The question is whether the use of hip hop will remain purely selfish or will translate to a generation of whites who as adults will have a politics that addresses the frustration of broader social marginalization experienced by African Americans. It is possible that the music will simply be responsive to self-reflexive concerns, for it is clear that the attraction to hip hop is in part a response to the desire for culture which motivates white suburban consumers who believe they lack culture due to the normativity of whiteness in the United States. They long for rituals, rules, and codes, which they hope to purchase at the local mall in the rap section. —Imani Perry, Prophets of the Hood, p. 126
There’s a scene near the end of Byron Hurt’s 2006 documentary, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes in which Hurt approaches a young white man at BET’s Spring Bling in Daytona Beach, FL. As the previous scene fades, a title overlay informs us that “70% of mainstream hip hop is consumed by young white men.”[1] The young man is from Columbus, OH, probably in his 20s, and sitting in a large white SUV. Fabolous’ “Keeping’ it Gangsta” is playing on the car’s stereo. I think about the conversation that Hurt had with this young man often, because in many ways, he represents the (stereo)typical white rap fan, one that I have encountered many times in the course of both my personal and professional lives:
Hurt: “Is that your car?“
YM: “Ahhh… yeah, I wish it was…”
Hurt: “…or are you frontin’?”
YM: “Yeah, I am frontin’ like it’s my car. Nah… it’s my dad’s.”
Hurt: “How long have you been listening to hip hop?”
YM: “Seven, eight years. I mean… since it started to come out in, ’91, ’92. Ever since then.”
Hurt: “What is it that draws you to hip hop?”
YM: “What draws me to hip hop? Just pure emotion, and the beats. I love the beats. I love every lyric that they spit. Everything about it… it’s my style. You guys… colored people… can say that it’s their music, but I can get down to it just as much as they can.”
Hurt: “Did you just say ‘colored people’?”
YM: “I don’t know which term do you want me to use, I mean... I’m not racist at all. That’s why I feel like I can come down here and just roll, and not have any problems. No one’s gonna try and… do anything. I’m just trying to have a good time down here.”
There is a considerable amount of privilege on display here, most of which manifests as ignorance.[2] The young man’s father is evidently well-off financially, and the son is borrowing his car in an effort to “keep up” with mainstream rap’s emphasis on conspicuous consumption: he wants to fit in at Spring Bling. His belief that rap came out “seven or eight years ago” is inaccurate, of course. The dates he gives—1991-92—coincide with the rise of west-coast (“gangsta”) rap in the late 1980s, and the mainstreaming of rap that resulted from Billboard’s adoption of SoundScan in the early 1990s.[3] His use of the pejorative “colored people,” followed almost immediately by “I’m not racist” belies the fact that he has not given too much thought to the relationship between his whiteness and how it shapes his consumption of rap music specifically and black culture in general. The assertion that he loves the music as much as people of color (or perhaps he specifically meant the black community)—the way he claims the music as his— and says he can go to Spring Bling and “not have an issue” has little to do with his love for hip hop and everything to do with his identity as a white man and the history of how whiteness works. He’s a colonizer, claiming property that is not rightfully his, and going out of his way to defend his right to own that property.
Perry’s book was published in 2004; Hurt’s documentary was released in 2006. In the roughly fifteen years that have elapsed between those releases and my embarking on this project, quite a lot has changed. Barack Obama became first Black President of the United States and served for two terms, which ushered in an era of racial colorblindness. In 2016 Donald Trump became President and it became apparent that the race neutrality of the Obama administration was little more than an illusion. In the wake of several high-profile police murders of young black men, the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2013 and has driven a national conversation on race.
The young white men (myself included) that accounted for 70% of rap’s audience are now older and in positions of power, and they have the capacity to shape our society’s attitudes toward rap music. In the last few years, rap has become the top-selling genre of music in the United States, and its influence has stretched around the world. It has become institutionalized in ways that have historically been reserved for other, “whiter” musics (i.e., classical and rock), and more and more schools—from K-12 to universities—are incorporating rap music into their curricula. While these seem to be positive trends, there are negatives as well. The last decade has seen a growing number of cases in which rap lyrics are admitted as evidence in criminal trials. The internet has fundamentally reshaped how people produce and consume music. On the one hand, it affords anyone the means and opportunity to create and share music with the world; on the other, the rise in streaming has devalued music, making it a less viable career option. Many of the so-called “SoundCloud rappers” rose rapidly to fame only to crumble under its weight, succumbing to drug abuse, mental health issues, and other damaging situations.[4] Even the meaning of the term “rapper” has become increasingly contested, as white rappers become more commonplace, as more and more artists sing, and as the boundaries among genres continue to dissolve.
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[1] This statistic is commonly cited, but has been disputed by some: see Bakari Kitwana, Why White Kids Love Hip Hop.
[2] In his book The Racial Contract, Charles Mills describes whiteness as “an epistemology of ignorance.”
[3] For more on SoundScan’s influence on rap, see, Watkins, Hip Hop Matters, ch. 1; Rose, The Hip Hop Wars; Berry, Listening to Rap, ch. 6.