Narrowing Our Focus: The Temple of Hiphop & Emceein' Hip-Hop culture is too multi-faceted and has far too many representatives claiming to be ‘the real version’ for any writer to discuss it in absolute terms. We must keep in mind that many purported examinations of rap music as a genre or Hip-Hop culture as a whole are examinations of particular subgenres of the music and specific sites where the culture is expressed. Failures to acknowledge the limited representativeness of samples and of sites has resulted, and will continue to result, in gross generalization, confounding variables and inaccurate interpretation. One consequence of such carelessness is that a number of writers approaching Hip-Hop with no previous knowledge of, or direct experience with, the culture have simply built upon previous academic work thought to be accurate and comprehensive. With this in mind, academics approaching Hip-Hop might check themselves to ensure their next essay on rap or Hip-Hop is not just “a self-aggrandizing act of scholarly hipsterism” (Baker, 1993:81). Keeping in mind that Hip-Hop cannot be discussed in absolute terms, I am going to operationalize the type of Hip-Hop I am discussing through a lens that I believe deserves considerable attention from anyone writing on the topic. This lens, The Temple of Hiphop,is a preservation society started by several of the culture’s most influential pioneers that “seeks to define and teach the accumulated wisdom of Hiphop to Hiphoppas.”6 Placing a strong emphasis on culture and ideology, it upholds a specific set of positive values and constructive principles, many of which have been derived from the Universal Zulu Nation (U.Z.N.), an international Hip-Hop awareness movement started in the South Bronx in the early 1970s by the world-renowned deejay, Hip-Hop pioneer, and community leader, Afrika Bambaataa (EN3). While The Temple of Hiphop and U.Z.N. are by no means the only voices claiming authority on how Hip-Hop should be understood and represented, they will be major voices in my discussion. I acknowledge that they provide a perspective which does not represent all sites where Hip-Hop is expressed. Nevertheless, I wish to emphasize the importance of including the Universal Zulu Nation in any discussion of Hip-Hop culture in the 21st century. U.Z.N. has been a major factor not only in Hip-Hop’s early history and development, but also in the preservation of its culture and ideology.7 In order to narrow my discussion further, I have chosen to focus as much as possible on only one element of Hip-Hop culture: emceein’. My decision to focus on the emcee is not intended to bring more attention to this already prominent element of Hip-Hop (EN4). Rather, I have chosen to focus on emceein’ because its verbal, performative, and self-expressive nature provides the most tangible material from which to draw sociological observations, analysis and conclusions. 6. The reason I have chosen The Temple of Hiphop is that amidst the innumerable and confusing web of major voices that claim to represent Hiphop, The Temple of Hiphopis the only collective that was (a) founded by several of the culture’s most influential pioneers, that is (b) internationally recognized on both political and social levels, and that (c) has claimed such authority and continually worked to organize and fulfill its responsibilities as such. Additionally, in order to attempt to find a middle ground between academic convention and how I have approached my topic, I have made concessions on both sides. One example of an academic one is that I have chosen to spell Kulture with a “c” rather than a “K” as The Temple of Hiphop suggests. Frequently Asked Questions www.templeofhiphop.org.
7. For anyone who finds my description of Hip-Hop to be unlike current manifestations of the music and culture that they see and hear today, I offer a quote from an interview with Reginald Jolley (1994) from Wimsatt’s Bomb the Suburbs: “Hip-Hop has become totally the opposite of what created it. Zulu [Nation] was about Peace, Unity, Love, and Having Fun. What’s going on now is about Violence, Disorganization, Self-hate, and…Glorifying bad times” (21). As I discuss in more depth in the section “The Nigga You Love To Hate,” I argue that this popular, negative image of Hip-Hop that Jolley describes has been largely shaped by mass media outlets. A rapper is not necessarily an emcee. The two expressions often overlap, but they are not synonymous.8 While emcees and rappers may both record and release songs, emcees are characterized by additional skills and practices. As I will explain in the section Emceein’ As Art, these additional characteristics are central to understanding why a reductive cultural analysis of Hip-Hop falls short. Rather than using a traditional academic source to define the word emcee, let us refer to a definition put forth by the culture’s pioneers:
A mastery of spoken word and the ability to interact with a crowd are two central aspects of the definition of emceein’ I will be using. To gain a deeper understanding of these aspects of the form, I will reference personal interviews with artists as well as a comprehensive analysis of the emceein’ written by one of the form’s most influential pioneer’s, Kool Mo Dee a.k.a. KMD (2003).10 Dee’s work will serve as a roadmap for understanding various aspects of the emcee, and it can also help us to arrive at a new definition of Hip-Hop authenticity (EN5). 8. I hope that future academic work on Hiphop will make this important distinction between emcees and rappers rather than implying that the two terms are interchangeable.
9. The Temple of Hiphop: The Refinitions. www.templeofhiphop.org 10. See Appendix A – Kool Mo Dee’s Criteria for Evaluating Emcees. |
|
1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 I 15 I 16 I 17 I 18 I 19 I 20 I 21