One challenging aspect of this essay’s approach to studying Hip-Hop is the dilemma of audience. Although I hope that people of all walks of life will read this essay, it is directed primarily at academics. This would normally entail the use of particular theories, sources of literature, and an academic style and tone of writing. However, I argue that in the case of Hip-Hop an entirely academic approach falls short. First, to improve the quality of my secondary research, it is necessary to examine a number of journalistic sources that would normally be considered ‘unfit for academic discussion.’ Such sources seem to often come from writers with significantly more direct experience with Hip-Hop than those written by academics. Second, I believe that effective interpretation of qualitative data requires that relevant terms and interviews not be altered to fit a traditional scholarly model of writing. Consequently, in addition to what I have already mentioned regarding terminology, I have transcribed recorded interviews with colloquial accuracy. Lastly, I will be employing a number of slang words and phrases in this essay not only for semantic accuracy, but also to celebrate the interesting juxtaposition that is academic writing on Hip-Hop.
Methodology: The Insider/Outsider Dilemma
“Between the years of 1988-1998, rap publications of all styles relied on being objective journalists when documenting Hip-Hop, as opposed to being Hiphop. Such was their academic training. However, Hip-Hop, as with many popular cultures, is unique in the sense that accurately documenting its culture requires its interpreters to participate in its expressions. This is very important. If you can’t do it, you can’t interpret it. What Hip-Hop is going through is that people who have no idea what it is, how to do it, nothing – are interpreting for the rest of the world what’s going on, who we are. Hiphop has yet to speak for itself.”
-KRS-One (2003) “Hiphop – The Early Days”
Keeping in mind what KRS-One (2003) has just explained in the quote above, I believe that as someone who has been bboyin’ for ten years and emceein’ for three, my contribution to current discussions of authenticity in Hip-Hop has the potential to provide insight where other academics—even those who employ ethnography—cannot. I am aware that this claim to be an insider raises several issues related to the concept of the ‘participant-observer,’ however, I do not claim to be a participant-observer in the sense of conducting ethnographic research during a period of deliberate immersion in a culture. Rather, my participation in Hip-Hop exists independently of my research. For this reason, this study does not constitute traditional conceptions of ethnography, and thus may avoid the pitfalls described by Riley (1991):
[C]ultural descriptions, filtered through the ethnographer, are actually second or third order fictions… [T]here is no culture or organization “out there” to be accurately represented by observers (218).
At the same time, although my experience with these art forms makes me an insider in one sense, ‘white privilege’ simultaneously makes me an outsider in another sense. Put another way, while my involvement with Hip-Hop has allowed me to experience the culture in a direct way and to develop close friendships with Hiphoppas from a variety of different backgrounds, I am not marginalized by the society in which I live, nor am I from the inner city. Consequently, I will never fully understand aspects of the particular social circumstances from which Hip-Hop emerged. To quote Adam Krims (2000), many of Hip-Hop’s participants who have grown up in the culture’s original context “pay a price I have never paid for partaking in [Hip-Hop]” (6). Still, perhaps my peculiar position as both insider and outsider allows my analysis to be unique:
We may agree that no outsider can really know a given culture fully—but then we must ask whether any insider can fully know his or her culture. In emphasizing the advantages of insider knowledge, let us not forget that an outsider can make important contributions… (Whyte, 1993:296).
Thus, I acknowledge my bias and embrace it as essential to my ability to make an original contribution to the field of academic work on Hip-Hop.
"Hiphop - The Early Days" Quote by KRS-One (2003)
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