Whack Rappers²⁵

"I’m not the one to question anyone’s authenticity based on race alone. There are black people that are fakers in Hip-Hop. I wouldn’t be that shallow to just go off race."

- Asheru (Interview, 2005)

Emceein’ requires lyrical skills, crowd control, and a sensibility I have described as the ability to “connect to a collective rhythm.”  Because the form requires its practitioners to have these special skills and abilities, we should recognize that just because someone has brown skin, is from the ghetto, and chooses to rap, does not necessarily make them an authentic emcee.  As we’ve just discussed, the commercial rap industry values the potential of a rapper to fit a hyperbolized image of ‘street’ authenticity and to effectively sell products—not the ability to emcee.  The result: a slue of whack rappers on major radio and television stations, and millions of people who are unaware of the limited representativeness of this particular site of Hip-Hop.  Indeed, the disturbing and somewhat recent trend in rap to focus on shallow, materialistic self-praise is a strong deviation from the emphasis on verbal power described by Shusterman that used to be more prevalent in rap (1992):

[Rap lyrics] in turn are frequently devoted both to praising the DJ's inimitable virtuosity in sampling and synthesizing the appropriated music and to boasting of the lyrical and rhyming power of the rapper (called the MC).  While the rapper's vaunting self-praise often highlights his sexual desirability, commercial success, and property assets, these signs of status are all presented as secondary to and derivative from his verbal power (202).

While Shusterman’s point may have represented an important and subtle distinction in understanding rap a decade ago, it is clear that many rappers in the limelight today do not consider lyrical skills to be paramount.  All of this is not to say that every commercially successful rapper is whack—there are a number of very popular artists who do, in fact, possess exceptional skills and abilities that make them authentic emcees—it is simply to point out that current popular conceptions of Hip-Hop authenticity have been centered on a particular, marketable image rather than on talent.

Rethinking Authenticity: Beyond Cultural Analysis

In an earlier section, we saw an argument that Eminem does not represent the appropriation of Blackness that Vanilla Ice represented because Eminem was “socialized as Black.”  While this may be the case, it is not hard to see that Black cultural styles and aesthetics influence nearly every person who expresses themselves through Hip-Hop, regardless of the environment in which they have been socialized.  It is interesting to see how this “representational black urban authenticity of performance” (Baker, 1993:62) finds its way into the styles of language, dress, and postures of nearly all who emcee.  Does the adoption of these styles by someone who does not possess them otherwise suggest that he or she is appropriating Blackness or is less authentic?  Or is this an inevitable part of participating in the Hip-Hop arena? Boyd (2002) suggests that this phenomenon should be thought of as a function of influence, rather than of appropriation:

Influence says that one is open to be inspired by something potentially outside one’s own environment. … in Black and White [a film]…rich White kids are influenced by Black culture… It suggests that Black culture has the power to influence and that this influence is transcendent.  The recognition and articulation of this power is something that has only recently been uttered by elements of White society. This is a good example of agency, which allows us to think of Black culture in much more complex ways, not simply something being plundered and victimized by potential exploiters but as a vibrant, energetic, and empowered social and cultural force that can potentially influence anyone with whom it comes in contact, as it has done for all these years anyway (126-7).

Placing what I have just discussed in the context of the debate on Hip-Hop authenticity, an important question arises: What informs people’s evaluations of Hip-Hop authenticity more: the degree to which an artist’s image fits the popular image of authentic Hip-Hop, or the degree to which an artist appears to be honestly conveying his or her own “personality, spirit or character”? 

Recalling McLeod’s (1999) article, one of the questions he seeks to answer in his analysis is “does the invocation of authenticity make appeals to solidarity across racial, gender, class, or cultural identity formations?”  Unfortunately, McLeod never answers this question explicitly in his discussion.  Instead, he produces a table of six very general dimensions of authenticity that all seem to suggest the answer is ‘no.’  I contend that the answer is in fact ‘yes,’ based on numerous artists’ responses to related questions in my interviews.