REVISED: Annotated Bibliography

I tried posting it here, but it had all these glitches so I just entered it on blackboard.

REVISED: Academic Argument through Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet

All of the eighties and nineties hip hop albums that have been reviewed so far have discussed racism or inequality of the races in some way. This happened because all hip hop artist’s lives’ in this era were influenced by societies racial imbalances. Fear of A Black Planet by Public Enemy is not an exception to this trend. The relationship between blacks and whites in the United States has been a controversial topic for the last few hundred years. It is not even too much to say that the origins of the United States were built on slavery and the idea of white supremacy. Even though these days are well in the past and our laws are there to create equal opportunity and racial equality, there is still an unmistakable discriminatory mindset that is prevalent throughout our country. We live in a country that has had freedoms granted to African Americans for the last one hundred and fifty years and yet still has racial relations problems that each and every American can identify. How is it that a county that allows for a black president to be elected, a black man and a white man to fight along side to protect our country, a black man to teach a classroom full of white children have such large problems with racism and such strains on racial relations? I have no solution to this problem, but I hope to show how racism and racial relations is bigger than just individual actions and attitudes towards certain groups, but rather a societal problem through Fear of A Black Planet.

The album starts out with “Contract on the World Love Jam” which acts as the introduction to the album. Right from the start, you realize that Public Enemy is playing no games. They go straight to the point in saying that people are starting to change for the better but the black community needs to keep fighting the system that holds them back. The use of samples of Malcom X speeches and other audio clips brings back memories of the Civil Rights Movement and gives off the idea that this movement is still going on just in a new form. Racism is still very much a problem in society. According to Richard Delgado, “A big problem with racism is that it is ordinary, where it is difficult to address or cure because it is not fully acknowledged” (7). In society today, many people get caught up with the idea that since legally everyone is equal and have equal opportunities, that this is actually true. Racism is now something that is hidden in every day things and Chuck D and public enemy use the rest of the album to bring these things forward.

“911 is a Joke” proves to be one of the more controversial songs out of the whole album. With the hook of the songs being “So get up get, get get down/911 is a joke in yo town/get up, get, get down/Late 911 wears the late crown”, Public Enemy is attacking a system that is crucial to keeping Americans safe. They claim that emergency services are slower to respond to distress calls in black neighborhoods compared to white neighborhoods. Something way more important than just slower response times is evident here. There is a total mistrust in the system. Public Enemy is speaking for the black community in saying that the countries system is so biased and flawed that is laughable. They are not just pointing out flaws in society, but showing the need for societal change. The problem with all of this is perception. Whether or not the problem actually exists, if a community feels like it does than something needs to change in order to counteract this. The system involving the police force, emergency services, and the government as a whole is put to question here.  According to Jeremy Gorner “because of experiences such as this [extremely delayed or possibly ignored emergency service calls], many of our neighbors simply will not call the police.” The black community feeling like their lives matter less than the white peoples lives creates a boundary that stresses the fragile relationship between races.

One of the most interesting concepts out of all is going on in “Fear of a Black Planet.” The song uses an incredibly vast number of samples. This creates a slightly chaotic feel to the song, which acts as a good background for the lyrics talking about whites being fearful of a black planet.  In this song, there is a sample saying “Black man, black women, black baby. White man, white women, white baby. White man, black women, black baby. Black man, white women, black baby.” The sample from “Fear of a Black Planet” brings up an interesting point. Why does anything that is different considered “impure”? The fact that even if you are half black and half white, three quarters white and one quarter black, or even ninety-nine percent white and one percent black, that connection to being black makes you black. The group also brings up the fact that history may play part in the fear of a black planet in “Fight the Power.” In this song they rap “Sample a look back you look and find/Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check.” The history of the United States and the fact that blacks were slaves contributes to this idea of fear of a black planet. For hundreds of year, blacks were seen as property, violent, unlawful, and pretty much any other word with a negative connotation. Even though this was far in the past, nobody can forget what had been in the past. The fact that the group brought this up reignites the conflicted pasts that whites and blacks had. Public Enemy discusses the idea of being fearful of a black planet and this being the reason for discrimination, but is this really the case? It is debatable whether it is truly a fear of a black planet or just fear of things that are unfamiliar or things that are different than what you are. Greenwald argues that “discrimination happens more in todays time without negative intent.” In-group favoritism that happens naturally when humans grasp on to familiarity could be the reason for the increased racial tensions in today’s times. Looking at it this way, Public Enemy is opening the doors to seeing the true reason for the stress on relations. Maybe racism isn’t just an individual problem, but a societal problem. Society as a whole grasp too much onto what they are familiar with which has allowed the division of races in America to continue to spread.

Continuing on with the album, Public Enemy shows a constant distaste with the media. They directly discuss this discontent in “Incident at 66.6 FM” and “Burn Hollywood Burn.” I think the problem is bigger and more complex than what they are making it out to be, when it comes to the idea of the media hurting racial relations. The media puts things out there and viewers assume that the media is being racist, but is this really the case? Is the media causing these racial tensions or is it societies racist perceptions of what the media presents that is the being seen as racist? In “Burn Hollywood Burn”, Public Enemy raps “In the movies portraying the roles/Of butlers and maids, slaves and hoes.” Having a black person play the role isn’t racist in itself, yet the idea of a black person being inferior in the media is taken as more then just a role in a movie. This is because of ethnocentrism.  Nguyen Thien says that “ethnocentrism is used to refer to a process that simultaneously produces in-group hostility as a result of the human striving for belonging, as a form of we-ness that pits us against them” (28). This ethnocentric ideology is pinning blacks against the media. This idea is something that Public Enemy over looks. In striving for belonging and equality, blacks may be using the media as a target for something that the media does not control. The blame is being placed on the media when really society as a whole is keeping these century year old stenotypes alive that blacks are violent or uneducated. The improvement of racial relations can only be done with the total elimination of these outdated stereotypes.

Although Public Enemy never talks about how to solve problems existing in society with racial relations, it is implied that the goal is to have a cohesive society where all people are seen as equals have equal opportunities. Public enemy uses each song in this album to show what parts of life that they see as wrong and in need for change. It is not enough for individuals to just treat others equally, but society as a whole has to transform to remove the stereotypes that exist today. The relationship between races is likely something that will continue to be strained because of how complex and fragileness it is.

Works Cited:

Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York UP, 2001. Pascal. NYU Press, 23 June 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

Gorner, Jeremy. "ACLU Suit Alleges Police Slower to Respond in Minority Areas." The Chicago Tribune. N.p., 28 Oct. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

Greenwald, Anthony, and Jerry Large. "We Tend to Discriminate by Favoring Familiar." The Seattle Times. N.p., 21 May 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.

Thien, Nguyen Phuoc, and Seow Ting Lee. "Media, Race And Crime: Racial Perceptions And Criminal Culpability In A Multiracial National Context." International Communication Gazette 77.1 (2015): 24-50. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

REVISED: The Academic Conversation of Run-D.M.C. by Run-D.M.C

This week I am throwing it back to some of the pioneers of hip-hop. By this I mean Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons, Darryl “Darryl McDaniels “DMC”, Jam Master Jay and their group Run-D.M.C. Before Run-D.M.C. artists like Kool DJ Herc and Grand Master Flash made huge contributions to the development of rap, but they stayed more on the local scene. Hip hop was strictly urban music, but with Run-D.M.C, all of this changed. The group brought hip-hop to the mainstream.  They became the first hip hop group to have a gold album, be nominated for a Grammy Award, and to have videos on MTV. Their self titled album Run-D.M.C. was the start to all this success, which made it one of the most influential albums in all of hip hops’ history.

The influence of this album wasn’t just in its contributions to the genre, but also in the messages it sent to its audience. Run-D.M.C is all about being a positive influence on society as a whole. Whether it is about being pro-voting, pro-education, anti-gang, or bringing cultures together it is all about making the world a better place and wanting people to coexist no matter what the color of their skin is. Their message isn’t just something towards African Americans; it is for everyone. Of course this album isn’t all just about social issues and their views on society. They are never short on time to tell people that they are the “masters of a mic.” This is still a bad ass album with its political and economic messages hidden behind the playful, yet hard hitting beats of the song. Their rapid back and forth rapping creates constant energy throughout the album and has become the core of who they are as a hip-hop group.

The album starts out a little slow with “Hard Times.” Although there is nothing special about the sound or delivery of this song, it gives a hint at what the message of the rest of the album will be. The beat created by Jam Master Jay is very simple and has a positive feel to it. Despite the name of the song, “Hard Times”, the song actually has an uplifting sense and message, which is consistent with the rest of the album. The idea of the song may seem simple. Basically it says don’t let the hard times keep you down; instead, work hard, keep your head up and fight through it. This wasn’t just an empty suggestion, the people Run-D.M.C. were rapping for truly needed this advice. Rachel Jones performed a studying showing that, “Being poor decreases the odds of indicating that working hard is one of the most important qualities that a child should develop.” A lot of these people living in poverty or close to it are just simply not as motivated and are more likely to give up when the times get tough. This song is for them. The members of Run-D.M.C. were not always successful people, but they worked hard when the times were tough. They say, “Hard times is nothing new on me/I’m gonna use my strong mentality.” What Run-D.M.C. does is that they discuss cultural problems without making it the focus of their music. They are promoting the importance of education to their audience who has a history of not valuing education. The group is still focused on making good music with cool, inventive sonic elements to them, but they throw in positive messages in hope to have their mentality spread to their audience. 

With the song “Rock Box” the true musical identity of Run-D.M.C starts to come out. Listening to this song is a completely different experience then you would expect from a hip hop album. The song starts with a typical Run-D.M.C. sound with sparse, slightly funk sounding beats. Then an electric guitar comes in, then drums, and before you know it you have a hip-hop song and a hard rock song mashed together. This song in particular is what set Run-D.M.C. apart from the rest and brought them into the mainstream. The song is about integrating cultures through music. The lyrics itself do not do this, but rather the sound of the song. Main stream music was dominated by white music and hip hop was still mostly confined to local urban areas. They thought that by bringing two types of music belonging to two different cultures that they could achieve an assimilation of the cultures. The cultures gained common ground through their music. A cultural study of society performed by J.W. Berry shows that “when society seeks the objective of unity, this encourages the strategy of assimilation.” This cultural assimilation can be seen in the official music video of the song. The video goes out of its way to show the opposite race enjoying the opposite musical sounds. Shots of a group of black men nodding their heads to the guitar solo and a white suburban kid running to listen to Run and DMC rap shows how the song was intended to bring the cultures together. Run-D.M.C. nonverbally made the audience appreciate music that they did not typically listen to. Music was the common ground that brought people of all different cultural backgrounds together.

After all these hard hitting, solid songs, the album reaches “It’s Like That.” Unlike the rest of the album that has hard hitting beats and changing rhythms throughout each song, the beat is very repetitive and there is real no change of pace during the entire song. This song is the least musically complex and enjoyable to listen to on the whole album; however, I have grown to respect it more than any other song on the album. This is the one song on the album where you can tell Run-D.M.C. wants the audience to fully hear what they have to say. The whole song is addressing society and its problems. The best part about it is that there isn’t hostility in anything they are saying. Groups like N.W.A. worked to discuss the problems in their city, but ended up coming off threatening, turning off a lot of the countries audience. Run-D.M.C on the other hand addressing unemployment, struggles to make ends meet, under paying of employees, killing of innocents, education issues, and prejudice, yet there is no anger in lyrics or their voices when they rap. The whole song seems very philosophical. Every verse ends with “Its like that, and that’s the way it is”. Problems with society are being put out there and Run-D.M.C is letting the audience make what they want of it. The seems intended to have the audience reflect on why things are in the world. They want people to question the way the world is and trying to enact change through their audience.  They are sending a positive message, but letting the audience figure out what they want to get out of the song. No other hip hop group can pull this off like they can.

This ideology of unity continues as the album goes on to “Wake up.”  Focused around a funk baseline that Run-D.M.C. is known for and the hard hitting sound, the song is used to bring people together and work for a united society. Run and D.M.C really show their style to the fullest extent in this song. They switch of singing every few words and then end come together to emphasize the most important lines. The idea of unity is felt just by the way they sing. The song starts, “When I woke up this morning and got out the bed/I had some really fresh thoughts going through my head/They were thoughts that came from a wonderful dream/It was the vision of a world working as a team.” As it goes on there is a verse that states, “Everyone was treated on an equal basis/No matter what colors, religions or races/We weren’t afragiht to show our faces/It was cool to chill in foreign places.” I think we can all agree that the idea of a peaceful planet, where everyone works for the betterment of society is a good idea, but I also think we can agree that it is a bit far-fetched. The world is full of genocide, wars, and fear and there is no sign of this changing. Run-D.M.C acknowledges this with the repetition of “Wake up.” Every verse they rap, they follow it up with “[it was] just a dream, wake up” which reassures the fact that the ideas are far out of reach. With this they are also saying that there is potential for improvement of society and the fact that it is what people are dreaming infers that it is what they desire. 

This album was just the start to Run-D.M.C.’s explosion into the mainstream. Even with all of their success as a group and the positive messages they sent to their audience, their biggest influence had to do with what they did for the genre. They were the group responsible for the hardcore sound that encompassed hip-hop genre for the next decade. This album started it all. There is no N.W.A. without Run-D.M.C. There is no Public Enemy without Run-D.M.C. Someone had to be the ones to transform hip hop from a casual disco sound to a more hardcore sound. This was the album; this was the group. They gave hip hop the energy everyone knows and loves “And that’s the way it is.”

REVISED: Cultural Criticism "Straight Outta Compton"

The album that I am looking at this week is very different from anything else I have looked at. This album is Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A. Before this group, there was just hip-hop. After the release of this album the hip-hop world split apart into two parts: east coast hip-hop and west coast hip-hop. While east coast hip-hop features mostly jazz samples and utilize wordplay to produce heartfelt music about their struggle growing up in a tough environment, west coast hip-hop features mostly funk samples and often has utilizes more direct lyrics to glorify the gang environment they live in while reflecting on it emotionally.  N.W.A was not the first group to have this west coast style, but they were the group that forced a distinction between the types of hip-hop then popularized it. This is the group and the album that brought hip-hop to the national stage.

Before going into the dynamics of this album, I want to say something. For the most part, I can not relate on a personal level to most of the content of the songs. I grew up in an extremely safe community where the biggest crime was a teenager getting caught smoking marijuana.  The album was obviously not directed towards people like me; it is about black people living in urban areas. I think that even with this the album had a huge impact on its white audience. Ice Cube once said that thirty to forty percent of the people who own this album are actually white. This album allowed people who are unfamiliar with the urban lifestyle to get outside of their specific community. Music critics, like Matthew Duerston, have even gone as far to say that N.W.A. “supplied tantalizing fantasies of urban sleaze and violence to millions of white suburban teens.” With this album anyone and everyone can get a glimpse at the life of a black urban community and what they live through each and every day.

This album starts off with a bang! “Straight Outta Compton” not only sets the tone for the album, but has become on of the most iconic songs for the genre as a whole. The quick and powerful beat combined with the aggressive tone of the rap gives the music as a whole a very confrontational tone. The funk sound gives off an urban feel which works in unison with the lyrics about urban life. While listening to this, I quickly caught myself singing along, “When I’m called off, I got a sawed-off/squeeze the trigger and the bodies are hauled off.” I was literally getting into a song about shooting and killing people with a shotgun, yet I didn’t care. The music is that good. The song also uses a constant repetition of the phrase “Straight Outta Compton.” The group made up of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Mc Ren, DJ Yella, and Arabian Prince were a product of Compton. The Compton way of life became their perception of how people lived. This song, however, isn’t just about the neighborhood they grew up on; it is much bigger than that. It is “Straight Outta Compton” and not “Straight Into Compton” for a reason. The music, the lifestyle, the problems are bigger than just the 10.12 square miles that is Compton. This song is an anthem to the black urban lifestyle as a whole.

“Straight Outta Compton” talks about violence, but “Fuck the Police” takes it many steps further. It isn’t enough for them to rap about how they hate the police or how people shouldn’t let them take advantage of them, but they say how they want to kill the police. In fact, the phrase “Fuck Tha Police” was repeated 21 times in the song! Although N.W.A claims they were just describing existing social problems in urban neighborhoods, there is no doubt that this song was provoking violence towards police. N.W.A. became the most popular group in the Los Angeles area and with this comes influence. These hip hop stars are saying things like “Without a gun and a badge, what do ya got?/A sucker in a uniform waiting to get shot” and “a young nigga on the warpath/And when I’m finished, its gonna be a bloodbath”, it had to have an influence on the audience. This music created a society of people that wanted to disrespect police, fight police, and even kill police. It is not enough to say law enforcement felt threatened by this song. In a letter from the FBI to the record label of N.W.A., Priority Records, they expressed their distaste for this song saying “advocating violence and assault is wrong.” They even go as far as hinting that the release of this song in 1988 caused an increase the number of murdered police officers since there were more violent crime and police officers slain then any of the previous years. Along with this, some concert venues forbid the group from performing this song and when they didn’t comply they arrested them. I know I have made the officers seem like victims in this, but that wasn’t completely the case. Officers were getting away with endless counts of police brutality and unlawful search and seizures just because the color of the person’s skin. This song wasn’t just talking to the urban communities, but it was a message to the police force that they were not going to let this happen anymore. They were speaking up for the rights of people all across the urban community. This song was rallying point for fighting back for their rights.

With these two bold songs, the album takes a slight turn. Instead of confrontational tone to the songs, the group is more focused on “telling it as it is” as Ice Cube would say. The songs utilize similar beats, but the vocals don’t sound as aggressive leading to a completely different listening experience. A lot of what these songs do is explain how things work in an urban community and show some misconceptions about them. People all across the country would see the urban areas such as Compton on the news. They have a huge crack cocaine problem and gangs murder each other. These songs were there to say basically “yea, this is how we live, but it doesn’t mean our whole culture is about this”.

In the middle of all of this, N.W.A. throws the audience a curveball in “Express Yourself’. This song does not fit the album at all. There is no profanity and the song as a much more upbeat, playful feel to it. This song seemingly has the same message as the rest of the album, but just is the PG version rather than the NC-17 version. If any of the songs on this album were made with the thought of getting national radio play, it would be this song. A closer look at the lyrics shows that the focus is still on urban culture; however, this song is much more relatable for the rest of the country. It is a message to all people that they should not let society and expectations hold them from doing what they want to do or who they truly are. Its all about expressing who you are and not conforming. Dre sums it up in one line: “Its crazy to see people be/What society wants them to be, but not me.”