The Fine Art of Rap

Author(s): Richard Shusterman

Source: New Literary History, Vol. 22, No. 3, Undermining Subjects (Summer, 1991), pp. 613-632

Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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 The Fine Artof Rap
Richard Shusterman

... rapt Poesy,

And arts,though unimagined,yetto be.
Shelley,Prometheus
Unbound

N THE VIEW of both the culturallyelite and the so-called general

public, rap music lurks in the underworld of aesthetic respect-
ability.Though it is today's "fastestgrowing genre of popular
music,"' its claim to artisticstatus has been drowned under a flood
of abusive critique. Rap has not only sufferedmoral and aesthetic
condemnationsbut also organized censorship,blacklists,arrests,and
the police-enforcedstopping of concerts.2Moreover, on a different
level of cultural combat, we find attemptsto dilute and undermine
rap's ethnic and political contentby encouraging and exploitingits
most bland, "sanitized," and commercialized forms. None of this
should be surprising.For rap's cultural roots and prime following
belong to the black underclass of American society;and its militant
black pride and thematizingof the ghetto experience represent a
threateningsiren to that society'scomplacent statusquo. The threat
is of course far more audible and urgent for the middle-browpublic
who not only interactmore closely and competitivelywith the poor
black population, but who rely on (and thus compete for) the same
mass-mediachannelsof culturaltransmission,and who have a greater
need to assert theirsociocultural(and ultimatelypolitical)superiority
over black America.3
Armed with such powerful political motives for opposing rap,
one can readily find aesthetic reasons which seem to discreditit as
a legitimateart form. Rap songs are not even sung, only spoken
or chanted. They typicallyemploy neitherlive musiciansnor original
music; the sound track is instead composed from various cuts (or
"samples") of records already made and often well known. Finally,
the lyrics seem to be crude and simple-minded,the diction sub-
standard, the rhymes raucous, repetitive,and frequentlyraunchy.
Yet, as my titlesuggests,these same lyricsinsistentlyclaim and extol
rap's status as poetry and fine art.4

New Literary
History,1991, 22: 613-632

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614 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY

In this paper I wish to examine more closely the aesthetics of

rap or "hip hop" (as the cognoscenti often call it5). Since I enjoy
this music, I have a personal stake in defending its aesthetic legit-
imacy. But the cultural issues are much wider and the aesthetic
stakes much higher. For rap, I believe, is a postmodern popular art
which challenges some of our most deeply entrenched aesthetic
conventions,conventionswhich are common not only to modernism
as an artisticstyle and ideology but to the philosophical doctrine
of modernityand its differentiationof cultural spheres. By consid-
ering rap in the context of postmodern aesthetics,I hope not only
to provide academic aestheticianswith a better understanding of
this much maligned but littlestudied genre of popular art. I also
hope to enhance our understandingof postmodernismthroughthe
concrete analysis of one of its unique cultural forms.
Postmodernismis a vexinglycomplex and contestedphenomenon,
whose aestheticconsequentlyresistsclear and unchallengeable def-
inition. Nonetheless,certain themes and stylisticfeaturesare widely
recognized as characteristicallypostmodern,which is not to say that
they cannot also be found to varying degrees in some modernist
art.6 These characteristicsinclude: recyclingappropriation rather
than unique originativecreation, the eclectic mixing of styles,the
enthusiasticembracingof the new technologyand mass culture,the
challengingof modernistnotions of aestheticautonomyand artistic
purity,and an emphasis on the localized and temporal rather than
the putativelyuniversaland eternal. Whetheror not we wish to call
these featurespostmodern,rap not only salientlyexemplifiesthem,
but often consciously highlightsand thematizesthem. Thus, even
if we reject the whole category of postmodernism,these features
are essential for understandingrap.

Appropriative Sampling
Artisticappropriation is the historical source of hip-hop music
and still remains the core of its technique and a central feature of
its aesthetic form and message. The music derives from selecting
and combining parts of prerecorded songs to produce a "new"
soundtrack. This soundtrack, produced by the DJ on a multiple
turntable, constitutesthe musical background for the rap lyrics.
These in turn are frequentlydevoted both to praising the DJ's
inimitablevirtuosityin sampling and synthesizingthe appropriated
music, and to boasting of the lyrical and rhymingpower of the
rapper (called the MC). While the rapper's vauntingself-praiseoften

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 615

highlightshis sexual desirability,commercial success, and property

assets, these signs of status are all presented as secondary to and
derivativefrom his verbal power.
Some whites may find it difficultto imagine that verbal virtuosity
is greatly appreciated in the black urban ghetto. But sociological
study reveals it is very highly valued there; while anthropological
research shows that asserting superior social status through verbal
prowess is a deeply entrenched black traditionwhich goes back to
the griotsin West Africa and which has long been sustained in the
New World through such conventionalizedverbal contestsor games
as "signifying"or "the dozens."' Failure to recognize the traditional
tropes, stylisticconventions, and constraint-producedcomplexities
of Afro-AmericanEnglish (such as semantic inversionand indirec-
tion, feigned simplicity,and covert parody-all originallydesigned
to conceal the real meaning fromhostilewhitelisteners)8has induced
the false belief that all rap lyricsare superficialand monotonous,
if not altogether moronic. But informed and sympatheticclose
reading will reveal in many rap songs not only the cleverlypotent
vernacular expression of keen insightsbut also forms of linguistic
subtletyand multiplelevels of meaning whose polysemiccomplexity,
ambiguity,and intertextuality can sometimesrival that of high art's
so-called "open work."'
Like its stylizedaggressivelyboastinglanguage, so rap's other most
salient feature-its dominant funky beat-can be traced back to
African roots, to jungle rhythmswhich were taken up by rock and
disco and then reappropriated by the rap DJs-musical cannibals
of the urban jungle. But for all its African heritage, hip hop was
born in the disco era of the mid-seventiesin the grim ghettos of
New York, firstthe Bronx, and then Harlem and Brooklyn. As it
appropriated disco sounds and techniques,it undermined and trans-
formed them, much as jazz (an earlier black art of appropriation)
had done with the melodies of popular songs. But in contrast to
jazz, hip hop did not take mere melodies or musical phrases, that
is, abstractmusical patternsexemplifiablein differentperformances
and thus bearing the ontological status of "type entities."Instead it
lifted concrete sound-events, prerecorded token performances of
such musical patterns. Thus, unlike jazz, its borrowingand trans-
figurationdid not require skill in playing musical instrumentsbut
only in manipulating recording equipment. DJs in ordinary disco
clubs had developed the technique of cutting and blending one
record into the next, matchingtempos to make a smooth transition
without violentlydisrupting the flow of dancing. Dissatisfiedwith
the tame sound of disco and commercial pop, self-styledDJs in the

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616 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY

Bronx reapplied this technique of cuttingto concentrateand aug-

ment those parts of the records which could provide for better
dancing. For them

the importantpart of the recordwas the break-the part of a tune in

whichthe drumstookover.It could be the explosiveTito Puentestyleof
Latin timbalesto be heard on JimmyCastor records; the loose funk
drummingof countless'60s soul recordsby legendslikeJamesBrownor
Dyke and the Blazers; even the foursquarebass-drum-and-snare intros
adored by heavymetaland hard rockerslikeThin Lizzyand the Rolling
Stones.That was whenthe dancersflewand DJ'sbegan cuttingbetween
the same few bars on the two turntables,
extendingthe break into an
instrumental.1
'

In short,hip hop began explicitlyas dance musicto be appreciated

through movement,not mere listening.It was originallydesigned
only for live performance (at dances held in homes, schools, com-
munitycenters and parks), where one could admire the dexterity
of the DJ and the personality and improvisationalskills of the
rapper. It was not intended for a mass audience, and for several
years remained confined to the New York City area and outside
the mass media network.Though rap was often taped informally
on cassetteand then reproduced and circulatedby its growingbody
of fans and bootleggers,it was only in 1979 that rap had its first
radio broadcast and released its firstrecords. These two singles,
"Rapper's Delight" and "King Tim III (PersonalityJock)," which
were made by groups outside the core rap communitybut which
had connections with the record industry,provoked competitive
resentmentin the rap world and the incentiveand example to get
out of the underground and on to disc and radio. However, even
when the groups moved from the street to the studio where they
could use live music,the DJ's role of appropriationwas not generally
abandoned and continued to be thematized in rap lyricsas central
to the art.1"
From the basic technique of cutting between sampled records,
hip hop developed three other formal devices which contribute
significantlyto its sound and aesthetic: "scratch mixing," "punch
phrasing," and simple scratching.The firstis simplyoverlayingor
mixing certain sounds from one record to those of another already
playing.'2 Punch phrasing is a refinementof such mixing, where
the DJ moves the needle back and forthover a specificphrase of
chords or drum slaps of a record so as to add a powerfulpercussive
effectto the sound of the other record playing all the while on the

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 617

other turntable.The third device is a wilder and more rapid back

and forthscratchingof the record, too fast for the recorded music
to be recognized but productive of a dramatic scratching sound
which has its own intense musical quality and crazed beat.
These devices of cutting,mixing,and scratchinggive rap a variety
of formsof appropriation,which seem as versatilelyapplicable and
imaginative as those of high art-as those, say, exemplified by
Duchamp's mustache on the Mona Lisa, Rauschenberg's erasure of
a De Koonig canvas, and Andy Warhol's multiplere-representations
of prepackaged commercial images. Rap also displays a varietyof
appropriated content. Not only does it sample from a wide range
of popular songs, it feeds on classical music, TV theme songs,
advertisingjingles, and the electronic music of arcade games. It
even appropriates nonmusical content,such as media news reports
and fragmentsof speeches by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
Though some DJs took pride in appropriatingfromveryunlikely
and arcane sources and sometimes tried to conceal (for fear of
competition)the exact records theywere sampling,there was never
any attempt to conceal the fact that they were working from pre-
recorded sounds rather than composing their own original music.
On the contrary,they openly celebrated their method of sampling.
What is the aestheticsignificanceof thisproud art of appropriation?
First,it challenges the traditionalideal of originalityand unique-
ness that has long enslaved our conception of art. Romanticismand
its cult of genius likened the artistto a divine creator and advocated
thathis worksbe altogethernew and express his singularpersonality.
Modernism with its commitmentto artisticprogress and the avant-
garde reinforcedthe dogma that radical noveltywas the essence of
art. Though artistshave always borrowed from each other's works,
the fact was generally ignored or implicitlydenied through the
ideology of originality,which posed a sharp distinctionbetween
original creation and derivativeborrowing.Postmodern art like rap
undermines this dichotomyby creativelydeploying and thematizing
its appropriation to show that borrowing and creation are not at
all incompatible. It further suggests that the apparently original
workof art is itselfalwaysa product of unacknowledgedborrowings,
the unique and novel text always a tissue of echoes and fragments
of earlier texts.
Originalitythusloses itsabsolute originarystatusand is reconceived
to include the transfiguringreappropriation and recyclingof the
old. In this postmodern picture there are no ultimate,untouchable
originals, only appropriations of appropriations and simulacra of
simulacra; so creative energy can be liberated to play with familiar

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618 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY

creations withoutfear that it therebydenies itselfthe opportunity

to be trulycreative by not producing a totallyoriginal work. Rap
songs simultaneouslycelebrate their originalityand their borrow-
ing.'3 And as the dichotomyof creation/appropriation is challenged,
so is the deep division between creative artist and appropriative
audience; transfigurativeappreciation can take the form of art.

Cutting and Temporality

Rap's sampling stylealso challenges the work of art's traditional
ideal of unityand integrity.Since Aristotle,aestheticianshave often
viewed the work as an organic whole so perfectlyunified that any
tampering with its parts would damage the whole. Moreover, the
ideologies of romanticismand art for art's sake have reinforcedour
habit of treatingartworksas transcendentand virtuallysacred ends
in themselves,whose integritywe should respect and never violate.
In contrast to the aesthetic of organic unity, rap's cutting and
sampling reflectsthe "schizophrenic fragmentation"and "collage
effect"characteristicof the postmodern aesthetic.14 In contrast to
an aestheticof devotional worship of a fixed untouchable work,hip
hop offersthe pleasures of deconstructiveart-the thrillingbeauty
of dismembering(and rapping over) old works to create new ones,
dismantling the prepackaged and wearily familiarinto something
stimulatinglydifferent.
The DJ's sampling and the MC's rap also highlightthe fact that
the apparent unity of the original artworkis often an artificially
constructedone, at least in contemporarypopular music where the
production process is frequentlyquite fragmented:an instrumental
track recorded in Memphis, combined with a back-up vocal from
New York, and a lead voice fromLos Angeles. Rap simplycontinues
this process of layered artisticcomposition by deconstructingand
differentlyreassembling prepackaged musical products and then
superimposing the MC's added layer of lyricsso as to produce a
new work. But rap does this withoutthe pretense that its own work
is inviolable,that the artisticprocess is ever final,that there is ever
a product which should be so fetishized that it could never be
submittedto appropriative transfiguration.Instead, rap's sampling
implies that an artwork'sintegrityas object should never outweigh
the possibilitiesfor continuingcreation through use of that object.
Its aesthetic thus suggests the Deweyan message that art is more
essentiallyprocess than finishedproduct,a welcome message in our
culturewhose tendencyto reifyand commodifyall artisticexpression

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 619

is so strong that rap itself is victimized by this tendency while

defiantlyprotestingit.
In defyingthe fetishizedintegrityof artworks,rap also challenges
traditional notions of their monumentality,universality,and per-
manence. No longer are admired works conceived in Eliotic fashion
as "an ideal order" of "monuments" timelesslyexisting and yet
preserved through time by tradition.'5In contrastto the standard
view that"a poem is forever,"rap highlightsthe artwork'stemporality
and likelyimpermanence: not only by appropriativedeconstructions
but by explicitlythematizingits own temporalityin its lyrics. For
example, several songs by BDP include lines like "Fresh for '88,
you suckers" or "Fresh for '89, you suckers."''16Such declarationsof
date imply a consequent admission of datedness; what is fresh for
'88 is apparentlystale by '89, and so superseded by a new freshness
of '89 vintage. But, by rap's postmodern aesthetic,the ephemeral
freshness of artisticcreations does not render them aesthetically
unworthy;no more than the ephemeral freshnessof cream renders
its sweet taste unreal." For the view that aesthetic value can only
be real if it passes the test of time is simply an entrenched but
unjustifiedpresumption,ultimatelyderivingfromthe pervasivephil-
osophical bias toward equating reality with the permanent and
unchanging.
By refusingto treatart worksas eternalmonumentsforpermanent
hands-offdevotion, by reworkingworks to make them work better,
rap also questions theirassumed universality--thedogma that good
art should be able to please all people and all ages by focusingonly
on universal human themes. Hip hop does treat universal themes
like injustice and oppression, but it is proudly localized as "ghetto
music," thematizingits commitmentto the black urban ghetto and
its culture. While it typicallyavoids excluding white society (and
white artists),'8rap focuses on features of ghetto life that whites
and middle-classblacks would rather ignore: pimping, prostitution,
and drug addiction, as well as rampant venereal disease, street
killings,and oppressiveharassmentbywhitepolicemen. Most rappers
define theirlocal allegiances in quite specificterms,often not simply
by citybut by neighborhood, like Compton, Harlem, Brooklyn,or
the Bronx. Even when rap goes international,it remains proudly
local; we find in French rap, for example, the same targetingof
specificneighborhoods and concentrationon local problems.19
Though localization is a salient characteristicof the postmodern
breakdown of modernism's international style, rap's strong local
sense is probably more the product of its origins in neighborhood
conflictand competition.As Toop notes, hip hop helped transform

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620 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

violent rivalries between local gangs into musical-verbalcontests

between rapping crews (RA 14-15, 70-71).20 By now it is difficult
to point to sharp stylisticdifferences between the music of the
differentlocales, though more Los Angeles rappers seem less con-
cerned withblack militancyand whiteoppression than theirbrothers
in New York. Of course, local differencesare hard to maintainonce
the music begins circulatingthrough the mass-media systemand is
subjected to its commercializingpressures. For such reasons, rap
lyricsoften complain about its commercial expansion just as they
celebrate it.

Technology and Mass-Media Culture

Rap's complex attitude toward mass circulationand commercial-

ization reflectsanother central feature of postmodernism:its fas-
cinated and overwhelmingabsorption of contemporarytechnology,
particularlythat of the mass media. While the commercialproducts
of thistechnologyseem so simple and fruitfulto use, both the actual
complexities of technological production and its intricaterelations
to the sustainingsocioeconomicsystemare, for the consumer public,
frighteningly unfathomableand unmanageable. Mesmerized by the
powers technology provides us, we postmoderns are also vaguely
disturbed by the great power it has over us, as the all-pervasivebut
increasinglyincomprehensiblemedium of our lives. But fascination
withits awesome power can affordus the further(perhaps illusory)
thrillthat in effectivelyemploying technology,we prove ourselves
its master. Such thrillsare characteristicof what Jameson dubs the
"hallucinatory exhilaration" of the "postmodern or technological
sublime" (NLR 76, 79).
Hip hop powerfullydisplays this syndrome,enthusiasticallyem-
bracing and masterfullyappropriating mass-media technology,but
stillremainingunhappily oppressed and appropriated by that same
technological system and its sustaining society. Rap was born of
commercial mass-media technology:records and turntables,ampli-
fiers and mixers. Its technological character allowed its artiststo
create music they could not otherwise make, either because they
could not afford the musical instrumentsrequired or because they
lacked the musical training to play them (RA 151). Technology
constitutedits DJs as artistsratherthan consumersor mere executant
technicians."Run DMC firstsaid a deejay could be a band /Stand
on its own feet, get you out your seat," exclaims a rap by Public

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 621

Enemy.2' But without commercial mass-media technology,the DJ

band would have had nothing to stand on.
The creative virtuositywith which rap artistshave appropriated
new technology is indeed astounding and exhilarating,and it is
often acclaimed in rap lyrics.By acrobaticallyjuggling the cutting
and changing of many records on multiple turntables,skillfulDJs
showed theirphysicalas well as artisticmasteryof commercialmusic
and its technology.From the initialdisco equipment,rap artistshave
gone on to adopt more (and more advanced) technologies:electronic
drums, synthesizers,sounds fromcalculatorsand touchtonephones,
and sometimescomputerswhichscan entireranges of possiblesounds
and then can replicate and synthesizethe desired ones.
Mass-media technologyhas also been crucial to rap's impressively
growing popularity. As a product of black culture, an essentially
oral rather than writtenculture, rap needs to be heard and felt
immediately,through its energeticallymoving sound, in order to
be properlyappreciated. No notationalscore could transmitits crazy
collage of music, and even the lyricscannot be adequately conveyed
in mere writtenform, divorced from their expressive rhythm,in-
tonation,and surging stressand flow.Only mass-media technology
allows for the wide dissemination and preservation of such oral
performanceevents. Both throughradio and televisionbroadcasting
and through the recording media of records, tapes, and compact
discs, rap has been able to reach out beyond its original ghetto
audience and thus give its music and message a real hearing, even
in white America and Europe. Only through the mass media could
hip hop become a very audible voice in our popular culture, one
whichmiddle America would like to suppress since it oftenstridently
expresses the frustratingoppression of ghetto life and the proud
and pressing desire for social resistance and change. Without such
systemsrap could not have achieved its "penetrationto the core of
the nation" (Ice-T) or itsopportunityto "teach the bourgeois" (Public
Enemy).22Similarly,only through the mass media could hip hop
have achieved artistic fame and fortune, its commercial success
enabling renewed artisticinvestmentand serving as an undeniable
source of black cultural pride.
Rap not only relies on mass-media techniques and technologies,
it derives much of its content and imagery from mass culture.
Television shows, sports personalities,arcade games, and familiar
name-brand commercial products (for example, Adidas sneakers)
are frequentlyreferred to in the lyrics,and their musical themes
or jingles are sometimessampled; a whole series of rap records was
based on the Smurf cartoons. Such items of mass-media culture

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622 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

help provide the common culturalbackground necessaryfor artistic

creation and communicationin a societywhere the traditionof high
culture is largely unknown or unappealing, if not also oppressively
alien and exclusionary.
But for all its acknowledged gifts,the mass media is not a trusted
and unambiguous ally. It is simultaneouslythe focus of deep sus-
picion and angry critique. Rappers inveigh against its false and
superficial fare, its commercially standardized and sanitized but
unreal and mindless content. "False media, we don't need it, do
we? It's fake,"urge Public Enemy,23who also lament (in "She Watch
Channel Zero") how standard television shows undermine the in-
telligence,responsibilities,and cultural roots of black women. Rap-
pers are constantlyattacking the radio for refusing to broadcast
their more politicallypotent or sexually explicit raps, and instead
fillingthe air with tame "commercial pap" (BDP). "Radio suckers
never play me," complain Public Enemy, a line which gets sampled
and punch phrased by Ice-T in an eponymous rap condemning the
radio and the FCC for a censorship which denies both freedom of
expression and the hard realitiesof lifeso as to insurethe continuous
media fare of "nothin but commercialjunk."24Scorning the option
of a "sell-out,"Ice-T raises (and answers)the crucial"media question"
troubling all progressive rap: "Can the radio handle the truth?
Nope." But he also asserts the reassurance that even with a radio
ban he can reach and make millionsthrough the medium of tapes,
suggesting that the media provides its own ways of subverting
attemptsat regulatorycontrol: "They're makin' radio wack, people
have to escape /But even if I'm banned, I'll sell a million tapes."25
Finally,apart from their false, superficialcontent and repressive
censorship,the media are linked to a global commercialsystemand
society which callously exploits and oppresses hip hop's primary
audience. Recognizing that those who govern and speak for the
dominatingtechnological-commercial complex are indifferentto the
enduring woes of the black underclass ("Here is a land that never
gave a damn about a brother like me . . . but the suckers had
authority"),rappers protest how our capitalist society exploits the
disenfranchised blacks both to preserve its sociopolitical stability
(through their service in the militaryand police) and to increase
its profitsby increasing their demand for unnecessary consumer
goods.26One veryprominenttheme of hip hop is how the advertised
ideal of conspicuous consumption-luxury cars, clothes, and high-
tech appliances-lures many ghetto youth to a life of crime, a life
which promises the quick attainmentof such commoditiesbut typ-

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 623

ically ends in death, jail, or destitution,thus reinforcingthe ghetto

cycle of povertyand despair.
It is one of the postmodern paradoxes of hip hop that rappers
extol their own achievement of consumeristluxury while simulta-
neouslycondemningitsuncriticalidealizationand quest as misguided
and dangerous for theiraudience in the ghettocommunityto which
they ardentlyavow their solidarityand allegiance. In the same way,
self-declared "underground" rappers at once denigrate commer-
cialism as an artisticand political sell-out, but nonetheless glorify
their own commercial success, often even regarding it as indicative
of their artisticpower." Such contradictionsare perhaps expressive
of the postmodern fragmentationof the self into inconsistentper-
sonae, but they may be equally expressive of more fundamental
contradictionsin the socioculturalfieldsof ghetto life and so-called
noncommercial art.28Certainlythere is a very deep connection in
Afro-Americanculture between independent expression and eco-
nomic achievement,whichwould impel even noncommercialrappers
to tout their commercial success and property. For, as Houston
Baker so well demonstrates, Afro-American artists must always,
consciously or unconsciously, come to terms with the history of
slavery and commercial exploitation which forms the ground of
black experience and expression.29As slaves were converted from
independent humans to property,theirway to regain independence
was to achieve sufficientpropertyof their own so as to buy their
manumission (as in the traditionalliberationnarrativeof Frederick
Douglass). Having long been denied a voice because they were
property,Afro-Americanscould reasonablyconclude "thatonlyprop-
erty enables expression."30For underground rappers, then, com-
mercial success and its luxury trappings may functionessentiallyas
signs of an economic independence which enables free artisticand
political expression, and which is converselyalso enabled by such
expression. A major dimension of this celebrated economic inde-
pendence is its independence from crime."

Eclecticism,History,and Autonomy
I have already mentioned the wide-rangingeclecticismof rap's
appropriative sampling,which extends even to nonmusical sources.
Its plunderingand mixingof past sources has no respectfor period,
genre, and style distinctions;it cannibalizes and combines what it
wants with no concern to preserve the formal integrity,aesthetic

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624 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

intention,or historicalcontextof the records it plunders, absorbing

and transformingeverythingit cuts and takes into its funkycollage.
Rap historian David Toop gives a sense of this wild eclecticism:
"Bambaataa mixed up calypso, European and Japanese electronic
music, Beethoven's FifthSymphonyand rock groups like Mountain;
Kool DJ Herc spun the Doobie Brothersback to back withthe Isley
Brothers; Grandmaster Flash overlayed speech records and sound
effectswithThe Last Poets; SymphonicB Boys Mixx cut up classical
music on five turntables"(RA 105; see also 149, 153).
Perhaps more than any other contemporaryart form, rap not
only exemplifiesbut proudly thematizes the eclectic pastiche and
cannibalizationof past stylesthatis centralto the postmodern.Some,
like Jameson, regret this "random cannibalization of all the styles
of the past" (NLR 65-66) and its unprincipled "play of random
stylisticallusion" (NLR 66) for its disintegrationand derealization
of a coherent and real past, one which mightotherwisebe retrieved
to help us betterunderstand our problematicpresent and guide us
toward a more liberated future. For Jameson, postmodernism's
eclectic "historicismeffaces history" (NLR 65). Instead of "real
history"and "genuine historicity" (NLR 68), the organic reconstruc-
tion of "some putative real world" (NLR 71), we are supplied with
nostalgia, a jumble of stereotypicalimages from an imagined past.
We are thus confined to the prisonhouse of ideological represen-
tations,"condemned to seek Historyby way of our own pop images
and simulacra of that history,which itselfremains forever out of
reach" (NLR 71) and hence unavailable as a source for political
critique and liberation.32
But the whole idea of real history,the one true account of a fully
determinate past whose structure,content,and meaning are fixed
and unrevisable, is itselfa repressive ideological constructionand
a vestige of absolute realism which cannot compel much conviction
in our age of postfoundationalistphilosophy.Neither the past nor
the present is ever purely given or reported; they are always se-
lectivelyrepresented and shaped by discursivestructuresreflecting
dominant interestsand values, which are often simplythose of the
politicallydominant. In being historicized,historyis not so much
lostbut pluralizedand openly politicized,insteadof havingitsimplicit
political agenda concealed under the guise of neutral objectivity
where itcannot be challenged or even recognizedas political.History,
objectivelyand univocallyconceived,is a metaphysicalnaturalization
of his-story,the storyof "The Man"-the term black culture uses
to denote not only the police but the dominating,oppressive white
male societywhich controls and polices the institutionsof cultural

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 625

legitimacy,including the writingand teaching of history.33A fas-

cinating feature of much underground rap is its acute recognition
of the politics of culture; its challenge of the univocal claims of
white historyand education; and its attemptto provide alternative
black historicalnarrativeswhich can stimulateblack pride and foster
emancipatory impulses. Such alternative narratives extend from
biblical historyto the historyof hip hop itself,which is thus con-
stitutedand valorized as a phenomenon worthyof historicaltesti-
mony and documentation.34
If rap's free-wheelingeclecticcannibalismviolates high modernist
conventionsof aestheticpurityand integrity, itsbelligerentinsistence
on the deeply political dimension of culture challenges one of the
most fundamental artisticconventions of modernity:aesthetic au-
tonomy.Modernity,according to Weber and others,was bound up
with the project of occidental rationalization,secularization, and
differentiationwhich disenchanted the traditionalreligious world-
view and carved up its organic domain into three separate and
autonomous spheres of secular culture: science, art, and morality,
each governed by its own inner logic of theoretical,aesthetic,or
moral-practicaljudgment.35 This tripartitedivision was of course
powerfullyreflected and reinforced by Kant's critical analysis of
human thinking in terms of pure reason, practical reason, and
aestheticjudgment.
In this division of cultural spheres, art was distinguished from
science as not being concerned withthe formulationor dissemination
of knowledge, since its aestheticjudgment was essentiallynoncon-
ceptual and subjective. It was also sharply differentiatedfrom the
practical activityof the realm of ethics and politics,which involved
real interestsand appetitive will (as well as conceptual thinking).
Instead, art was consigned to a disinterested,imaginative realm
which Schiller later described as the realm of play and semblance.36
As the aesthetic was distinguishedfrom the more rational realms
of knowledge and action, it was also firmlydifferentiatedfrom the
more sensate and appetitive gratificationsof embodied human na-
ture-aesthetic pleasure residing,rather,in distanced, disinterested
contemplationof formal properties.
Hip hop's genre of "knowledgerap" (or "message rap") is dedicated
to the defiant violation of this compartmentalized,trivializing,and
evisceratingview of art and the aesthetic. Such rappers repeatedly
insist that their role as artistsand poets is inseparable from their
role as insightfulinquirers into realityand teachers of truth,par-
ticularlythose aspects of realityand truth which get neglected or
distorted by establishmenthistorybooks and contemporarymedia

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626 NEW LITERARYHISTORY

coverage. KRS-One of BDP claims to be not only "a teacher and

artist, startin' new concepts at their hardest," but a philosopher
(indeed, according to the jacket notes on the GhettoMusic album,
a "metaphysician")and also a scientist("I don't drop science, I teach
it. Correct?").37In contrastto the media's political whitewash,ster-
eotypes, and empty escapist entertainment,he proudly claims:

I'm tryin'not to escape,but hitthe problemhead on

By bringingout the truthin a song.

It's simple;BDP willteachreality

No beatin'aroundthe bush,straight up; just like the beat is free.
So now you knowa poet'sjob is neverdone.
But I'm neveroverworked, cause I'm numberone.38

Of course, the realitiesand truthswhich hip hop reveals are not

the transcendental eternal verities of traditional philosophy, but
rather the mutable but coercive facts and patternsof the material,
sociohistoricalworld. Yet this emphasis on the temporallychanging
and malleable nature of the real (reflectedin rap's frequent time
tags and its popular idiom of "knowingwhat time it is""39)constitutes
a respectablytenable metaphysicalpositionassociated withAmerican
pragmatism.Though few may know it, rap philosophers are really
"down with" Dewey, not merely in metaphysicsbut in a noncom-
partmentalizedaestheticswhich highlightssocial function,process,
and embodied experience.40
For knowledge rap not only insistson uniting the aesthetic and
the cognitive, but equally stresses that practical functionalitycan
formpart of artisticmeaningand value. Many rap songs are explicitly
devoted to raising black political consciousness, pride, and revolu-
tionary impulses; some make the powerful point that aesthetic
judgments, and particularlythe question of what counts as art,
involve political issues of legitimationand social strugglein which
rap is engaged as progressive praxis and which it advances by its
very self-assertionas art. Other raps functionas street-smartmoral
fables, offeringcautionarynarrativesand practical advice on prob-
lems of crime, drugs, and sexual hygiene (for example, Ice-T's
"Drama" and "High Rollers," Kool Moe Dee's "Monster Crack" and
"Go See the Doctor," BDP's "Stop the Violence" and "Jimmy").
Finally,we should note that rap has been used effectivelyto teach
writingand reading skillsand black historyin the ghettoclassroom.4'
Since postmodernismdissolvesthe relativeautonomyof the artistic
sphere crucial to the differentiatingprojectof modernityand equally

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 627

crucial to the high modernistaestheticwhich refused contamination

by the impuritiesof practicallife,politics,and the common vulgarities
of mass culture,Jameson suggeststhatitsdisintegrationof traditional
modernist boundaries could provide the redemptive option of "a
new radical culturalpolitics"(NLR 89), a postmodernaestheticwhich
"foregroundsthe cognitiveand pedagogical dimensions of political
art and culture" (NLR 89). Jameson regards this new cultural form
as still "hypothetical"(NLR 89), but I submit that it can be found
in rap, whose artists explicitlyaim and succeed at teaching and
political activism,just as they seek to undermine the socially op-
pressivedichotomybetween legitimate(thatis, high) art and popular
entertainmentby simultaneouslyassertingthe popular and the ar-
tisticstatus of hip hop.
Like most culture critics,Jameson is worried about the potential
of postmodernistart to provide effectivesocial criticismand political
protest,because of its"abolitionof criticaldistance"(NLR 85). Having
undermined the fortressof artisticautonomy and enthusiastically
appropriated the content of workaday and commercial living,post-
modern art seems to lack the "minimalaestheticdistance" (NLR 87)
necessary for art to stand "outside the massive Being of capital"
(NLR 87) and thus represent an alternativeto (and hence critique
of) what Adorno called "the ungodly reality."42Though anyone
tuned in to the sound of Public Enemy, BDP, or Ice-T can hardly
doubt the authenticityand power of their oppositional energy,the
charge thatall contemporary"formsof culturalresistanceare secretly
disarmed and reabsorbed by a system of which they themselves
might be considered a part" (NLR 87) might well be directed at
rap. For while it condemns media stereotypes,violence, and the
quest for luxurious living,rap just as oftenexploits or glorifiesthem
to make its points. While denouncing commercialismand the cap-
italist system, rap's lyrics are simultaneouslycelebrating its com-
mercial success and business histories; some songs, for example,
describe and justify the rapper's change of record company for
commercial reasons.43
Hip hop surely does not lie wholly outside what Jameson, in a
questionable organicisticpresumption, regards as the "global and
totalizingspace of the new world system"(NLR 88) of multinational
capitalism, as if the congeries of contingent events and chaotic
processes which help make up what we call the world could ever
be fully totalized in one space or system. But granting for the
moment that there is this all-embracingsystem,why should rap's
profitableconnection with some of its features void the power of
its social critique? Do we need to be fully outside something in

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628 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY

order to criticizeit effectively?Does not the postmodern and post-

structuralist decentering critique of definitive, ontologically
grounded boundaries put the whole notion of being "fullyoutside"
seriously into question?
Withthischallengingof a clear inside/outsidedichotomywe should
similarlyask, Why does proper aesthetic response traditionallyre-
quire distancedcontemplationbya putativelytranscendentand coolly
disinterestedsubject? This assumption of the necessityof distance
is yet another manifestationof the modernistconventionof artistic
purityand autonomywhich hip hop repudiates. Indeed, ratherthan
an aesthetic of distanced, disengaged, formalistjudgment, rappers
urge an aesthetic of deeply embodied participatoryinvolvement,
withcontentas well as form.They want to be appreciated primarily
through energetic and impassioned dance, not through immobile
contemplation and dispassionate study.44Queen Latifah, for ex-
ample, insistentlycommands her listeners,"I order you to dance
for me." For, as Ice-T explains, the rapper "won't be happy till the
dancers are wet" withsweat, "out of control"and wildly"possessed"
by the beat, as indeed the captivating rapper should himself be
possessed so as to rock his audience with his God-given gift to
rhyme.45This aesthetic of divine yet bodily possession is strikingly
similar to Plato's account of poetry and its appreciation as a chain
of divine madness extending fromthe Muse throughthe artistsand
performersto the audience, a seizure which for all its divinitywas
criticizedas regrettablyirrationaland inferiorto true knowledge.46
More importantly,the spiritual ecstasy of divine bodily possession
should remind us of Vodun and the metaphysicsof Africanreligion
to which the aesthetics of Afro-Americanmusic has indeed been
traced.47
What could be furtherfrommodernity'sproject of rationalization
and secularization,what more inimicalto modernism'srationalized,
disembodied, and formalized aesthetic?No wonder the established
modernistaestheticis so hostileto rap and to rock music in general.
If there is a viable space between the modern rationalizedaesthetic
and an altogetherirrationalone whose rabid Dionysian excess must
vitiate its cognitive,didactic, and political claims, this is the space
for a postmodern aesthetic.48I think the fine art of rap inhabits
that space, and I hope it will continue to thrivethere.
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
NOTES

1 See Jon Pareles, "How Rap Moves to Television's Beat," New YorkTimes,14 Jan.
1990, Arts and Leisure, pp. 1, 28.

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 629
2 Rap's censorship became national news when Two Live Crew were banned and
arrested in Florida in the summer of 1990. For details on earlier attemptsto repress
rap, see the pamphlet, "You Got a Right to Rock, Don't Let Them Take It Away"
writtenby the editorsof Rock& Roll Confidential and published by Duke and Duchess
Ventures Inc., New York, Sept. 1989; and Dave Marsh and PhyllisPollack, "Wanted
for Attitude," Village Voice, 10 Oct. 1989, 33-37. The censorship of concerts and
the "parental" blacklistingof records, vigorously pursued by the Parents Musical
Resource Center (PMRC), are sometimes thematized in rap lyrics and related to
issues of aesthetic and political freedom of expression, as for instance in Ice-T's
"Freedom of Speech."
3 We see this in Spike Lee's provocativefilmabout the black ghetto,Do The Right
Thing, Forty Acres and a Mule Productions, 1989. The film's climactic race riot,
which destroys the local pizzeria (owned and run by a lower-middle-classItalian
familyand employingone of the neighborhood blacks), is set offby the proprietor's
violent refusal to allow rap music to be played in his shop "because of the noise."
Rap's typicalloudness, one of its most offensiveand criticizedfeaturesfor bourgeois
sensibility,is a consciouslycalculated and thematized feature of its aesthetic,as we
can see in Public Enemy's song "Bring the Noise," a slogan adopted by many other
rappers.
4 I have taken the title from the lyricsof Ice-T's "Hit the Deck," which aims to
"demonstraterappin' as a fineart." There are countlessotherraps whichemphatically
declare rap's poetic and artisticstatus; among the more forcefulare: Stetsasonic's
"Talkin' All That Jazz"; BDP's "I'm Still #1," "Ya Slippin'," "Ghetto Music," "Hip
Hop Rules"; and Kool Moe Dee's "The Best."
5 Hip hop actually designates an organic cultural complex wider than rap. It
includes breakdancing and graffitiand also a stylizedbut casual styleof dress, where
hightop sneakers become high fashion. Rap music supplied the beats for the break-
dancers; some rappers testifyto having practiced graffiti;and hip-hop fashion is
celebrated in many raps, one example being Run DMC's "My Adidas."
6 I explore the aesthetic dimension of postmodernismin much greater detail in
Richard Shusterman, "Postmodernism and the Aesthetic Turn," Poetics Today, 10
(1989), 605-22.
7 See, e.g., Roger Abrahams, Deep Down in theJungle(Chicago, 1970), whose study
of a Philadelphia ghetto revealed that speaking skills "confer high social status" (p.
39) and that even among young males "abilitywith words is as highly valued as
physicalstrength"(p. 59). Studies of Washingtonand Chicago ghettoshave confirmed
this. See Ulf Hannerz, whose Soulside(New York, 1969) notes that verbal skill was
"widelyappreciated among ghetto men" not only for competitivepractical purposes
but for "entertainmentvalue" (pp. 84-85); and Thomas Kochman, "Toward an
Ethnography of Black American Speech Behavior," in Rappin' and Stylin'Out, ed.
Thomas Kochman (Urbana, 1972), pp. 241-64. Along with its narrower use to
designate the traditionaland stylizedpractice of verbal insult,black "signifying"has
a more general sense of encoded or indirect communication,which relies heavily
on the special background knowledge and particularcontext of the communicants.
For an impressivelycomplex and theoreticallysophisticatedanalysis of "signifying"
as such a generic trope and its use "in black texts as explicit theme, as implicit
rhetorical strategy,and as a principle of literaryhistory,"see Henry Louis Gates,
Jr., The SignifyingMonkey:A Theoryof Afro-American LiteraryCriticism(Oxford, 1988),
p. 89 et passim.
8 Such linguistic strategies of evasion and indirection (which include inversion,
shucking, tomming,marking,and loud-talking,as well as the more generic notion
of signifying)are discussed at length in Grace Simms Holt, " 'Inversion' in Black

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630 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

Communication"and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan,"Signifying,Loud-Talking,and Mark-

ing," both found in Kochman, Rappin' and Stylin'Out.
9 I demonstrate some of this rich complexityby a close reading of Stetsasonic's
"Talkin' All That Jazz,"in chapter8 of myPragmatist Aesthetics:
LivingBeauty,Rethinking
Art (Oxford, 1992).
10 David Toop, The Rap Attack:AfricanJive to New YorkHip Hop (Boston, 1984),
p. 14, hereaftercited in text as RA.
11 See, e.g., Ice-T's "Rhyme Pays," Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise," Run DMC's
"Jam-masterJammin',"and BDP's "Ya Slippin'."
12 It is called scratchmixing,not only because this manual placementof the needle
on particular tracks scratchesthe records, but because the DJ hears the scratch in
his ear when he cues the needle on the track to be sampled before actuallyadding
it to the sound of the other record already being sent out on the sound system.
13 See, e.g., Public Enemy's "Caught, Can I get a Witness,"Stetsasonic's"Talkin'
All That Jazz," and BDP's "I'm Still #1," "Ya Slippin'," and "The Blueprint." The
motivatingimage of thislast rap highlightsthe simulacralnotionof hip hop originality.
In privilegingtheirundergroundstyleas originaland superiorto "the softcommercial
sound" of other rap, BDP connects its greater originalitywith its greater closeness
to rap's ghetto origins. "You got a copy, I read from the blueprint."But a blueprint
is itself a copy not an original, indeed it is a simulacrum or representationof a
designed object which typicallydoes not yet (if ever) exist as a concrete original
object.
14 See FredricJameson,"Postmodernism,or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,"
New LeftReview,146 (1984), 53-92, 73, 75, hereaftercited in text as NLR.
15 For a critique of this early view of Eliot's and for an explanation of the reasons
why Eliot himself abandoned it in formulatinghis later theory of tradition, see
Richard Shusterman,T S. Eliot and thePhilosophy of Criticism(New York, 1988), pp.
156-67.
16 See, respectively,"My Philosophy" and "Ghetto Music." The lyrics of "Ya
Slippin' " and "Hip Hop Rules" respectivelydate themselvesas 1987 and 1989. Public
Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype" has a 1988 time tag, and similar time tags can
be found in raps by Ice-T, Kool Moe Dee, and many others.
17 By the same token I trustthat my present account of rap is worthwhile,even
though it will probably soon become outdated through developments in the genre.
18 There are rap records from white groups like Blondie, Tom Tom Club, Beastie
Boys, Third Bass, and from the white solo rapper Vanilla Ice. The notorious punk
rock manager Malcolm McClaren has also recorded in this genre.
19 See, e.g., the French rap album Rapattitudes, in which the rappers refer to their
specificneighborhoodsin Paris and theirproblemsof housing and social acceptance.
French rap remains, however,rather derivativefrom its American source.
20 It mightwell be argued that hip hop provides an aestheticfield where physical
violence and aggression get translated into symbolicform. Certainly,fierce rivalry
and aggressive competitionare essential to the aesthetic of rap. Perhaps the most
common theme in rap lyricsis how the rapper is superior to others in the power
of his rhymesand abilityto "rock" the audience, how he can take on the challenge
of other rappers (who criticizeor "dis" him) and make them look weak and foolish
when theyduel withhim in rap. This duelling is oftendescribed in extremelyviolent
terms,as it is in the traditionalverbal insultcontestsof "the dozens" and "signifying"
(see the sourcescited in n. 7). However,togetherwiththisuncompromisingcompetitive
assertionto be "the best,"rappers also express in theirlyricstheirunderlyingsolidarity
with other rap artistswho share the same artisticand political agenda.
21 See Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise."

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THE FINE ART OF RAP 631

22 See Ice-T's "Heartbeat" and Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype."
23 Public Enemy, "Don't Believe the Hype."
24 See BDP's "Ghetto Music," Public Enemy's "Rebel Without a Pause," and Ice-
T's "Radio Suckers." However,as these rappers admit,some stationson some occasions
(usually late at night) will play the raw realitysound.
25 Ice-T, "Radio Suckers."
26 Public Enemy, "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos." On this theme of black
exploitation by white societysee also BDP's "Who ProtectsUs From You" and Ice-
T's "Squeeze the Trigger."
27 For examples of the formertension see Ice-T's "High Rollers," "Drama," "6'N
the Morning,""Somebody's Gotta Do It (Pimpin Ain't Easy)," and Big Daddy Kane's
"Another Victory"; for the latter, see Ice-T's "Radio Suckers" and BDP's "The
Blueprint." A still more troublingcontradictionis that despite rap's condemnation
of minorityoppression and exploitation, it frequentlyadopts the "pimpin' style"
which consists of horriblymacho celebrations of the (often violent) exploitationof
women.
28 Pierre Bourdeiu's Distinction: A Social CritiqueoftheJudgment of Taste(Cambridge,
Mass., 1984) best exposes the hidden logic of material,commercial,and class interests
and mechanismswhich allow for the workingsof so-called pure, noncommercialart,
and for its effectivemisprisionas pure and noncommercial.
29 Houston A. Baker, Jr.,Blues, Ideology,and Afro-American Literature:A Vernacular
Theory(Chicago, 1984), pp. 34-63.
30 See, e.g., Ice-T's "Rhyme Pays," Kool Moe Dee's "They Want Money" and "The
Avenue."
31 Baker, Blues, Ideology,p. 57.
32 Jameson connects this eclecticism,stereotypy,and effacementof historywith
the common charge that postmodern art is depthless and superficial.But much of
its perceived superficiality,I believe, results fromjudging it in terms of modernist
conventions of depth rather than in terms of its oppositional and dialectical rela-
tionshipto those conceptions,a relationshipwhichcan give its superficiality a reflected
depth by contextual,ironic contrast.To demonstratethis, however,even in the one
area of rap, would require more scope than is available in this paper.
33 This possible pun of "his-story"is recognized and employed by BDP in "Part
Time Suckers": "These people make me laugh /The way they like to change up the
past /So when you're there in class learnin' His-story,learn a littleyour story,the
real story." For discussion of "The Man," see Claude Brown, "The Language of
Soul, Ken Johnson, "The Vocabulary of Race," and Grace Sims Holt, " 'Inversion'
in Black Communication,"all in Kochman, Rappin' and Stylin'Out.
34 See, BDP's "Why is That?," "You Must Learn," and "Hip Hop Rules."
35 See, e.g., Jiirgen Habermas, The PhilosophicalDiscourseof Modernity (Cambridge,
Mass., 1987), pp. 1-22.
36 See Friedrich Schiller, On theAesthetic Educationof Man (Oxford, 1982).
37 See BDP, "My Philosophy" and "Gimme, Dat, (Woy)." The lyrics of their
knowledge rap "Who Protects Us From You" describes it as "a public service
announcement brought to you by the scientistsof Boogie Down Productions."
38 See BDP, "I'm Still #1." For BDP's attack on establishmenthistoryand media
and its stereotypes,see especially "My Philosophy,""You Must Learn," and "Why is
That?"
39 This phrase and notion, for example, provides the central theme of Ice-T's "Do
You Know What Time It Is?" and appears in many other raps. Hip hop's heightened
sense of temporalityis expressed in other strikingways. For example, Flavor Flav
of Public Enemy always appears with a large clock hanging from around his neck.

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632 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

40 For a brief account of Dewey's aestheticsand its contemporaryrelevance, see

Richard Shusterman, "Why Dewey Now?" Journal of Aesthetic Education,23 (1989),
60-67; and (for more detail) chapter one of my Pragmatist Aesthetics.
41 The best example of this is Gary Byrd, a New York radio DJ who developed
a literacyprogram based on rap. For more details on this, see Toop, RA, pp. 45-
46.
42 T. W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory(London, 1984), p. 322.
43 See, e.g., Ice-T's "409" and BDP's "Nervous." It is noteworthythat even these
artistswho identifythemselvesas noncommercialbear names that suggest the com-
mercial business world. Ice-T's group or "crew" is called "Rhyme Syndicate Pro-
ductions" and BDP, of course, stands for "Boogie Down Productions."
44 GrandmasterFlash complained when, at the noveltyand virtuosity of his cutting,
"the crowd would stop dancing and just gather round like a seminar. This is what
I didn't want. This wasn't school, it was time to shake your ass." See Toop, RA, p.
72.
45 See Queen Latifah, "Dance for Me" and Ice-T's "Hit the Deck." For a similar
emphasis on the mesmerizingpossession and physicallyand spirituallymovingpower
of rap in both performerand audience, see Kool Moe Dee's "Rock Steady" and
"The Best."
46 The point is made most explicitlyin Plato's Ion.
47 See, e.g., Michael Ventura, Shadow Dancing in the U.S.A. (Los Angeles, 1986);
and Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit(New York, 1984).
48 For an elaboration and defense of such a more embodied, functional,and
political aesthetic,see my PragmatistAesthetics.

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