Hip Hop Songs and Black Racism

Hip hop music emerged during the 1970s in New York. According to Rachel E. Sullivan in "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?" by the late 1980s, hip hop songs were no longer viewed as a fad; hip hop was viewed as a distinctive musical form. Even though there were increasing numbers of white hip hop fans, many people still viewed the music's consumers as predominantly black.

Examining the lyrics in Hip Hop songs offers a deeper understanding of the social, political and economic circumstances of everyday shared experiences for many African Americans. Through examining hip hop songs it is possible to see the cracks in the foundation of a predominately white patriarchal structure that still represses opportunities for people of color.

Institutional Racism and Hip Hop Songs

The lyrics of hip hop songs underscore the realities of institutional racism. According to Toby S. Jenkins in "Mr. Nigger: The Challenges of Educating Black Males Within American Society," in the late 1960s integration of black students into white suburbia created a disconnect among students, teachers and parents, and hip hop music served as a system of inclusion for black intellectual thought and expression. At the time of desegregation in schools when blacks were silenced and marginalized in the classrooms, they began to create an alternative form of cultural expression that welcomed the social and political commentary of shared experiences and rage against the power structures of America.

Hip hop music tells the story of what it is like to be black in America. Jenkins argues that hip hop songs are reflective of black male experience that denotes, "... poor health, drug trafficking, social oppression, violence, social and political rage, depression, prison industry complex, enslavement, unemployment, poverty, and the need for self-love." Hip hop is one of the few cultural spaces where African Americans can voice their discontent with American power structures that make it difficult for blacks to be successful.

While many people argue that the potential for success in the United States is only limited by a person's ability and willingness to succeed by picking themselves up by their own bootstraps, statistics reveal that the underachievement of African Americans in the United States particularly within educational institutions is suggestive of a society riddled with discrimination.

According to Jenkins, studies reveal that the high school drop-out rate for blacks is high with 20% to 30% of young urban black males leaving school prior to graduation. In 1996 the college drop-out rates for blacks from 300 of the nation's largest colleges dropped from 35% to 33%. Additionally, one in five black men lives in poverty compared to 1 in 12 for white males.

Hip Hop Songs and Cultural Realities of Oppression

Hip hop songs like all music mirrors the cultural climate of its time. In "The Words Have Changed but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music" Terri M. Adams and Douglas B. Fuller state that "...music is a reflection of the cultural and political environment from which it is born." Social expression takes many forms, "...from triumph and hope to utter frustration and despair."

Adams and Douglas state that hip hop songs or rap has been "...denoted as the poetry of the youth who are often disregarded as a result of their race and class." While the lyrics of hip hop songs are sometimes considered derogatory, they nonetheless reflect the systematic and social effects of black racism and are by many scholars considered worthy of research and academic study.

Hip hop songs draw from eclectic and historical sources that span over decades of black racism. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature notes that rappers often cite historical black vernacular idiom and African musical forms as inspiration for their music. From spirituals, gospel, ballads, work songs and secular rhymes to the blues, jazz and hip hop, African American music resonates social and political struggles for blacks in a white dominated society.

Contemporary Oppression and Hip Hop Songs

Even though slavery was abolished in 1865 in the United States, racial oppression still thrives in American society albeit more stealthy. According to Bakari Kitwana in The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture, statistically, African Americans are less educated, employed and successful as whites. Incarceration, health issues and death rates are higher for blacks compared to whites. The emotional impact of these statistics is quite apparent in the lyrics of hip hop songs.

Hip hop music underscores the legacies and the realities for blacks in a society that reveals through many of its cultural forms that Jim Crow ideology is still very much alive today in American society. What many people do not want to accept is the fact that the tentacles of racism reach far beyond the boundaries of people of color.