Data, Methods & PAR

My qualitative data consists of personal interviews with roughly thirty emcees, deejays, breakers, and (graffiti) writers from New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Oakland, Seattle, Portland, Hartford, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Rhode Island, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, and New Haven, all of which were conducted between April of 2004 and March of 2005.  My interviews almost always began with the question: What, in your mind, makes an emcee dope?  Additional questions such as: What makes an emcee authentic?,  Do you think race or class or background matters for an emcee to be authentic?, and Should only certain people be allowed to emcee?, were posed when time permitted. 

During my period of research, I was also fortunate to have a wide range of artists travel through New Haven to perform at the local music venue, Toad’s Place.  I attended a number of these shows with an audio recorder and conducted face-to-face interviews with artists after their shows (EN6).  In a number of other cases, I was able to interview artists I know personally, and then use the ‘snowball sampling method’ to gain access to additional artists.¹¹  Oftentimes, interviewing the artists to whom I was referred entailed a phone or email interview.  Additionally, I was able to involve a few artists I interviewed in other stages of my research and analysis.  This seems similar to what sociologist William Foote Whyte (1993) describes as participatory action research (PAR), in which “researchers invite some members of the organization studied to participate with them in all phases of the process…” (290-1).  Whyte explains how doing so can add validity to one’s research and findings:

PAR also helps us to deal with one of the concerns of critical epistemologists: opening up ways in which at least some members of the organization studied add their own insider [emphasis added] voices to those of the outsiders.  This can enrich the data gathering and analysis process and also increase the level of acceptance of the research report within the community or organization studied (291).

While I make no claims that this relatively small group of artists is representative of Hip-Hop as a whole, I do believe that their predominantly non-commercial status make them ideal for my particular study of Hip-Hop.  In terms of a discussion of authenticity, because these artists are not being pressured to fulfill a specific image by a major record label, I believe it is more likely that their responses are genuine.  Additionally, if one listens to these artists’ music, she will notice a frequent emphasis on maintaining artistic integrity in the face of pressures to cater to a mass audience.  For these reasons, perhaps it is less likely that these artists were influenced by an interviewer effect.

Research Goals: An Open Mic

This essay seeks to make a unique contribution to current discussions of authenticity in Hip-Hop by granting artists as much authority on certain topics as academics are granted on others.  The advantages of doing so in an analysis of the art of emceein’ is that a craft’s practitioners know their craft better than anyone else.  To reiterate KRS-One’s point, “if you can’t do it, you can’t interpret it.”  I also wish to show where artists’ viewpoints about the defining characteristics of a dope¹² emcee coincide with those put forth by rap pioneer Kool Mo Dee (see Appendix A).  Part of the reason for doing so is to validate Dee’s criteria by demonstrating its prevalence in the minds of Hip-Hop artists from cities around the country.

In terms of a sociological analysis of authenticity, this essay will be an ‘open mic’ for both artists and academics, my hope being that we can utilize the strengths of each perspective in various areas of this discussion.  Along the way, I will point out certain nuances and contradictions in comments from both groups that may provide insight into the central paradox of this hybrid culture: Hip-Hop is continually redefined through its rapid global expansion to include people of all walks of life (EN7); yet, simultaneously, there is a strong emphasis on rap and hip-hop as Black music, the essence of which is to give a voice to oppressed inner city youth. 

In examining how the artists I interviewed discuss emceein’, I argue that certain unquestioned assumptions about authenticity should be reevaluated not only in terms of specific sites of research, but also with regard to the ideology of, ‘It ain’t where ya from, it’s where ya at!’  Also, in order to facilitate an open mic dialogue between artists and academics, I have decided to use an exceptional amount of block quoting where it seems appropriate.  I urge readers to devote as much attention to these quotes as you do to my discussion.  They are often rich with insight.