my qualm with "hip-hop culture"

randomities, vol. 9: Culture and commerce are strange bedfellows.

Aug 27, 2020

Earlier this month, HBO debuted their Storm Over Brooklyn documentary, which chronicled the racially-motivated murder of Brooklyn resident Yusuf Hawkins at the hands of an angry white mob in 1989. Viewers of the documentary noticed that one of the men in the mob was Pasquale “Paddy Duke” Raucci, who worked as a producer at New York’s Hot 97 for decades.

He was hired at Emmis Communications, Hot 97’s parent company, just five years after being acquitted for involvement in the murder. Hot 97 fired him this week after people made the connection and outrage ensued online. Hot 97 personality (and former program director) Ebro said that he didn’t know about Paddy’s involvement in the crime (and said Paddy’s record was expunged), and many current and former Hot 97 people said the same thing.

Former Hot 97 personality Angie Martinez, who frequently had Duke on air, says she didn’t know about his involvement, but former Hot 97 personality Star says she did. It’s impossible to know who knew what when, but this story is another instance where rap’s industrialization muddies the idea of “hip-hop culture” for me.

The people who are skeptical of Hot 97’s knowledge aren’t just being messy, they’re reflecting the reality that there are a lot of anti-Black people out for the Black dollar — including other Black people. Hot 97 touted themselves as “where Hip-Hop lives” — and had someone involved in a hate crime as a tenant. Culture and commerce are strange bedfellows.

The idea of culture is pretty ambiguous. To me, culture isn’t just about shared taste, it implies protection, it implies collective convictions, it implies respect for the humanity of the progenitors and participants. It’s easy enough to put on the right clothes, mimic the right accent, and learn the timely vernacular, but deep down, who are you? Did you make anti-Black women songs like Eminem? Do you think Breonna Taylor deserved what happened to her like JWLucas? Do you think hip-hop lacks emotional evocation and long to crossover like Post Malone?

I wish it were as simple as Black people being able to close the shutters and reassert authority about who gets to perform, talk about, and make money off hip-hop, but that’s not feasible at this moment. So many people with visibility to enact change are a part of the establishment. They’ve shown that they’re fine with the exploitative record industry, fine with sitting silent as Black women are abused and shot, and fine with sitting on their hands while the people call for revolution. It’s not just a matter of mostly white higher-ups, but the Black people who look the other way on cultural failures because it’s in their financial interest to do so. We got sold out (and are pressured to call the circumstance “excellence”).

This Paddy Duke situation is an extreme example, but an example nonetheless that we have to be wary about what we call “culture.” I doubt anyone who reads this follows battle rap as seriously as I do, but yesterday, a very popular (white) battle rap videographer got exposed for past racist comments. What does community mean if the participants don’t respect and appreciation for each other, and specifically, the guests don’t respect Black people? Perhaps there’s no way for anyone in power at Hot 97 to have known what he did, but the ease in which he assimilated makes me uneasy.

I always side-eye when people overuse the word ”agent.” But Shaun King? That’s an agent of chaos. His actions are that of someone looking to infiltrate the movement and sabotage it. He gained a profile-raising awareness of instances of state-sanctioned violence, yes. But a lot of Black people asked him to stop posting traumatic videos, and as far as I know, he’s ignored their wishes. A lot of people blocked him on Twitter for that reason. Even worse, he’s been stealing money left and right that could have been better donated to causes with altruistic intentions. And now, after erroneously outing a man for the murder of Jazmine Barnes, he’s threatening to out cops who “may or may not” be the one who shot Jacob Blake. He’s doing a lot, and none of it is productive to the cause he claims to fight for. That’s agent behavior.
Is this “revelations,” or is that adage just our hubris attaching personal meaning to natural cause and effect? There’s only so long one group of people can systemically keep their foot on the necks of other people before violence and mass unrest occurs. And there’s only so long you’re gonna be able to abuse the earth before violent results manifest. The earth has been here long before us, and it’ll be here long after us. If it has to purge us to expedite the process, then that’s what’ll happen.
There are a lot of people upset about the spate of mainstream magazine covers depicting victims of police violence. I don’t think there’s any “right” answer about how to feel about a circumstance that shouldn’t be happening, but I’m not sure people firmly on one side of the other see the full picture. Yes, magazines are essentially making money off of Black trauma, but there are also journalists getting to document a story that needs to be told. But at the same time, I can’t deny that I’ve seen certain covers and felt like certain they were trivializing or having too much “fun” with the specter of Black death. I don’t even like that type of art on Instagram. It’s really touchy. I can understand being mad at the circumstance, and also feeling like these outlets are staffed and funded by people who may not be doing enough to erase the circumstance. But I also feel like we’d be talking about erasure if these moments weren’t being covered. This is just another ugly catch 22 of the Black experience in white supremacy.

bars of the moment

“I don’t want your pity I want change.”

-Letetra Widman, sister of Jacob Blake

The people that Trump is calling “the mob” are the only ones—amid pandemic and armed repression—attempting to balance the scales of justice in a time when police carry the unholy arrogance of people who, like their dear leader, believe that they live above the law.

Dave Zirin in Masai Ujiri and Police Who Live Above the Law piece

White safety, itself built on a foundation of enslavement and segregation, is ensured through familial wealth, home ownership, well-funded public schools, stable employment, and health care. Black safety is ensured by “zero tolerance policing” and “stop and frisk.”

Josie Duffy Rice in The Abolition Movement piece

Reminder: protests have been occurring across the country nonstop since George Floyd was murdered. Louisville has been marching consistently for Breonna Taylor. The media just got tired of it. The NBA players are forcing their attention back. It’s a movement, not a moment

@TraceyLRoss

artifact

James Baldwin in ‘69 on the ‘68 riots: “...What does a Negro want?...I want exactly what you want. And you know what you want. I want to be left alone, I don’t want any of the things that people accuse Negroes of wanting. And I don’t hate you...I simply want to be able to raise my children in peace.”