Hip-hop as a political tool

By: Chris Curtis

Posted: 9/26/08

Forget the more common associations like bling and scantily clad women - hip-hop is the language of political change.

More than 60 people crowded into a small computer classroom on the bottom floor of the Multicultural Center today for a workshop titled "Can't Truss It: Hip Hop as a Political Tool."

Those who arrived early enough sat in the seats provided; others leaned against walls or sat on the floor. Overflow from the event extended into the hallway, where students watched through the room's glass partition.

Communication studies graduate student Kalyana Champlain gave the presentation.

With the help of frequent video excerpts of performances by well-known rap artists and clips of social commentators, Champlain examined the history and potential of hip-hop as a political tool.

She began with a look at hip-hop's roots as a social movement, citing various theorists.

"Hip-hop made it so that people of color, African-Americans, could identify with one another at a time when the system was making them feel like they weren't worth anything," Champlain said, referring to the rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke's theory of identification.

She went on to discuss the idea that power goes to those who control the language.

"It's very important that we understand that rhetoric is this energy, language is this energy, and everything we say has power," she said. "Understand that when hip-hop first began it wasn't what you hear on HOT 106 now, it wasn't just a bunch of people spinning over the beat just to hear themselves talk."

Champlain said it is important to approach hip-hop from the angle of African-American rhetoric.

In this context, she introduced the idea of "nommo," or the word, which presents language as a powerful tool for humans to improve society and the world.

"It's telling us that these are all the wonderful things that words can do, like these words were given to us for me to connect to you, for me to understand who you are," she said. "Because it inherently brings out the good of people, it sends threads to all disenfranchised people."

This, she said, is the underlying cause of hip-hop's international spread. Hip-hop is an effective political tool because it involves the listener in the artist's message, Champlain said.

"This is why hip-hop is a political tool … once it moves you then you got to hop up and do it," she said. "Then you got to hop up and actually be the one to say 'no."

Referring to an accepted method of social movement analysis, Champlain said that all movements have the potential to succeed, to bog down and fail or to be co-opted onto a different course.

Hip-hop has unfortunately succumbed to the latter result, she said.

"Basically they take your art form that was a form of resistance, and they gobble it up and spit it back to you in the form of HOT 106."

Junior David Buddenhagen said he was impressed with both the content and style of the presentation.

"She did a very good job of expressing herself and she had a powerful message," he said. "We hold [the] power to make our own decisions, and they can't take that away from us."

Among the video clips Champlain used to illustrate her points was a music video of Public Enemy's hit single "Can't Truss It," which deals with the slave trade.

"What [Public Enemy is] really saying is everybody needs to begin to question what they're telling you," Champlain said.

Champlain presented work by groups such as Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, and provided historical context, describing the difficulties of inner city life during the Reagan era.

She compared the heavy beat employed in a lot of hip-hop music at the time to an alarm.

"People were dying, people weren't getting listened to; it's like a child who's hungry and crying, crying for its mother to feed it."

Champlain played clips of songs by Queen Latifah as an example of the movement to counter hip-hop's misogynistic tendencies, and a clip of the Tupac Shakur song "Changes" set to a backdrop of the hurricane ravaged city of New Orleans.

The video was a good example of hip-hop's flexibility and ability to confront new challenges, she said.

"One of the great things about hip-hop is it can actually merge and say 'okay well these are the changes that are taking place, how can we use them to fight for the battles that are going on right now?'" she said.

It is important to listen closely to the lyrics and messages of hip-hop music, Champlain said.

"We feel the energy for a hot minute, we might listen to the words, but if the beat's too dope we can't hear the words and then after that we forget about what was just said," she said. "I think it's important now that we pay attention to what these words are telling us.

"If we're not respecting that language creates reality, then we're not respecting ourselves, because we're all speaking, we're all talking constantly every day."

Freshman Lorie Chavez, who was attending as a requirement for her URI 101 class, said she did not take anything away from the lecture because she was already aware of the issues.

"I was already, like, used to diversity," she said.

Rashona Spruill, a junior fulfilling a requirement for a communication class, was also impressed.

"I thought she did a great job, she had a lot of great points," she said. "What I took out of it the most is just pay attention to what the media tells you."