone. The connection between experience and expression is seen as a relationship that cannot be breached and though fantasies and signifying are normal lyrical structures, they are usually rooted in a larger individual, cultural and contextual reality.

Another aspect of hip-hop illuminated by the article on the French banlieues is that hip-hop's particular appropriation is contingent on the local youths' culture and environment. "Graffiti writers, or 'spray-can artists,' are reluctant to 'bomb' distinguished buildings. Even among revolutionaries, there is still some respect for tradition" (Leland and Marby, 1996: 42) The strength of French pride in historical landmarks effects how French youth use the hip-hop medium; they will use the artistic expression of graffiti but not in a way that conflicts with their "respect for tradition." Yet at the same time, although France's 'official' culture might stall people from painting certain buildings, there is also a conflicting ethnic identity in the banlieue's that might explain why these youth pick up the spray-can in the first place.

Among the teens here, there is an unsettled sense of cultural identity, a gulf still to be negotiated. Few call themselves French, even if they were born here. French culture? "There is no French culture," says Hamou Aguini, 20. Her friend Aissata Tounkara jumps in: "It's for the French." (Leland and Marby, 1996: 39)

Hip-hop encourages an expression that mainstream French culture cannot. They do not relate to the hegemony propagated by the dominant French majority and thus negotiate some of these gaps by asserting their own oppression in hip-hop's expressive mediums. Hip-hop can present a surface image and style, a tight cultural package or a flexible and self-reflective medium. How one takes it depends on one's specific environment and what they are looking for in hip-hop's form and content. By looking at their adoption and resistance of hip-hop's various images and ideologies, we can see these youths' identity and culture struggles.

In my examinations of the appropriations of hip-hop's capital, production, language and divisions, I have illustrated Nairobi youths' and Internet newsgroup members' struggles with ideologies and images. The various ways they use and resist hip-hop's reproductive form, personally reflective content and aesthetic style all speaks to their relationships with not only the specific, social and cultural body and space portrayed by rappers, but also with their own specific environment and identity. I will now use the core concepts of expression and oppression to speculate on some of the reasons behind the previously detailed authenticity and appropriation dynamics. I believe this will further show the ideological terrain and how hip-hop' signified body and context is related to its signifying posture and production.

Expression and Oppression in Nairobi

Through looking at their relationship to capital, production and language, I have repeatedly shown how Nairobi youth appropriate a relatively image-oriented version of the hip-hop medium. They tend to disconnect class oppression in rap lyrics from class positions in their own society, rarely use the lyrics to reflect their own specific environment and see hip-hop more as a style then a culture. This established, what are the some of the larger societal structures shaping this appropriation?

A regional meeting in Nairobi in 1979 on Youth, Tradition and Development in Africa published a document of their findings; saying that:

As regards ethical life, at the same time as they are taught respect for the human person and for life, unselfishness, generosity, sincerity and trustworthiness, young people also learn courtesy, civility and the rules of conduct to be observed in society: never to allow oneself to be carried away, as well as show respect for elders and seniors" (1981: 18)

Granted, this was written over twenty-five years ago and with a biased agenda, but I it casts into sharp relief the fact that the same could not be said about American youth in 1979. From my observations and from the comments of the many Kenyans I spoke with, young and old, Nairobi youth seem to have strong senses of family, community and identity. There is a reverence for elders unknown to most Americans and families seem to hold a far more central position in social life. Although some of the adjectives used above seem excessive, they speak to a less individualistic and more community-shaped identity that was affirmed by every Kenyan I met.

Another important aspect of Nairobi's cultural environment is that hip-hop is not only part of a larger black youth culture, it is the youth culture. There are traces of rock and alternative music in Nairobi, but for most black Africans, hip-hop and raggamuffin are the "in" musical cultures. This is important because their adoption of hip-hop's posture is neither unusual or unexpected; their appropriation of hip-hop is not an act of deviancy. Elders worry about rap music's influence on traditional values, but it would be more unusual for a wealthier urban youth to adopt tribal garb then to wear a Dr. Dre T-shirt. Thus, when I asked about what my interviewees' parents thought about the music, most said that though they disliked rap or saw it as too western, they also recognized it as a stage and that it was "their generation's thing" (Ted and Charles, 6/16). Or as Josh repeatedly told me, "Africans have a thing about being outcast... You need a place where you come from.. and you also don't want to appear square to your friends" (Josh 6/24). Josh affirms not only the stronger family and community structure, but also the importance of fitting in with one's peer group. Hence, one of main reasons why youth appropriate hip-hop is in order to conform. I saw several youth adopting hip-hop's style and posture to an extent which seemed to be more motivated by individualism than conformism, but in general, it appeared that hip-hop was more of a communal youth culture than an elitist and individualistic subculture. Their identity is defined more by their family and community than by their choice in music. Popular culture definitely shapes their behavior and style, but they seem to appropriate hip-hop more for inclusion than for individuality. Nairobi youth do not need to look to their popular culture for an identity because their larger social and family structures provide that sense of belonging.

This turns full circle and can be used to explain why Nairobi youth are not concerned with hip-hop's ideological authenticity. Although there are many historical, cultural, visual, economic and spatial reasons why Nairobi youth are distant from hip-hop's contextual environment, it is also relatively irrelevant to the reasons why they appropriate hip-hop. They look to hip-hop for its posture and style and not necessarily the signifying context behind it. As I detailed in my analysis of capital and language dynamics, Nairobi youth tend to ignore hip-hop's language or lyrics about authenticity, and not only because "fronts" are unimportant in their social setting, but also because they are not using hip-hop to express or find their own identity. Because of this, they avoid many of the dangers of idealizing an authentic center of hip-hop and use it more as a stylistic surface than as a signifier of some deeper "true" self.

This brings us back to how Nairobi youth connect to hip-hop's expression of locally specific oppression. Because it is the popular culture, it would seem appropriate for them to appropriate hip-hop to articulate their specific local environment. Yet, since they neither see nor seek the contextual experience that hip-hop expresses, its re-productive structure is obscured and hip-hop's potential personal and communal relevancy is lost. Thus, the very factors that enable Nairobi youth to ignore the traps of idealizing a presumed pure authentic source also act as to limit their own expression. They do not relate to hip-hop's articulation of a specific context and although this prevents them from appropriating hip-hop's ideological hierarchy, it also tends to limit them from their own parallel expression. And, as I described in my section on production, it is precisely this specificity that gives hip-hop its potentially counter-hegemonic strength.

This is important because even if the Nairobi youth with access to hip-hop tend to be relatively wealthy, it does not mean they are immune from struggles with oppressive hegemonies. Ironically, one of the most pervasive ideological forces in Kenya comes from Western media. American movies, TV shows (even if they are black American sitcoms like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Living Single) and music are taking up more and more space in Kenyan media. Hip-hop may offer a counter-hegemonic form in the States by celebrating African-American narratives and cultures, but in Kenya, it is part of a larger Western force that undermines local values and promotes western ideologies.

Thus the return of the classic question: Can a Master's tools be used to destroy the Master's house? Even if youth connect hip-hop with Western hegemony, can they use a Western form to criticize Western domination? Hip-hop's re-production of historical, cultural and musical materials promotes a listeners' recyclical use of their own consumptive materials. Hip-hop's articulation of a local space and for a particular people also encourages personal expression. Hence, if any cultural form were able to undermine dominant ideologies, hip-hop's adaptable structures and narratives would seem to make it a good candidate. Unfortunately, these tools tend to be hidden in hip-hop's historical, cultural and spatial foundation so that the people that need them the most can not find them. There are signs that these tools are being discovered as DJ's are fiddling with hip-hop's pre-packaged form and youth are increasingly asserting their own voice and experience over American rappers' tracks, but I have yet to see them use it to resist the Western hegemonic influence that hip-hop is a part of.

And yet if they did, would this kind of appropriation mean that hip-hop was being used more for identity than image and what would this mean for their larger social structure? There are countless contradictions in these dialectics which are being struggled with in most almost every realm of Kenyan life. As is the case in most third world countries, Kenyans are being pushed to adopt more and more Western capitalists ideologies and are in a life and death struggle to maintain the cultural forms that provide them with a sense of identity and security. Unfortunately, in most social and political realms, it seems that capitalism's pervasive power is winning out. Dynamic traditional tribal expressions are increasingly becoming static and nostalgic replications and Western status symbols have become their own form of currency. It is thus essential that we examine the dynamics within Western forms and their appropriations so we can better see the spaces where ideological and cultural forces both complement and conflict with one another.

I have not written this in hope of proclaiming or predicting a winner to this struggle, but instead hope to have shown the complexities and perspectives involved in hip-hop's appropriation. The ideological pulling and pushing between hip-hop's form and content and Nairobi youth's mediated reception is a multi-layered matrix. Their appropriation gives both hints of hip-hop's potential hegemony and hopes of a personal articulation that can resist it. It remains to be seen whether they are able to harness the power of expression to resist the power of the oppression without succumbing to the reductionism seen in the Internet.

Oppression and Expression on the Internet

In looking at Internet newsgroup members' struggles with capital, production, language and differentiation, I have shown how these newsgroup members often privilege hip-hop's presumed authenticity. Although they may resist hip-hop's hierarchy, they tend to do so in ways that do not contest the ideology itself. They fiercely debate claims of legitimacy on the grounds of being connected to hip-hop's historical, cultural and bodied context. I can not begin to explore all of the reasons behind this ideological and identification battlefield, but I will look at the larger social environment and attitudes toward expression and oppression to see what shapes Internet newsgroup members' relationship to hip-hop culture.

For one, American youth tend to have much less stable family and community structures than their Kenyan counter-parts. Even the most euphemistic optimists would have to stretch to describe American teens with the same adjectives used by the African Youth, Tradition and Development meeting. Americans are infamous for our individuality, or as Josh said it: "To be a capitalist, you have to be a bit selfish, and if you're really good at it, you're an American" (6/24). The individualism of this society makes for few social structures to provide strong senses of community or identity. This is particularly true for those who do not identify with a particular ethnicity, religious group or labor group; i.e. white middle-class youth (the very group that makes up a large portion of alt.rap and rec.music.hip-hop). Thus, our popular culture's signifiers and symbols often become "identity-formation material" from which youth pick and shape their individual image (McRobbie, 1996: 43). This is hardly a new story, but I bring it up to make a simple point: hip-hop is not the popular culture for most white Americans. Many black Americans are raised with hip-hop as the prime popular musical culture, but for many non-inner-city whites, it is one of many musical images propagated by MTV. And so, regardless of what originally drew them to the hip-hop medium-- music videos, radio play or black friends-- their appropriation usually involves an active choice. I do not believe that white appropriation of hip-hop is necessarily as deviant and voyeuristic as many have said it is, but I would concede that when whites adopt hip-hop's music and posture after not being raised in its cultural context, it is more motivated by identity-formation than identification. They are choosing hip-hop over a variety of white musical mediums and thus their involvement tends to be more deviant and less derivative. They are similar to Nairobi youth in that are more concerned with symbolic images than cultural expression, but unlike Nairobi youth, their appropriation is based more on differentiation than inclusion.

There are two important consequences to this spatially and racially distant kind of adoption. For one, hip-hop's posture is separated from its contextual body and becomes more a means for personal individuation than cultural expression. Some pledge innocence by asserting that it is merely "the beat" that attracts them, yet it seems unlikely that appropriators could divorce hip-hop's bass from its aesthetic style, posture and aura. And even if youth are donning hip-hop to fit in with a certain social group, when that group does not share hip-hop's cultural context, than their appropriation of hip-hop's disembodied signifiers is being used more to signify difference than express one's experiences and environment. This in itself is not something to place a judgment on because it is only natural for youth to borrow symbols and gestures that represent power. Flattened of the spatial and social depth that hip-hop resists, rappers are some of the most visually, physically and lyrically assertive icons in popular culture. It is no wonder that others adopt their gestures and style. However, the second important factor in this kind of appropriation is that when appropriating hip-hop's posture, white youth exercise a cultural flexibility made possible by their position of privilege. Their involvement in hip-hop music may teach them about black culture and inner-city hardship, but they do not necessarily have any commitment to the contextual environment because they usually don't identify with it. If they were able to choose hip-hop, then they also have the choice to leave it, and that kind of cultural flexibility has historically done little for the black culture that was being borrowed.

The above dynamics depend on a definite distance from hip-hop's counter-hegemonic context and an appropriation based more on standing out from a homogenous community than trying to fit in with the black culture behind hip-hop. Some of the same dynamics occur when whites are relating to hip-hop's cultural body and context, but I think many of these relationships change when youths' try to assert legitimacy within hip-hop ideology instead of outside of it. This is what makes the Internet newsgroups alt.rap and rec.music.hip-hop so interesting. Although these youth may originally come from relatively distant or segregated areas, the public forum of the Internet brings them in unavoidable contact with hip-hop's contextual ideology. This changes the emphasis from asserting difference from one culture to asserting legitimacy within another.

I have shown many of the ways these youth deal with this struggle by separating themselves from the stereotypes of suburban whites. By privileging cultural capital, knowing hip-hop's musical history, emphasizing the body and context behind hip-hop's posture and dismissing commercial versions of rap music, these youth repeatedly pledge their connection to hip-hop's ideological authenticity. Some definitions of authenticity leave room for "outsiders" to earn access, and members are regularly taking advantage of these spaces to claim legitimacy. Hierarchies of knowledge provide opportunities for these members to use their economic capital to gain "authenticity". But even when trying to work these ideologies for their own inclusion, these youth are still paying homage to the context behind hip-hop. They are proving their commitment by the extent to which they have gone out of their way to learn of the larger culture, and thus show that they have too much at stake to exercise the privilege of cultural flexibility.

All of these attempts at showing their connection to this context lead back to hip-hop's intimate relationship with oppression and expression. The black and inner-city presence on the net constantly reminds members of these roots:

This artform was originated for and by African-Americans. It truly reflects who we are as a people. The music is the only representation and vehicle for our culture, since we are have been ignored and misrepresented in media and literature. We have always been forced to use music as our only form of expression and communication, in a society that has oppressed us from day one and still does (check the Republican agenda). The folk songs of the slaves were expression; the blues of Leadbelly and Little Water was expression; the jazz of Parker, Coltrane and Dolphy was expression; the soul of Gaye, Mayfield, and Pendegrass was expression. Expression of the oppressed. That's what hip-hop is today, and that's what it's for. We can understand it because it is the essence of who we are... (Bobby, 4/1/95)

This kind of generalization is contested on the cross-cutting categories of class and color, but generally most members agree that oppression is fundamental in hip-hop's expression. However, the ways in which oppression is perceived and described depends largely on who is writing and how it makes room for their own claims to legitimacy. One of the most common ways members relate to oppression is by asserting their personal experience with the inner-city. We have seen this both in their attitudes toward cultural capital and their use of violence in which they claim experience with hip-hop's street space and economic poverty. This has shown to be source of constant tension because this kind of oppression is seen to be at odds with Internet access, but it still has a force in newsgroup dynamics. Another way oppression is viewed is that although it might have given birth to hip-hop, it no longer is limited to it or defined by it. Members that subscribe to this view tend to support their argument with middle-class rappers like Chuck D, but this again leads to contradictions because although there have been successful wealthy rappers, there have been no successful wealthier white rappers. It is argued that even a more privileged African-American is raised with a black culture and knows the oppression of racism even if they have not experienced the oppression of poverty.

A third and more recent perspective on oppression is that it can be experienced by anyone resisting a dominant hegemony, and that furthermore, hip-hop itself can be oppressive:

I'm a white 15 year old male from suburbia and love rap the most, but I like other forms of music as well. The black people at my school think its cool that I listen to rap. They do not consider me a wigger, because I do not want to be black, just as black people do not want to be white. I do not sag my pants or hang around with just black or white people. I try to diversify myself. I ask what is wrong with this? Why should I be persecuted for listening to a genre of music that is sung by African-Americans? To me this is not fair and this type of thinking should not go on (dpg, 11/20/96).

Isn't hip-hop NOT owned by the suburban/inner-city Afro-American, but the white upper-class society (i.e. politicians)? THEY are the ones that dictate the rules of American society, they are the ones that provide the background (i.e. bringing slaves over, discriminating, etc.) for the hip-hop scene. So, if we would take them away and have "Love, Peace, and Togetherness," hip-hop wouldn't exist? If hip-hop then would vanish, it wouldn't have had anything to do with "the American system," but with oppression, self-pride and social degradation-- THAT'S A WORLDWIDE PROBLEM! Ain't it so that no one OWNS hip-hop, but hip-hop owns its followers?! As a European hip-hop fan, you usually get put down by US followers-- That makes us oppressed by the oppressed! So in that sense, ain't we more "real" hip-hoppers? :-) (Broadcaster, 1/15/96).

Not only are they suggesting that hip-hop has the ability to "persecute", but the latter poster is also saying that because they are subordinate to hip-hop's hegemonic force, they have a connection with hip-hop's oppressive roots. Thus, we see many ways in which different newsgroup members struggle to claim oppression in order to connect with hip-hop's social and cultural body and context. What is more, they do this by asserting their own specific, personal and thus expressive experience. This gets us back to the members' contradictory relationship to expression in that they privilege both personally reflective expression and hip-hop's "authentic" body. "True" headz are supposed to physically express themselves without fronting, regardless of race or class, and yet if someone is not from hip-hop's ideological cultural context, then he or she would still be labeled as alternative or outside.

These contradictions are inevitable when one considers what these youth are looking for in hip-hop. Its gestures, style, posture and body signify a hip and raw power for many youth. Although many youth are simply seeking symbols of power, we have seen that most of the newsgroup members are searching for an authenticity behind these signifiers. By constantly defining and contesting what constitutes oppression and expression, these youth are struggling to consolidate their need for something "real" with their equal need for inclusion. Ironically, if they were easily included, then their mere presence would mean that the authenticity they were seeking would be less real. They want an identity, inclusion, and an individuality that won't compromise each other or the authenticity they are seeking. They search for something solid in this evasive and intangible space, agreeing that physical bodies and inner-city streets are necessary for hip-hop, but waging their own claims on to legitimacy on the Internet just the same.

Although these contradictions create a seemingly endless struggle, I would also like to propose that perhaps this is a step forward. The Internet newsgroups facilitate a public discourse that brings different races from different backgrounds together. Some of the unbreachable physical distance has an avenue to be broken down so that perspectives are shared, people are schooled and better understandings are being reached. Its messy, but ideologies are being pulled and pushed in ways that are not possible in America's larger segregated society. However, this forum's structure also necessarily changes many of the physical and spatial conditions that are at the core of much of so much of America's problems with racism and classism. The Internet removes its participants from the harshness of the streets and provides a safe space to non threateningly discuss physically and visually loaded issues. Some might see this as positive, but just like a suburbanite buying a rap album and feel like he is doing his part to learn about racial relations, there is a potential for people to isolate themselves from the hardship of real and life-changing confrontations.

We are thus again left with complex and contradictory relationships that struggle with impossible ideologies. Internet newsgroup members can not offer any clear or coherent answers to these conflicts, but they can help map out some of the "wars of position" inherent in hip-hop's battlefield. Like Nairobi youth, they show relationships that speak to real "cultural struggles with difference" while they simultaneously fall back into familiar patterns of hierarchy and domination. Hopefully this kind of examination will encourage people to identify these spaces of change and use them to make difference in social and cultural relationships.

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