Jay Z‘s comments about hip-hop and race, made during the filming of an upcoming episode of Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Master Class‘, have raised eyebrows and skepticism. Seeing as he’s probably the most visible and well-known rapper in the world, it should come as no surprise that his comments on race have been heavily scrutinized.
From what I’ve read, the general consensus is that his comments are way off-base. In fact, there have been very good arguments presented as to why his comments don’t make much sense. Some people believe that appreciation and appropriation of Black culture doesn’t equate into an affinity for Black people, especially seeing how many people like Bieber, Iggy, Timberlake and others have no problem performing “Black” music, but show little support for causes like #BlackLivesMatter. Even the argument that rappers may do more to distort the image of Black people also has some truth to it as well.
But here’s the problem with most of those comments: Not only do they incorrectly conflate hip-hop culture and commercial rap as being the same thing, but they also ignore the greater global, cultural aspect. It’s also very interesting that most of the people who disagree with Jay-Z are applying a white, American lens on a culture that is more far ranging than the United States, and has unified far more than just white people.
Like anyone who loved, lived and breathed hip-hop in the early-to-mid 90’s, The Source magazine was the gospel to me. The brilliance of the magazine was the fact that it was steeped in the four major aspects of hip-hop: Rapping (obviously), dj’ing, breaking and graffiti. Today, hip-hop and rap have become interchangeable terms, but there was a time when hip-hop referred to the all-encompassing culture, and rap was just a specific element of it. Around ’95, I read an article in the magazine where they ran a feature showing how other cultures appreciated our culture (without appropriating it) in their own specific ways, all the way from Japan to Germany. Since major media wasn’t covering hip-hop in any positive lights and social media didn’t exist, there was no way (save for visiting those places) that I could have known that they had such intense and authentic scenes out there. It was absolutely amazing to see these kids deeply, culturally embroiled in hip-hop. It wasn’t a passing fancy, or just music they listened to on their cassettes, it was apart of their lives, just as much as any kid growing up in New York. They were dj’ing, breakdancing, wearing and creating hip-hop fashion and representing the culture better than many Americans.
The brilliance of our artists and the music they created not only gave birth to Black American intellectuals like Ta-nehisi Coates who once wrote:
Hip-hop has produced some of the most penetrating art of our time, and inspired much more. My path to this space began with me aspiring to be a rapper. Hip-hop taught me to love literature. I am not alone. Perhaps you should not aspire to be a rapper because it generally does not provide a stable income. By that standard you should not aspire to be a writer, either.
Hip-hop has also been the soundtrack to intellectuals and revolutionaries continents away. Maajid Nawaz, co-founder and chairman of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank, was a Pakistani kid growing up in Britain who listened to N.W.A. and Public Enemy for their messages of anti-police brutality and overthrowing a corrupt political system. And he is not unique in the sense that he found real life value in the same raps being spit by emcees from a land he’s never even visited before.
Take a step back and look at the world through a multiracial lens (not just white and Black), and then tell me what music has had a bigger impact on improving race relations than hip-hop? Rock and country are still devoid of many Black faces, jazz is unimportant to Generation X’ers and millennials, and R&B doesn’t even nearly the amount of cultural significance as rap. The only music that comes close is reggae music in terms of creating strong cultural experiences all over the world, but it’s simply not as big as rap is.
When Puff Daddy (yes, I still call him that) was hitting his stride with building the Bad Boy Empire, he ushered in an era of commercial rap that created a significant civil war within the hip-hop community. Although Puffy didn’t give birth to that dreaded beast, he raised it to the point that it damn near devoured the hip-hop community. In America, as Nas once famously said, hip-hop is dead. But, interestingly enough, the essence of the culture still lives on outside of the United States. That’s how you can get a group of Japanese boys to team up with Kanye West and make songs about how they still love H.E.R. (an ode to Common’s song about loving the authentic and non-commercialized version of hip-hop).
Hip-hop’s global collective impact on bringing people of all-races together should not be wholly evaluated by whether or not a white girl in Orange County says “nigger” when rapping along to a Nicki Minaj song. Hip-hop’s influence on race relations shouldn’t be wholly judged on the problematic and troubling opinions held by many white Americans, despite their love for Snoop Dogg or Wiz Khalifa. To do that, you must explicitly ignore Jay-Z’s point about how people of ALL races, around the world, have come together through their love of the music.
Of course, loving hip-hop does not immediately remove one’s prejudices, but it’s important to also note that Jay-Z said that hip-hop has done MORE than most cultural icons, and depending on who you define as a cultural icon, he is absolutely correct. You can love or hate the reasons why that is true, but no matter how much you may want it to be different, it doesn’t change what it is. While I love the writing of James Baldwin, the bravery of Thurgood Marshall, the fierceness of Assata Shakur and the wisdom of Fred Hampton, their impact is not as pervasive and far-reaching as rap artists. Truthfully, I wish it was, but the context to even truthfully communicate their stories to the mass public is still ripe with extreme difficulties. Trying to teach kids the real story about Assata Shakur is damn near impossible because the government of the United States of America is intent on framing her as a cop-killing fugitive. But, interestingly enough, when Common wrote “A Song for Assata” on his 2000 album, “Like Water For Chocolate” he exposed many in the global community to her true story, since there are few very media outlets and schools who would.
The only piece of advice I can give anyone who disagrees with Jay-Z is this: Get a passport, link with the Nomadness travel tribe or TravelNoire, and see as much of the world as you possibly can. When you do, you may just learn that Jay-Z is incredibly correct in saying, “we’re more alike than we’re separate.” Hip-hop hasn’t ended racism, because it’s alive and well today, but if you believe that a world without hip-hop would have the little racially harmony that we have achieved amongst people in these generations, you’re simply incorrect.
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Lincoln Anthony Blades blogs daily on his site ThisIsYourConscience.com, he’s an author of the book “You’re Not A Victim, You’re A Volunteer” and a weekly contributor for UPTOWN Magazine. He can be reached via Twitter @lincolnablades and on Facebook at This Is Your Conscience.
