White Rapper/Black Beats: Discovering a Race Problem in the Music of Gabriel o Pensador

Abstract

From its roots in the West African griot tradition, slave call-and-response songs, soul, gospel, and disco music, through interactions at the cutting edge of technology, rap music has gained huge commercial and popular success world-wide. Rap, the combination of rhythmically delivered rhymes ("MC-ing") with variously adapted pre-recorded sounds ("DJ-ing") has risen from the Bronx ghetto to become a symbol of Black protest and economic power and has been adopted in many countries globally as a method of cultural expression. 3 Rap music represents one element of a larger movement, hip hop, which consists of graffiti, break dancing (a mechanical and precise dance style to accompany rap music), b-style (the appropriate clothing and "attitude"), DJ-ing, MC-ing and beat-box (vocal imitation of percussive sounds), among others. Although essentially an Afro-American form, rap's commercial success demonstrates a penetration into White middle- and upper-class sectors of society, both inside and outside of the United States, and its hybrid and neologous form has benefited from the influence of White and Hispanic artists and entrepreneurs. Thus, rap becomes an intriguing subject of study for those with an interest in race, racial oppression and its resistance. Furthermore, the case of a White, middle-class rap artist highlighting problems of racism [End Page 159] within the complex socio-political environment of urban Brazil provides a fascinating case study for examining the appropriation and use of modes of cultural expression.