I understand and appreciate the way Jeff Rice describes a pedagogy that focuses on ka-knowledge and explicates “a different method of forming ideas and presenting ideas” (p. 277). Still, something Rice wrote when he was describing “the mix” got me thinking of other ways that hip-hop is related to the social. Upon arguing that the point of the mix is to juxtapose styles and open up new discourses, Rice claims “what is often forgotten in discussions of hip-hop is the rhetorical gesture of showing off, a move essential for enacting the mix in the first place. This showing off is not a gesture to demonstrate expertise nor is it egotistical” (p. 274).
Rice might be talking about the art of sampling and borrowing from other genres of music, but there are clearly other elements of hip-hop that could indeed be considered egotistical. Hip-hop is typically a male-dominated space, and so masculinity is a distinct characteristic of this type of music. According to Trujillo (1991) occupational achievement is a key component of hegemonic masculinity. This can be seen in the efforts of many rappers to explain why they are the best in their chosen business. According to Billboard.com, the number one Rap Track in the country is called “This is Why I’m Hot” by Mims. The song’s title basically explains it all – lyrically, Mims provides a plethora of reasons for why he is hot and you are not. Personally, I was most convinced when he tells me “I’m hot ‘cause I’m fly.” Anyway, I’d give other examples of the tendency of rappers to get a bit braggadocios, but I think it’s something with which most people are familiar.
But let’s say that this self-promotional quality of hip-hop stems from the tradition of battle-rap. Surely, this is a good example of invention as a social act. Sure, each party is trying to one-up their competitor, but they are certainly feeding off of one another and directly referencing each other’s prior utterances. The result, in many cases, is likely much more interesting than the work of just one person rhyming by themselves. In short, reality is being constructed through the efforts of a collective.
Rice quotes from a variety of hip-hop artists, some of which are part of groups, and others who perform as individuals. Clearly, the social is an important component of the work produced by collectives such as the Beastie Boys and the Wu-Tang Clan. According to Invention as a Social Act, the social must also be a necessary component of the songs created by individual artists such as Notorious B.I.G. and Mos Def. I’d be really interested in comparing the creative process, as well as the actual products of artists that operate as a collective to those who at least claim to be individuals.
In summary, Rice’s project was not necessarily to talk about the role of invention and the social in hip-hop, but clearly there are ways in which the social is responsible for hip-hop. Among the best evidence of this might be hip-hop’s origins, which rest within particular communities, and not the actions of individual actors.
Trujillo, N. (1991). Hegemonic masculinity on the mound: Media representations of Nolan Ryan and American sports culture. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8(3), 290-309.
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8 comments:
In your last "in summary" paragraph, it seems like you're saying hiphop=social. Maybe it's my outoftouchedness with this particular music movement, but isn't EVERY musical piece social in this same way?
I mean, you certainly have the "ecologies" that hiphop brings in...where the influence of the social shows up in the lyrics/mixes. You also, in early country music, have the call and response (eg. the rap battle)...and the idea of foundsound and sampling isn't particular to this style in my mind either...uhm, Beatles...
I guess I'm just having some issues with pinning down what this view (and its focus on the hiphop) does for us....maybe I'm just bitter though.
The sampling in hip hop is interesting too because of copyright laws (I'm thinking specifically of how Vanilla Ice got in trouble for using the beat from David Bowie's "Under Pressure".) Does the "social" nature of things depend upon people's willingness to share??
Awesome comment by Mark, and awesome responses. Rice's article has been getting me thinking, too, about whether or not hiphop is a revolutionary rhetorical form. Aaron's questions inspire the thought that hiphop is colliding social aspects of other musics, and may be more social because of how it borrows.
Faith's thought about sampling makes me think about contemporary hiphop, which relies less overtly on sampling than it did pre-Vanilla Ice, because of exactly those legal issues, but still collages sounds from a variety of settings and genres--it seems like the sampling has evolved into a heteroglossic effect, that doesn't necessarily draw on many outside sources, but strives to make us feel that it does. Is that social?
Aaron was trying to denigrate the hiphop, because he's elitist. Thanks for the awesomeness attribution though.
I guess my thinking is that, no, it's not revolutionary, although it is popular currently. Certainly I would throw Beck in the mix as well, although I certainly wouldn't pigeonhole him into the hiphop bin at walmart. (get it?, i said "in the mix"..metametameta...)
To be more clear, though, I'm thinking of some of the Beatles' collage-y pieces, from Magical Mystery Tour or Sgt. Pepper's, where you have multiple samples, outside sounds, etc going on...maybe I'm way off base..or old.
It was Queen's "under pressure", if I'm not mistaken.
It was a collaboration (!) between Bowie and Queen.
RIGHT!
perhaps a concatenation, even. And with less than 2 degrees I can get you to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.;)
I listen to quite a bit of hip-hop, so when Rice commented that "showing off is not a gesture to demonstrate expertise nor is it egotistical," I wrote in the margin, "Yes it is!" Or at least it partly is. Rice's intellectualizing doesn't quite work. Hip-hop, especially male-composed hip-hop, embraces the ego. Rice is right to say that this "showing off" is a brave, aggressive move, but it's also an ego show. Case in point: the "showing off" is much more prominent among male hip-hop artists than female hip-hop artists.
I wrote the exact same thing in the margins that David did about Rice's comment about hip-hop not "showing off", and for the same reasons that Mark describes. More to the point of Mark's post, though, I think Rice actually neglects sampling and mixing as techniques, per se, for reasons I kind of touch on in my own post--but the upshot is that I think he starts his "interrogation" of hip-hop rap way too late in the game for what he's trying to do in connecting these forms to McLuhan/Ong (and, I would argue, Lyotard). Backing up the history to the so-called "first wave" of hip-hop that started when Afrika Bambaataa first borrowed the term from a fellow DJ to describe what he was doing in emulating electronic groups like Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra (quickly thereafter you had "Rapper's Delight" in 1979 and Blondie's "Rapture" in 1980, which brought rapping off the streets and to the listening public). This is a huge missing piece in my opinion, one that would serve to bridge the divide between the theoretical groundwork Rice tries to lay in the first part and the lyrics-driven analysis he works in along the rest of the way). I know Rice talks about sampling and mixing, but it has a presentist quality that, again, neglects the historical underpinnings that actually could help his case.
P.S. The Beastie Boys song he uses--"The Sounds of Science"--actually samples the Beatles quite conspicuously.
P.P.S. For an arguably even better lesson on the hazards of sampling than the cultural train wreck that is Vanilla Ice--and also how other forms of music beside hip hop use these techniques--you may recall how The Verve lost all of the profits from and control over their (hugely successful) "Bittersweet Symphony" single to the Rolling Stones because the song uses the Andrew Oldham Orchestra's recording of the Stones' "The Last Time" (1965) as its foundation.
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