Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races/We under I wonder what it takes to make this/one better place, let's erase the wasted/it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other."
- Tupac, "Changes"
I am writing on this delicate topic to highlight the distinction and subtlety of the ideas of race and culture. These large and abstract concepts grew to become very personal for me during this semester. The way I encountered them was similar every time. Either a person from a given culture attempted to both start and end the discussion by attacking my character and asserting that his membership qualified as grounds to discredit the opinion of a non-member, or I enjoyed a positive exchange in which both parties remained on equal and respected ground. I have had this type of interaction about food, music, and lifestyles. Further examples advance my discussion of a distinction between cultural identification and preservation, on the one hand, and cultural ownership and reification on the other.
Hip-hop: This art-form and culture may have distinct roots from certain cultural experiences, but the lyrics, beat, and overall feel of the music evoke deep sentiment in people across the world. This does not discredit the origins of the art form, or its ability to celebrate specific experiences, but it places it within the context of globalization. Eastern European youth, for example, may find this music appealing because it reflects themes relevant to their lives; these include encounters with power structures, feelings of frustration and alienation, and celebrations of the human experience, like sexuality, joy, and remorse.
As a member of EPIIC, an intensive and immersive program at Tufts whose theme this year was sovereignty and intervention, I explored the degree to which hip-hop music and culture has risen to become a global phenomena. This culminated in researching a Native American rapper who discussed both current and historical themes through the medium of hip-hop. In this instance, the rapper, Litefoot, harnessed this folk-art form to express his own culture; as such, he used the global to communicate the local. The result was a recording label that presented the traditional Native American themes within a hip-hop context.
The group Spearhead is another example of hip-hop's being combined with other styles of music, once spatially and temporally associated with funk. They use a rap/jazz fusion to express political and social messages. The lead singer, Michael Franti, is a testament to the expanding hip-hop form, defying ways in which people have attempted to culturally appropriate it. As an African American adopted by a white couple, Franti's diverse background creates a varied and dynamic story in which to express his material to all those who feel the music.
Tupac Shakur is an example of hip-hop icon and folk hero who exemplifies a defiance of cultural appropriating hip-hop. While his name is inseparably linked with the West Coast, Tupac was born in Brooklyn and spent much of his youth studying in Baltimore. This illustrates the defiance of cultural appropriation in that the symbol of West Coast rap becomes so, not by being from the West Coast, but rather by being received as legitimately West Coast.
At a conference on Tupac, hosted by the Hip Hop Archives and Harvard University, scholars and commentators discussed Tupac, illustrating his diverse legacy. Tupac transcends simple appellations of an artist, thug-intellectual, and compassionate misogynist; he is something bigger, someone that, while rising out of a particular time, is timeless. He became a modern folk hero.
I was extremely fascinated to watch the way in which one feminist scholar used the symbol of Tupac as an archetype of folk hero and of masculinity. Many of Tupac's lyrics treat women with contempt; his insight and his insidiousness was to her both disease and cure. This fits well into the overarching argument. Tupac's ability to maneuver between many identities - thug-intellectual, monogamous pimp, violent peacemaker - underscores the futility of confining Tupac to a particular legacy or tradition. As a folk hero operating in the folk form, Tupac illustrates how this mode of expression possesses
universal relevance.
This emphasizes the importance of context and culture. The aforementioned examples suggest that if someone rises from a certain tradition it does not necessarily restrict their legitimacy in others. But what does this do to expectations of race and culture? Considering that hip-hop is as much a lifestyle as it is a mode of expression, to what degree do we lend legitimacy to people wearing certain types of clothing? Style, in many ways, is that which defies necessity. Should we be at all surprised that do-rags are worn without function, or that people wear Timbs in the middle of the summer? Are there socio-economic or geographic prerequisites to legitimately sport certain styles? To what extent does the hip-hop lifestyle belong to one particular group, and, as such, to what extent should it be preserved and nourished?
This sort of cultural appropriation warrants numerous counter-examples. Most notably, Eminem is perhaps the most successful artist and producer of 50 Cent. Eminem frequently likens himself to Elvis Presley, wearing do-rags that serve not function but style, and crosses into the mainstream markets with Oscar in hand and the number one spot on Top 40, heavy metal, and hip-hop charts. He introduced a style to the world and an attitude many embrace regardless of their backgrounds. His efforts underscore major advances in the globalization of hip-hop in which people from areas other than East and West Coast can appreciate and emulate an art form that has deep resonance for them.
I recently witnessed the phenomenon firsthand in Honduras and Belize, where children wore Timbs and Celtics jerseys and young men tried to hustle me burned 50 Cent CDs. While this may not be the essence of hip-hop or its style, it is one aspect of its global manifestation. Hip-hop has long since gone global, and the effort to confine and to label the authentic people by reason of their not being from a certain area or having a certain background undermines the art-form and belies the spirit of music as narrative, relevant to all cultures.
I understand the importance of preserving and celebrating culture; however, I question the methods people use to claim traditions and declare themselves sole authentic guardians of those traditions. I held a Passover Seder at my house in which I tried to accommodate the viewpoints of the nine non-Jewish guests and one other Jewish guest. The Seder included a balance of the traditional and the non-traditional.
While we explained the significance of many of the traditional aspects, including the language and the meaning of the Seder plate, we also incorporated a variety of other symbols and figures including Fredrick Douglass and Gandhi, whose life and work reflects the beliefs in freedom and human dignity that Passover celebrates. In this way, we celebrate Passover both as a universal folk-tale, freedom store, and also as a specific moment celebrated within the context of one
tradition.
Similar questions arise from examining hip hop. Hip hop is an art form that often describes particular stories resulting from shared experiences unique to certain perspectives, but, on the other hand, it transcends experience and particular culture by becoming global and by speaking to certain universal truths and feelings. While this should not undermine hip-hop's ability to express unique and local truths, it has become a medium of folk-narrative, and as such, can be translated into a variety of cultures and languages, along with other great works in the canon of Eastern and Western traditions.
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