analyzing stories of racial inequality in music...

For my assignment in Sociology 480, I decided to post this blog.  This blog is about the struggles and inequalities minorities face in contemporary American society.  I decided to analyze six songs and interpret their commentary about race, class, education, life, etc.  I have included all six songs on this post for your listening enjoyment.  Some contain explicit language; not only in word choice, but in the depiction of life.  After each song, I will comment on the narration and give my views about what the author is trying to say about the world we live in.  Enjoy!

Dead Prez  – “W-4”

In this song, the group Dead Prez illustrate what daily life feels like to them.  Overworked and underpaid, a feeling of hopelessness emanates from the speakers and into the mind of the listener.  The first verse places you in the mind set of a young black seeking employment.  The issues that are faced are a glimpse at discrimination on the most basic of levels.  If one cannot get a job, how is one supposed to support themselves?  The basic essentials for living are not free and can be taken away at any given moment.  This can be a tool used to perpetuate the cycle of poverty.  This is further illustrated in the second verse where the author relates that their employment is not able to provide the upward mobility needed to escape poverty, but merely passed down through the generations.  Because of this, his seed can never excel at anything, and is shoved into a menial job.  The author also relates that the only way out of his situation is one of four options: rapping, sports, drugs or death.  By placing his struggle in this context, the author conveys to the listener the seriousness of the situation at hand.  But how can one break this cycle?  Many feel that greater access to higher, and even high school, education can help.  However, many resources are not available in urban communities and emphasis on the costs of school leave many wondering if they were even meant to escape in the first place.  I feel that this song does an amazing job explaining how work inequality affects everything in a person’s life, and even has ramifications that ripple into the future.

 

IAME – “Unlikely Candidate”

This tune hits a little closer to home as it is written by IAME, a Portland, OR native and local hip hop artist.  He examines the history of Vanport City, finding numerous flaws in the way the government handled the flooding and eventual abandonment of the city based on racial ideals.  This has been related to the handling of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on impoverished areas in the Gulf Coast.  This reminds me of the term “racism with a smile.”  By allowing a natural disaster to eliminate the lowest class of society, the government can capitalize without being forced to use policy that could be deemed biased towards a group of people.  Another issue IAME brings up is the existence of gentrification.  He explains that just because he wants to “brighten up the block” doesn’t mean he wants to “whiten up the block.”  Gentrification has been used in poor neighborhoods to push out the lower class and raise the value of homes and businesses in the area.  But where are the people we push out allowed to go?  By raising the cost of living in a certain area, we merely push the areas of poverty to another area.  This could be seen as a modern interpretation of redlining and blockbusting.

 

Lupe Fiasco – “American Terrorist”

If I wanted to, I honestly could have written this assignment based entirely on works by Lupe Fiasco.  His insight and ability to weave a story is absolutely incredible.  Being a conscious hip hop artist, Lupe constantly dives into social commentary about anything he feels he can relate to; which is apparently almost everything!  In this song, Lupe focuses on the perceptual inequalities that we have about one another.  We live a life based on stereotypes that are presented daily through the aggressive animal that is the media.  Stereotypes are constantly reinforced through advertising, television shows, movies, music and various other outlets.  Lupe compels the listener to take a step back and look at what we are doing to each other when we force labels and socially constructed ideals on one another.  He contrasts different religions to show that we are all capable of horrific things.  If one is unaware of our capability, one needs not look further than the history of the United States.  It makes me think of the idea of alternative history, or the history of the oppressed.  It really is true that to the victor go the spoils, and those spoils are the writing of history itself.  Also, listen closely to the bridge in this song where he speaks of the plight of Asian, African and Native Americans.  Sometimes we need to be smacked in the face with the way we have treated others if we ever want to advance as a society.

 

2 Pac – “Changes”

If anyone ever mentions hip hop, two names are instantly brought to mind:  Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur.  Essentially hailed as the two greatest rap artists of all time, they also provide very provocative glimpses into a life that can be confusing if never experienced.  In 2 Pac’s song “Changes,” he explains struggles faced and what society needs to do to face the ills it has wrought and begin to mend relationships.  To be honest, there really is nothing for me to say about this.  I cannot comment further on what Tupac has stated in this song.  It needs to be experienced the way it was meant to be: through intense listening and critical thought.  What is the result Tupac is searching for in his lyrics?  Change, understanding and the willingness to move forward without repeating the mistakes of yesterday.  

"We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
And let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
What we gotta do, to survive." - Tupac Shakur

Nas – “I Can”

Known for his gritty renditions of urban life, Nas has become a cornerstone in the world of hip hop.  In this song, he lectures the youth on the importance of education and believing that you can be anything you want to be.  Although there are many issues that face minority children, Nas truly wants to inspire them to become better than what they have been brought up in.  As I learned in “Waiting for Superman,” inequalities in the educational system exist in many poor, urban areas.  But what is the point of this?  I believe it is to perpetuate the lower class.  Society needs more workers who will just shut up, do their job and go home.  We don’t want innovative ideas or solutions to problems.  We need the economy to continue rolling forward, crushing the backs of workers as CEO’s and businessmen rake in the profits.  Something is pervasively wrong with this scenario.  Instead of insulting and harming our workforce, we should be building pride in it.  We should be offering chances for those at the bottom to advance; whether in that particular field or another.  We should be offering education as a way to build on successes achieved.  But we don’t.  Either because we don’t want to, or because we are simply ignorant to the plight of the common man.

Rage Against The Machine – “Bulls on Parade”

For my last song, I decided to spice things up a little bit and throw in something one can jump in a mosh pit to.  RATM is a very political band to say the least.  This band is even on the radar of the FBI after its inclusion of part of a memo in its song "Wake Up."  In a nation that has the freedom of speech, I find this very disturbing.  There are two very fine points I feel they are trying to convey with this song.  The first is contained in the second verse when they discuss libraries.  To “dumb down” its own population, the government needs to restrict access to information.  As the artist puts it: “they don’t gotta burn the books, they just remove them.”  I think this makes a very poignant statement about the educational system in America.  It is quite obvious in poor areas that the schools are not doing so well.  Without money and resources to educate our children, we are setting them up for failure.  The second point I find interesting is the pre-chorus: “Rally ‘round the family, with a pocket full of shells.”  By using such a strong image, RATM is conveying that oppression is present in every aspect of our lives, especially crime.  The recent class discussions have opened my eyes to enormous problems within the American judicial system, and this is honestly sickening.

Well, there you go.  This concludes my blog post analyzing and interpreting various songs for meanings related to racial inequality.  I hope you enjoyed reading and listening as much as I did.  As a final goodbye, here is another song by Lupe Fiasco.  The idea is meant to poke fun about my initial confusion regarding “alternative history.”  I actually thought it was about “what if” scenarios such as “What if the Nazi’s had won World War II?”  Well, I was wrong.  However, this song does offer a different view on the world and helps me pose this final question: Why can’t it be?