Emceein' As Art

The one point that came up in nearly every interview I conducted is that emceein’ requires special skills and abilities.¹³  Kool Mo Dee’s (2003) blueprint for analyzing emcees supports this finding.¹⁴  Additionally, when we consider Becker’s (1982) discussion of artistry, it becomes clear that emcees can and should be viewed as artists:

Both participants in the creation of art works and members of society generally believe that the making of art requires special talents, gifts, or abilities, which few have.  Some have more than others, and a very few are gifted enough to merit the honorific title of “artist”… We know who has these gifts by the work they do because, these shared beliefs hold, the work of art expresses and embodies those special, rare powers.  By inspecting the work we see that someone special made it (14).

Indeed, to any who challenge rap’s status as art, Shusterman (1992) offers further support for the idea that emceein’ is, in fact, a special talent and one that has often been underappreciated:

Some whites may find it difficult to imagine that verbal virtuosity would be greatly appreciated in the black urban ghetto.  But sociological study reveals that it is very highly valued there, and anthropological research shows that asserting superior social status through verbal prowess is a deeply entrenched black tradition which goes back to the griots in West Africa and which has long been sustained in the New World through such conventional verbal contests or games as "signifying" or "the dozens."  Failure to recognize the traditional tropes, stylistic conventions, and constraint-produced complexities of Afro-American English (such as semantic inversion and indirection, feigned simplicity, and covert parody - all originally designed to conceal the real meaning from hostile white listeners) has induced the false belief that all rap lyrics are superficial and monotonous, if not altogether moronic.  But informed and sympathetic close reading will reveal in many rap songs not only the witty vernacular expression of keen insights but also forms of linguistic subtlety and multiple levels of meaning whose polysemic complexity, ambiguity, and intertextuality can sometimes rival those of high art's so-called open work (203).

There is also the task of determining which practitioners should be considered artists.  Becker (1982) notes that many societies have developed methods of ensuring that only the most gifted are granted the position of artist (16).  In terms of the United States, he explains that while “everyone can learn; participants in the making of art rely on market mechanisms to weed out the talented from the others” (Becker, 16).  However, as I will illustrate in the section, The Nigga You Love To Hate, this has not been the case with rap music in the United States.  Instead of talent informing the weeding out process, the rap industry has relied on the potential of an artist to fulfill a hyperbolized image of authenticity that is attractive to rebellious youth.¹⁵

What is Authenticity?

We cannot begin to discuss issues related to an emcee’s authenticity without first determining what authenticity is all about in the first place.  According to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, something that is authentic is either “[1] worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact, conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features… [2] not false or imitation, [or 3] true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.”¹⁶  Within these definitions, I wish to highlight the significance of subjectivity.  In a frequently cited study of country music, Peterson (1997) employs the idea that “authenticity in not inherent in the object or event that is designated authentic, but is a socially agreed-upon construct” (5).  In other words, a group must determine, subjectively, whether an object is worthy of acceptance, is based on fact, conforms to an original, is not imitation, or is true in personality, in order to declare it authentic.  However, as I will explain, this task of determining authenticity is problematic.

The idea of conforming to an original gives rise to a number of strong opinions regarding the idea of an authentic Hip-Hop demographic.  Here, although Black and Latino urban experiences and aesthetics have been central to Hip-Hop since its birth, the perspectives and identities of a number of artists who make up Hip-Hop culture today (a number of them artists I interviewed) indicate that Hip-Hop authenticity is not a function of particular social or cultural characteristics, but of several non-cultural qualities, the most important of which is the genuineness of the emcee.

Witty Vernacular Expression: "Oh No" by Pharoah Monch

Before listening, you may want to stop the background music by clicking the pause button on the music player above.