Week 2: The Relationship Between Hip-Hop and Academia

I found Robin D. G. Kelley’s essay, “Looking for the ‘Real’ N****: Social Scientists Construct the Ghetto,” both troubling and inspiring. While reading it, I began viewing black culture and cultural studies through a different lens.
Kelley articulates a justification for the sense of discomfort I sometimes feel when reading academic literature about black and hip-hop culture. To me, it seems inauthentic to view hip-hop from such an “uptight” scholarly standpoint, especially when rap music revolves around distorting, reenergizing, and playing with language. An academic tone in hip-hop studies can sound hollow and contrived. However, I understand the importance of employing critical thinking and social science in studying any culture, and I think Kelley finds an excellent balance between writing professionally and staying true to the subject.
So often in the Western world, especially the academic Western world, we want to elevate ourselves so we can “study” another group of people—but sometimes there is a fine line between observation and judgment. As Kelley says, in attempting to justify the criminality that sometimes pervades rap lyrics and poverty-stricken areas, through the use of terms like “pathology” and “adaptation,” we make the fundamental assumption that our own values and lifestyles are superior. I also agree that both the media and the academic community tend to emphasize and magnify the crime and the abounding “gangster” stereotypes attached to hip-hop, perhaps because of the sensational value. Little attention is given to the more typical members of the black community who enjoy fulfilling, educated, crime-free lives.
I especially like what Kelley says about overanalyzing the cultural “ritual” called “playing the dozens.” I have encountered this term in literature classes before, and I had the same reaction. Many of my white and black friends and I engage in a similar type of verbal play, simply as a source of entertainment or stress relief, and I never think about it in terms of cultural significance. In fact, it comes to me so naturally that I hardly notice it at all.
I think that, sometimes, the emphasis on research and discovery causes academics to attribute too much importance to an everyday practice. We are all human beings, and many of our actions, verbal play among them, are unconscious. I believe that when we can get past the assumption that every aspect of a culture is loaded with double meanings, we can begin to acquire more authentic knowledge about black and hip hop history.