Recently, discussing the history of hip-hop, I said the ’80s were the best era because that was when it was still about the battle, before gangsta rap came along.
I was quickly handed a fork and a gamey plate of crow.
Gangsta rap brought amazing beats and changed the game into something completely different, but what I failed to credit was the birth of socially conscious hip-hop spawned in response.
It has produced some great records in the last 15 years — Common’s Be, The Roots’ Things Fall Apart (right) and Outkast’s Aquemini, just to name a few.
My taste in hip-hop during the last decade trended more toward this genre.
After admitting my oversight, then emerged an uncomfortable curiosity I asked myself: Do I like socially conscious hip-hop because it’s “safer” for white people?
Hypothetically, it makes a positive statement about someone if they’re white and listen to conscious rap. It says a person is worldly and considers societal issues rather than personal ones.
As a white, college-educated guy who grew up in the Denver suburbs, it’s not as hard for me to relate to Mos Def when he raps about institutional injustice as it is Jay-Z when he rhymes about pushin’ weight in his pre-rap career, although both have something interesting to say.
Further research — read: “intense Google searches” — reveals that I’m not alone. One musicologist said white audiences make up 70 percent of hip-hop’s buying audience. Anecdotal evidence from rappers suggests as much as 95 percent of concertgoers for socially conscious hip-hop gigs are white.
In the Bay Area, the hushed secret is white crowds will catch a rapper in San Francisco, while darker skin tones will see the same artist in the East Bay.
I think demographics explain the numerical disparities. White, nonhispanic Americans account for 63.7 percent of the country, a number that rises to 72.4 percent when hispanics are added. Blacks are 12.6 percent of the pie, according to the latest census.
If whites make up a larger percentage of the population, it stands to reason more of them could come to a show. The image of a black artist performing to a majority white audience doesn’t seem so strange through this prism.
Furthermore, racial dividing lines in music have faded. The days when a white face such as Pat Boone was needed to rebrand so-called black music are long gone.
For example, Eminem (Recovery at right) didn’t rise to popularity because he was a white face making a “black sound” — although, let's be honest, it probably didn't hurt. Regardless, his skills with a mic in his hands made his skin color irrelevant.
Something bigger troubles me, however. Behind this entire discussion is the notion that music genres have a race, that black people are expected to buy and see black artists while white people do the same.
But that’s just not true.
That’s not the safe answer or the easy conclusion, either. It’s the truth. Look at the cross-cultural appeal of Motown artists or the abundance of white faces in the crowd at Woodstock when Jimi Hendrix summoned spirits with his guitar in ’69.
We should celebrate these differences. A rapper from Georgia is going to sound different from one from Minnesota because they don’t have the same spheres of influence. That’s a good thing.
Good music is worth hearing regardless of a performer’s heritage. It’s interesting to discuss, but it shouldn’t discourage anyone from purchasing a particular record.
This is true with rap, too. If a white person enjoys socially conscious hip-hop, that’s OK because music is not just for those who look like the person who made it.
It's for everybody.
Social-minded rap appeals to me intellectually, but there are thought-provoking lyrics in all different styles of hip-hop, not just a socially conscious style, a label that the rappers themselves often reject.
As a white male, there’s no reason I can’t listen to socially conscious rap, gangsta rap or that old-school ’80s stuff.
Besides, maybe hip-hop legend KRS-One said it better than I ever could: “All rap is socially conscious.”
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