Daniel Pewewardy
4-16-2008
How Hip Hop Music Functions as Cultural Preformativity
Grouping is a key factor in what makes up the cultural self. As a person, we define our selves into various categories. Everyday our actions define us not just who we are but what various groups we belong to, for example “John” is not just “John”; he is “John the man”, or “John the black man”. These groupings are the foundations for which the self is composed of. These various groups entail the categories on which self definition becomes possible. When one aligns themselves with a group, they are presented with the options that go along with these groups in which they can accept or decline or take from other groups so to construct the various features that belong to an authentic self. This paper will look at how racial and gender performatvity take part in these groupings, specifically how Preformativity functions in hip-hop culture. It will also show how the construction of racial grouping is becoming blurred and redefined in contemporized society by primarily focusing on the works of Saul Williams in his book “The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop”
One of the factors of the self and how one ’s self is composed is the way in which are self is reflected on the outside world. In the outside world, one ’s self is made up of many factors which help identify in relation to its place in the outside world. These groupings include gender, sex, class, religion or any factor that society uses to categorize people. One of the main factors that help make up identity is “the body” the various definite features that make up one’s physical self. These physical attributes include skin color, hair color, sexual anatomy and any other various distinguishing feature that makes up one’s physical form. With these physical characteristics, “the body” is assigned to various groups such as sex and ethnicity. These groups which identify people based on physical attributes are inherently tied to other groups that are more tied to internal functions of the self rather than the external functions of “the body”. For example, the physical determining factors of sex are in close relation to the cultural actions that one portrays through their gender. For most, these dichotomies are interrelated, for example one who finds themselves with the sexual anatomy of a woman will often perform the social and cultural functions that are used that define the gender of a woman. In “Gender Troubles” Judith Butler finds the ideas of interrelations between gender and sex problematic, she questions this notion by stating, “Is “the body” or “the sexed body” the firm foundation on which gender and systems of compulsory sexuality operate? Or is “the body” itself shaped by political forces with strategic interest in keeping that body bounded and constituted by markers of sex?”(2491). Butler finds that the two groups are separate and while sex is made up of the physical appearance of “the body”, she finds that gender is composed up of acts and rituals that one performs on a daily basis, she states, “In other words acts gestures, and desire produce the effect of an internal core or substance, but produce this on the surface of the body” (2497). She defines these acts through repetition as performatvity and the defining actions of what makes up gender.
Preformativity, however, does not only pertain to defining gender, is it possible that performatvity pertains to what makes up race as well? For example, the self while restricted to the physical traits of “the body”, will act and perform the cultural functions of race. Racial performatvity seems to go further than the stakes present in the Preformativity of gender. Where the performatvity of gender seems to be cut and dry is where one depicts themselves as man or as woman. There seems to be various types and degrees where one’s self could perform as race. Racial performatvity often times finds it self tied to class more than anything; in Johnsons article “The Pot Is Brewing” he discusses the ways in which black racial identity is divided up by the various degrees of class. Johnson states,
Class represents a significant axis and divisiveness within the black communities. Despite Stuart Halls’ assertion that “black” is not the exclusive property of any particular social or any single discourse” and that “it has no necessary class belonging”, there are those who trudge forward carrying the class car they believe guarantees their membership in authentic blackness. As Martin Favor persuasively argues “authentic” blackness is most associated with the “folk” or working-class black. Moreover, art forms such as folklore and the blues that are associated with the black working class are also viewed as more genuinely black (Johnson 22).
While this passage of Johnson’s article seems to be focused on the idea of “authentic blackness” in relation to class, it goes without saying that Johnson feels that certain performative functions are at play here. Over the last decades it seems that hip hop culture which includes various forms of expression such as rapping, break dancing, turtablism, and graffiti have become key signifiers in black identity. Black culture has become a culture of Preformativity through hip-hop, and its not just through the music. The hip hop influence can be seen in every facsimile of consumer culture aimed at the black community from clothing companies such as Rocawear, which is owned by rap artists Jay-Z to marketing campaigns from global corporations such as McDonalds with their “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign. As rap music and other mainstays of the hip-hop culture spread through the global community, and with the infusion of rappers from various ethnic backgrounds, it becomes apparent that as much as hip-hop culture is tied to ideas of black identity, hip-hop culture itself stands alone as a culture of its very own.
In “The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop” Poet Saul Williams discusses how hip-hop is tied to his cultural and racial identity as well as his identity as a performing artist,
Well actually my love of poetry didn’t happen because I grew up reading poetry but because I grew up with very strong doses of hop-hop and that is the poetry that shaped me and molded me. Through hip-hop I gained my biggest appreciation of my self and my culture. Hip-hop made me proud to be black in ways my parents could never do by forcing me to read a Langston Hughes poem (Williams XII).
In “The Dead Emcee Scrolls” Williams who is known mostly for his spoken word poetry, focuses his attention on the part of himself that is an emcee rather than a poet. He discusses himself as an emcee and gives credit to his creation through this form by attributing it to a specific event in his life which led to the creation of himself as an emcee. He give a fantastic account of journeying through the subways of New York in which he found several scrolls inside a paint can in which he feels is where his hip-hop persona birthed from, these manuscripts are where the title “The Dead Emcee Scrolls comes from. In the book, as he describes deciphering the texts, he questions the authorships of his own poems in relation to the found texts, he states “When asked about the poems I was careful to say that I could not claim authorship of the poems, although, I knew the implication was that I was taking the spiritually artistic approach of thinking of myself as a vessel” (Williams XXIV). Through out the book Williams seems to detach himself from hip-hop culture and feels disillusioned over its current state. It seems that Williams uses the tales of discovery and deciphering of the scrolls as a way to detach himself from the culture in which he resides. It could be seen that Williams does this so that his performative actions as an emcee and poet cannot be held accountable for their effects on the culture. However, through Williams’ book, it would seem that while he looks at the current state of hip-hop culture with pessimism, he feels that he is compelled through his functions as an emcee to save it. So the story of the scrolls gives Williams a position in the hip-hop community that comes from transformation which leads hip-hop being only a part of who Williams is rather than what he is. Williams is comfortable with looking at hip-hop culture as something separate from him but something that he is still apart of, and its through Performative actions such as rapping and poetry does Williams act with in the culture.
For most of the book Williams voices pessimism over current attitudes in hip-hop culture, that he feels are misogynistic and violent. He presents himself at conflict with this as he understands hip-hop culture as a part of his heritage but his ideological views depart from the hegemonic ideas in hip-hop culture. His pessimism shows in a passage where he states,
The growing romanticism of gangsterism and heartless pimpery had left me somewhat confused and more than a little angry. It felt like hip-hop was further off course than it had ever been. The have-nots of the African American ghettos has seemingly bough into the heartless capitalism ideals that had originally been responsible for busying them as slaves. It felt hopeless. Hip-hop was dead. Misogyny and ignorance prevailed (XXVII).
In this passage, Williams discusses the turns that hip-hop has taken as over the last few centuries; his ideals on what hip-hop should be are retrospective, feeling that current course is a departure from the culture he identifies with. The masculine and misogynistic tendencies that Williams discusses can be seen as not only prominent in hip-hop culture but black culture as well. Johnson discusses what bell hooks calls “A Dick Thang”. hooks states in the piece, “When we translate the history of black oppression sexually, especially through the writings of George Jackson and Eldridge Cleaver, it’s all sexualized into emasculation and castration. So the reclamation of the black race gets translated into ‘it’s a dick thang’. That’s why I’m fond of saying that if the black thang is really a dick thang in disguise, then we are really in trouble” (Johnson 32).
If hip-hop culture as well as hegemonic ideals in black culture seemed to be tied to ideas of overt masculinity, how does one who does no share these ideas function within these cultures? Williams seems to constantly question his position as a self that identifies with the culture but is at odds with its dominant ideology. In his book he discusses a plane trip where he met Hype Williams. He discusses his position in the hip-hop community in relation to other rappers who fall more into the notion of a more masculine cultural identity, “The pilot has just announced that we are at 10,000 feet and that the movie will be Cats & Dogs. Funny. This makes me think of the magazine cover I just read that says “DMX: Hip-Hop’s Hardest Rapper….If I were to figure into the rap equation I’d probably be the softest. To most dogs I’m probably a pussy” (Williams 169)
What Williams presents is an idea that through performative functions one can identify themselves within a social grouping, but the problem that exists is whether separate ideological functions through these performances can exist with in the same culture. In modern society there seems to be splits within racial identity, what makes ones race seems to be tied to several inherent variables, including class, gender, and political identity. Williams presents himself as a black male in the hip-hop community, but one who seems to be ideologically against the norm. Much like how Johnson discusses the uniqueness of blackness, what Williams presents is an idea of uniqueness in hip-hop culture.
Work Cited
Williams, Saul. The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop. New York: Pocket Books, 2005.
Johnson, Patrick. Appropriating Blackness.
Butler , Judith. Gender Trouble .
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