"Fear of a Black Planet": Rap Music and Black Cultural Politics in the 1990s

Abstract

Popular wisdom regarding rap's (or Hip Hop's) development sustains that rap was not always political. It began as an apolitical party music with limited social relevance. For many observers, the advent of the group Public Enemy (PE) marked the emergence of rap as a cultural form; PE as a point of enlightenment, as it were. The success of their A Nation of Millions (1988), ushered in a new rap aesthetic: gold chains are out, African medallions in; pride in oneself is pride in Black unity. Rap fans still believe in the power of boomin' systems and gettin' funky, but they have attended to PE rapper Chuck D's advice to move somethin' and own somethin', too. Clearly, Public Enemy marked a significant break in rap's dominant discursive terrain. Prior to the emergence of group members Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, Professor Griff, and the S1-Ws, party-oriented funkateers like Run DMC, The Fat Boys, and Whodini dominated the commercial rap scene. Even Run DMC's frustrated and renunciatory 1983 hit It's Like That is a far cry from Public Enemy's resistive and emancipatory 1989 anthem Fight the Power. Lyrically, rap's thematic territory has grown more complex and direct. Public Enemy's success opened the door to more politically and racially explicit material, some of which has made important interventions while other material seems dedicated solely to its potential sales value. While a shift in rap's articulations did take place, confining the definition of the cultural politics of rap to lyrical content addresses only the most obvious and explicit facet of the politics of Black cultural expression. To dismiss rappers who do not choose so-called political subjects as having no politically resistive meaning requires ignoring the complex web of institutional policing to which all rappers are subject. Rap's cultural politics lies not only in its lyrical expression but in the nature and character of its journey through the institutional and discursive territories of popular culture. As is the case for cultural production generally, the politics of rap involves the contestation over public space, expressive meaning, interpretation, and cultural capital. In short, it is not just what one says, it is where one can say it, how others