Oppositional Consciousness within an Oppositional Realm: The Case of Feminism and Womanism in Rap and Hip Hop, 1976-2004

Abstract

Hip Hop is an oppositional cultural realm rooted in the socio-political and historical experiences and consciousness of economically disadvantaged urban black youth of the late 20th century. (1) By numerous accounts, Hip Hop originated in the South Bronx section of New York City during the mid-1970s from a confluence of factors, including ethnic dislocations spurred by the construction of the South Bronx highway, and a rapid decline in municipal services induced by severe cuts in federal funding at the end of the Great Society era. The local job loss and worker obsolescence precipitated by the national shift from an industrial to a service, information, and finance economy generated an artistically productive crossroads of lack and desire that ultimately gave birth to the culture known as Hip Hop. (2) Tricia Rose has characterized this time and place as an intersection of alienation, prophetic imagination, and yearning where postindustrial conditions, technological innovations, and Afrodiasporic cultural frames and priorities came together to produce the techno-black cultural syncretism known as rap music. (3) Braiding strands of protest and pleasure together into a seamless flow, rap initially expressed both gleeful and aggressive views of survival, social critique, and revelry to neighborhood audiences comprised primarily of African American and Latino youth. (4) Over time, however, and due in part to signal shifts in both commercial culture and the mass media, rap's audience grew beyond the bounds of neighborhood to encompass first the larger city of New York, later the nation (emerging first in a variety of regional flavors, then becoming regionally syncretized), and ultimately the globe. Today, Hip Hop culture, which encompasses not only rap music and videos but also particular forms of dress, dance, language, and attitude has been described as the new global cultural dominant. One thing that has not changed about Hip Hop, however, is that it continues to represent the voices and visions of the culturally, politically, and economically marginal and disenfranchised. Even as Hip Hop becomes global, its perspective is still centered in the experiences of the underdogs and it still expresses the cultural flair of African American and Latino people. Women have been integral to the evolution of Hip Hop culture, especially rap music, since the beginning. (5) Yet, historical accounts and critical analyses of the Hip Hop phenomenon have tended to downplay the contributions of women. Women have played pivotal roles as artists, writers, performers, producers, and industry executives. Women have influenced rap style and technique, ultimately shaping aesthetic standards and technological practices utilized by both women and men. Nevertheless, certain facts remain undeniable. First, men have outnumbered women in both the artistic arena and the corporate end of Hip Hop. Male rappers have outnumbered female rappers and male industry leaders have outnumbered female industry operatives. The production pipeline, from writers and performers to producers and executives, has effectively functioned like a modified old boys' club, hampering women's entry and ascent to power within the industry in ways both subtle and overt. Now that Hip Hop has expanded beyond music into video production, clothing design, and other lifestyle enhancement domains, the processes impeding women's participation and power-sharing have only become more widespread. Second, a masculinist discursive strand is clearly identifiable in both rap music and its parent culture, Hip Hop. (6) The numerical preponderance of men, combined with pre-existing masculinist scripts and sexist practices in virtually all occupational and commercial realms as well as the society at large, has ensured the greater visibility of men's prerogatives and perspectives relative to women's in both rap music and Hip Hop. Due largely to masculinist biases already in place in the domains of advertising and news reporting, the public face of both Hip Hop and rap is masculine and the mainstream discourse of rap as Hip Hop's mouthpiece is masculine. …