Goodie Mob and the Metaphysics of White Supremacy
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Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, American Literature and Culture. Chicago: University of Sexuality, and Popular Culture. Lanham, Md.: Hamil- Chicago Press. ton Books. Walker, Alice. 1983. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Long, Charles. 1995. (1986). Significations: Signs, Symbols, A Womanist Prose. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jo- and Images in the Interpretation of Religion. Aurora, vanovich. Colo.: Davies Group Publishers. Constructing ‘The Day After’: Goodie Mob, Exaggerated Radical Contingency and the Metaphysics of White Supremacy Christopher Driscoll,Graduate Student, Religious Studies, Rice University [email protected] The Good Die Mostly Over Bullshit. Rap group and social sufferings that offer a starting platform Goodie Mob derives its name from this axiomatic for their prophetic critiques. At other times, death acronym, and such a focus on death and the absur- is deemed the only real solution to suffering. Dur- dity of it (i.e. “bullshit”) occupies a great deal of their ing these moments, death offers an end to suffering musical catalog. Based in Atlanta and emerging in and the discovery of a response to the absurdity and 1995 as part of The Dungeon Family, a collective arbitrariness of death and suffering. Where does this of Southern artists known for musical innovation preoccupation with death come from that so heav- (which includes the Grammy-award winning Out- ily informs Goodie Mob’s music? Further, how do kast), Cee-Lo, Big Gipp, Khujo, and T-Mo formed the metaphysical ideas presented by Goodie Mob the Goodie Mob and gained critical and commercial respond to this preoccupation? And lastly, since race success in large part through their ability to main- and racialized oppression color the group’s prophet- tain a lyrical and musical balance between propheti- ic voice as well as its metaphysical responses to ra- cally biting social commentaries concerning racism, cial oppression, what might exploring Goodie Mob’s poverty, violence, and sexism with an overtly theis- metaphysical responses to death and racialized suf- tic (and often Christian) metaphysical program re- fering indicate about the way white supremacy is (or sponsive to these concerns. One way Goodie Mob is not) theorized and responded to amongst white maintains this balance is through the heuristic of religious studies scholars? death. Often, the group suggests death—the fear or In this paper, I use Goodie Mob’s song “The exaggeration of it—is responsible for the individual Day After,” the last song on their 1995 album Soul 20 BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3 / SEPTEMBER 2011 Food, to claim that white supremacy is a construct- constructions indicates that white supremacy might ed metaphysical system that responds to human be more easily dismantled if understood as its own radical contingency through the exaggeration of the metaphysical construction. In what follows, I am not radical contingency of others. As used here, radical making judgments concerning the utility of the strat- contingency is the condition of human finitude and egies embedded in these lyrics. What I am doing is limitation that when reflected upon can manifest using this descriptive, theoretical analysis to situate through an experience of terror and dread. Often, white supremacy as a metaphysical construction, this awareness of radical contingency results from with the hope that new ways of thinking and theo- rational reflection on one’s death. But what hap- rizing white supremacy within religious studies will pens when such reflection on human finitude and aid in its eventual dismantling. limitation, or death, is exaggerated? I want to sug- gest that white supremacy produces such an exag- Metaphysical Responses to Exaggerated Radical geration. By white supremacy, I mean an ideological Contingency narrative of domination informing beliefs and prac- tices (both overt and covert) that understand white Goodie Mob’s “The Day After” is full of examples Western values and mores, such as bodily aesthet- that point to the relationship between metaphysical ics, music, food, and economics, etc., as normative constructions and what I refer to as exaggerated rad- and/or innately better than alternatives. White su- ical contingency. Specifically, I present three salient premacy functions to recreate and multiply this ter- examples that suggest Goodie Mob’s metaphysical ror and dread (of radical contingency) onto people constructions are predicated on the sense of exag- of color, and this multiplication is what I refer to as gerated radical contingency. First, “The Day After” exaggerated radical contingency. As an example, begins with a chorus that provides an initial glimpse knowledge of one’s death produces a sense of radi- into a metaphysical construction that responds to cal contingency, but believing that death will come and even challenges exaggerated radical contingen- violently or prematurely produces a sense of exag- cy by promising an epistemological and existential gerated radical contingency. What is so often described resolution to the terror and dread. by Goodie Mob as the consequences of injustices like racism and sexism is indicative of this exaggerated I’m so happy we made it, I knew one day we radical contingency, and “The Day After” offers one would/All these years of struggling were never example of this description. Finally, I use the term understood/Now my eyes are open and I can “metaphysical construction” to refer to cognitive clearly see/We didn’t die for nothing’Cause we systems of meaning that seek to provide answers to are finally free. questions arising from radical contingency, such as questions about space, time, uncertainty, human dig- The chorus describes the relationship between nity, and the divine. My adoption of “metaphysical exaggerated radical contingency and the formula- construction” instead of “metaphysics” is meant to tion of a metaphysical claim. Goodie Mob’s com- remind and reinforce that “metaphysics” are in fact, ment that “all these years of struggling were never cognitive constructions and can be altered based understood” and the claim that “we didn’t die for on human need, even if some of these systems (e.g. nothing” reflect the gaps that had previously existed theistically-oriented systems) often purport to be a within the group’s worldview as well as the preoccu- priori certainties. With these concepts in mind, my pation with death indicative of exaggerated radical thesis is threefold: First, to show that Goodie Mob’s contingency and so prevalent in their musical cata- “The Day After” presents a metaphysical construc- log. Nevertheless, Goodie Mob is “happy” because tion responsive to exaggerated radical contingency. “their eyes are open” thanks to being “finally free.” Second, to suggest that historian of religions Charles Though we (as scholars) obviously do not have access Long’s theory of the first/second creation binary of- to this projected “Day After,” Goodie Mob postulates fers a way of recognizing exaggerated radical contin- that the absurdity of death and the exaggeration of gency as coterminous with the lie of the second cre- it have received a cosmic response that simultane- ation produced by white supremacy. Third, to show ously addresses such absurdity and indicates a day that this examination of Goodie Mob’s metaphysical when there will be no need for explanation. Freedom VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3 /SEPTEMBER 2011 BULLETIN FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION 21 is both existential and epistemological. Projecting petus for human action is framed around a motif of into the future their desire for this freedom today, resistance to oppression, are juxtaposed with songs the group responds to their existential situation of such as “Free,” where the central concern is to sug- oppression through a construction of a future free- gest, “why I’d rather die than to continue living this dom premised on a metaphysical system informed way.” As a preface to the following final example, it by their material conditions and their questions aris- is important to note that the entire album is framed ing from these conditions. around this issue of exaggerated radical contingen- As a second example, Khujo’s verse depicts ex- cy and what course of action to take in response to aggerated radical contingency as he raps about his it. It is significant, then, that here in the last verse of own imagined, premature, violent death: the last song on the album, this proximity to death is responded to by Cee-Lo through constructing a Pistol still smokin’ from Herndon/Homin’ in on metaphysics built principally on other-worldliness. somebody, gotta pay for restitution weigh heav- He raps: ily on my mind/Free from mental debris, Hold me down, There my physical frame lay returnin’ I know of a place not too far away that maybe you to its rightful place/A quest for forgiveness an- and I can both go someday/But I gotta make sure swered. The death toll tallied but my soul was ’cuz I ain’t tryin’ to stay here.