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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts FROM TRICKSTER TO BADMAN TO “GANGSTA”: GLOBALIZING THE BADMAN MYTHOFORM IN HIP-HOP MUSIC A Dissertation in Comparative Literature by Mich Yonah Nyawalo © 2012 Mich Yonah Nyawalo Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2012 The dissertation of Mich Nyawalo was reviewed and approved* by the following: Thomas A. Hale Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literature Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Sophia A. McClennen Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish and Women’s Studies Jonathan P. Eburne Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and English Jennifer Boittin Associate Professor of French, Francophone Studies, and History Gabeba Baderoon Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and African Studies Aaron L. Rosenberg Research Professor Centro de Estudios de Asia y África El Colegio de México Special Member Caroline D. Eckhardt Professor of Comparative Literature and English Head of the Department of Comparative Literature *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii Abstract While a vast amount of hip-hop scholarship has focused on the proliferation of rap music within contemporary national contexts, little research has been conducted on the ways in which rappers have capitalized transnationally on each other’s national histories and folklore in their music. As a counterpoint to this dominating presentism in current hip-hop scholarship, my project analyzes how the mythological figures of the trickster and the badman, key characters in numerous African-American traditional narratives, have dramatically influenced the modes through which authenticity and notions of communal agency have shaped hip-hop in the United States, France, and Kenya. I show how and why these figures that first emerged in U.S. hip-hop have been extensively reproduced in Kenyan and French rap music. In this fashion, my dissertation tracks the formation and articulation of these tropes in hip-hop music and reveals the extent to which they are symptomatic of key moments in the history of the United States, France, and Kenya. The figure of the trickster has survived for centuries in African-American music, mainly because of each subsequent generation’s ability to reinvent it in their own image as well as accommodate it to their own social predicaments. During slavery, trickster tales emerged as ontological modes of cultural resistance through which Africans could cope with the physical and ideological realities that had been imposed on them. In the 1890s, the trickster tales that had been popularized during slavery evolved into what was to be known as badman heroic figures. The figure of the badman as an outlaw was the antecedent of the “gangsta” persona that later appeared in hip-hop culture. iii It is only through an exploration of this genealogy that the global cultural translations in contemporary hip-hop become historically intelligible. My project thus seeks to analyze how the badman trope, through its multiple manifestations in both “conscious” and “gangsta” rap, has been appropriated by French and Kenyan hip-hop artists. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: From “Badman” to “Hustler”: Double Consciousness and Authenticity From African American Folklore to Hip-Hop 23 ♦ Contextualizing the Propagation of the Badman Mythoform within Globalization Theory 23 ♦ The Emergence of the Trickster and the Badman as Symptoms of a Cognitive duality 35 ♦The Badman Mythoform and the Afrocentric Aesthetic: Examining Discourses of Psychic Conversation through the Stagolee Mythoform 48 ♦Gangsta Realism and the Stagolee Mythoform 70 Chapter 2: The Badman Mythoform in the Age of the Prison Industrial Complex and the End of History 97 ♦The Prison Industrial Complex 97 ♦The Birth and Ideological Fragmentation of Hip-Hop Activism 122 ♦Double Consciousness and Authenticity at “The End of History” 129 ●The Ideology of Neoliberalism 132 ●The Effects of Neoliberalism in Impoverished African American Communities 134 ●Neoliberalism and Media Consolidation 136 Chapter 3: The Cultural Appropriation of the Badman Mythoform in France 155 ♦Re-Imagining French Citizenship through Hip-Hop 155 ♦French Gangsta Rap and the Badman Mythoform 182 Chapter 4: Expressing and Negotiating Urban Kenyan Youth Identity through Badman Tropes 211 ♦Music and Politics in Kenya: The Popularization of Kenyan Hip-Hop in Context 211 ♦Structural Adjustments and the Rise of Kenyan Hip-Hop as a Marker of Youth Identity 244 Conclusion 267 ♦Authenticity, the Badman and Marginalized Identities 268 ♦The Badman Mythoform, the Political Economy of Mass Media and Neoliberalism 270 ♦Hip-Hop and Cultural Hybridity 273 Notes 278 Works Cited 303 v Acknowledgements I would like to thank my wife, Shureka Tikiya Cannon Nyawalo, for supporting me during the entire length of this project. As an effective reader and editor of my work, her contribution has been vital to the completion of this dissertation. I am also grateful for the support and insights provided by friends and colleagues, such as Dr. Germán Campos-Muñoz and Dr. Aaron Rosenberg, during the initial stages of this project. I wish to additionally thank my mother, Dr. Phoebe Nyawalo, for encouraging me and giving me the skills to pursue this field of study. This dissertation could not have been completed in its present form without the mentorship and guidance of Dr. Thomas Hale as well as the committee members who oversaw my thesis. Last but not least, I would like to convey my gratitude to the College of the Liberal Arts and the Department of Comparative Literature at Penn State University for giving me the opportunity to conduct my research in Kenya through the RGSO travel grant. The semester release offered by the Department of Comparative Literature was also vital to the timely completion of my dissertation. All the songs and texts in French and Swahili quoted in this study have been translated by me, unless otherwise indicated. The lyrics in each citation represent not more than ten percent of entire songs. More extended versions of these songs can be found on the websites indicated throughout the dissertation. vi Introduction From Trickster to Badman to “Gangsta”: Globalizing the Badman Mythoform in Hip-Hop Music Hip-hop music emerged in the 1970’s amidst the harsh realities of the Bronx. The face of the borough had drastically changed in the 1960’s when many factories and business relocated to other sites, leaving a high rate of unemployment, crime and drug abuse in the area. It was in this environment that hip-hop developed at house parties and other venues. Before becoming one of the most profitable businesses in the media industry, hip-hop was mostly confined to the “underground” world of music (Watkins 9). Since its birth, hip-hop has been expressed through different forms of artistic performances. These include breakdancing (or b-boying), MCing (or rapping), DJing, graffiti spraying, and beatboxing. Rap can be defined as one’s ability to speak rhythmically in verse. According to Onwuchenkwa Jemie, rapping “is basically a monologue, lively in style, colorful in language, rich in images, intended to persuade or give information, or to exhibit oratorical skills before an approving audience, whether the audience is limited to the person or persons being addressed or includes some sideliners” (41). DJing describes the art of using several turntables to create and mix desired sounds from a repertoire of music recordings while beatboxing is characterized by an often improvised production of vocal percussions. The composition of a hip-hop performance can involve one or more of these artistic genres. For example, a hip-hop show can be comprised of a DJ who produces and mixes different sounds, a rapper who raps over the DJ’s music, and a breakdancer who dances to the sounds produced by the DJ and the rapper. In this sense, designating someone as a “hip-hop artist” can refer to one or all of these genres of performance. In this study I will primarily use the term hip-hop in reference to the performance of rapping. 1 Following its birth in the Bronx hip-hop has since become one of U.S.-America’s most popular cultural exports. Hip-hop culture and music have become popular in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. A growing list of scholars have examined the specific ways in which this music genre acquires different locally distinct characteristics as it is arrogated by marginalized communities in different national contexts. However few works have studied the role of traditional African-American folkloric figures in the popularization and appropriation of the music genre among oppressed groups in the world. Yet I contend that it is by studying how folkloric figures, emerging from African-American oral traditions, have influenced the poetic structures of hip-hop music, that we can understand why this music genre has acquired its global popularity—specifically among disenfranchised people. As hip-hop is diffused in many places around the world it becomes important to comprehend not only how it has spread but also why it is so easily appropriated. One way of answering these questions is by examining particular elements within hip-hop that are the most reproduced as artists across national contexts localize the music genre. One of those elements is the badman, a figure that has deep roots in African-American oral traditions in the United States. The goal of this study is to seek answers to these broad questions by a) analyzing the birth of hip-hop and the rise of the badman as a figure rooted in African and Afro-American narratives, in particular those that focus on the concept of authenticity and communal agency, and b) by learning how the figure of the badman has been incorporated into local cultures in France and Kenya.