Like many of the sights and sounds associated with Hurricane
Katrina and its aftermath, Kanye West’s bold proclamation at
a relief telethon that President George W. Bush
“doesn’t care about black people” was viewed
through numerous lenses. Some concurred with his statement, while
others vehemently disagreed. On both sides, however, some
questioned why a man who is not only a musician, but one who makes
a living in an industry seemingly built on bling-bling, scantily
clad women and violent gangsta behavior, suddenly felt like he had
any business discussing a complex social and political issue.
According to Christina Zanfagna, a graduate student in
UCLA’s department of ethnomusicology, to dismiss artists like
Kanye West so quickly because of superficial aspects of their music
is to overlook an increasingly rich and complex musical and social
movement.
“There’s something present in hip-hop that artists
have identified called a “˜hidden transcript,’ where the
music and lyrics tell a second, underlying story that usually gets
silenced at the expense of surface material,” Zanfagna
said.
“If an artist is talking about bitches and hos in a song,
for example, there’s often a deeper story at work about
treatment of women and issues like that.”
Over the years, more and more listeners have taken notice of
these hidden transcripts, including some in the academic
community.
UCLA’s own ethnomusicology department recently added
Ethnomusicology M119, “The Cultural History of Rap.”
According to Cheryl Keyes, the professor who teaches the course as
part of her research, it is the one class that jumps out in the
catalog as being specifically about rap.
The emergence of hip-hop as an academic field will also be
discussed in a series of symposiums during UCLA’s Festival of
African-American Music, presented by the Bunche Center and the
department of ethnomusicology, from Oct. 24 to Nov. 4.
“The amazing thing (about hip-hop) that makes it worth
studying is that it’s not only a form of artistic expression
that has grown out of the souls of African Americans,” said
Keyes.
“(Hip-hop) has been celebrated and embraced by so many
youths around the world, and it is so malleable, that it’s
able to take on a sort of chameleon twist, where it can be reshaped
to speak the language in which artists would like to be
heard.”
Keyes will be speaking in multiple panels at the festival,
including one on Oct. 29 called “Identity, Gender and
Sexuality,” where she will be a moderator. As a panelist on
Oct. 29 in the “It’s All Connected” symposium,
she will discuss connections between various types of black music
and cultural movements, from the blues all the way to hip-hop.
“The fact that hip-hop is part of the academia is nothing
new, though I think that more and more, as it comes into the
university setting, it becomes more legitimized,” said
Jacqueline DjeDje, professor and chair of the ethnomusicology
department.
The issue of legitimacy with respect to hip-hop’s academic
status mainly stems from the overall content of mainstream
material, which is often viewed as simultaneously crude and
misogynistic, glorifying criminal lifestyles such as prostitution
and drug dealing.
“Some of the material may be offensive, but this reaction
really depends on how you use music: Is it sonic wallpaper or
something you’re an active participant in and can engage in a
dialogue with?” Zanfagna said.
“It also helps to be aware of context. Specifically, who
is saying these things and why? What is the history of oppression
that these people have experienced to make them say these
things?”
There is no questioning that black culture in America has been
molded and affected by oppression, beginning with hundreds of years
of slavery and living on today in racial and social tensions,
including those brought to the forefront by Hurricane Katrina.
In many ways, though, oppression has given birth to an evolution
of culture, rather than stifling creativity.
“Slaves in America weren’t allowed to play conga
drums like they could in Africa,” said Ben Caldwell, who is
producing the Festival of African-American Music’s Hip-Hop
Night on Nov. 4.
“Not being able to play conga drums led to other
developments, like kids turning over plant boxes and coffee cans
and creating their own rhythms out of that. It shows a wonderful
strength of humanity, specifically that you can’t silence
thousands of years of tradition in 500 years of
oppression.”
Along the same lines, Keyes noted that the course she teaches is
called “The Cultural History of Rap,” not “The
Cultural History of Rap Music,” which she feels is a vital
distinction.
“Rap was a way of speaking before it was music, and by
seeing that distinction in the course title, people can immediately
see that the course is more culturally based, which is an element
of hip-hop that usually is not discussed in an academic
setting,” Keyes said.
“Some academics don’t come at (hip-hop) from that
angle of looking at the convergence of black verbal art and
music.”
Ultimately, the hope is that the continued study of hip-hop and
its gradual acceptance as an academic field will help listeners to
not only appreciate the music, but also to gain a more coherent
understanding of black culture.
Caldwell, Keyes and Zanfagna all echoed similar sentiments that
hip-hop is a way of, in the words of Caldwell, “getting an
entrée” to a larger culture, and serves as a jumping-off
point to understand the entire experience of black culture.
“If you look at jazz now, (it is) considered to be
America’s music, and everyone accepts it, but the same thing
that hip-hop is going through today, jazz went through in the early
20th century,” DjeDje said.
“People thought that perhaps the culture where it came
from was not a culture that they wanted to be associated with and
was atypical of whatever the norm was, but now it’s totally
different. And I think hip-hop will go through the same
thing.”
Beyond acceptance, Keyes said she hopes that by teaching about
the cultural and musical synthesis of hip-hop, students and
listeners will be able to better understand where the music comes
from and what it’s trying to say.
“KRS-One said once that rap is something you do, and
hip-hop is something you live, and I strongly agree with that
statement,” Keyes said.