The Fugees Vs. Gangsta Rap: Gangsters, Cowboys, and Refugees
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The Fugees vs. Gangsta Rap: Gangsters, Cowboys, and Refugees Nicholas Kramer English 404 Thesis Professor Robert Ness 4-20-05 “So while you're imitating Al Capone I be Nina Simone And defecating on your microphone.” – Lauryn Hill “Ready or Not” In February of 1996 The Fugees (Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill, and Prakazrel Michel, a.k.a. Pras), a relatively unknown group at the time, released their second album, The Score. The album eventually went multi-platinum, quickly leading the group to national and even international acclaim. The success of The Score is made more remarkable by the fact that it is not gangsta rap, the prevailing subgenre that had dominated hip-hop since the late 1980s. The Score, although seemingly similar in theme and style to contemporary gangsta rap, contains basic ideological differences that drastically shift the music’s impact. These differences can be found in the Fugees’ lyrics, the cinematic interludes that occur between the songs, and in the choice of the two cover songs that appear on the album. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the ideologies of both The Fugees (as it is expressed on The Score) and mainstream gangsta rap. Gangsta rap, as will be shown, contains an inherent emphasis on place-specific identity and individuality, and, consequently, tends to glorify all aspects of its locality, including many negative trends in the culture of underprivileged black youth. On The Score, however, The Fugees stress universality over specificity in terms of their place-defined identity and assert their music as art with a message. This separates their ideology from the images they depict and allows them to question the social ills they describe. Gangsta rap also denies its roots through the internalization of conservative discourse and the loss of communal responsibility to the resurgence of individualism in the 1980s. The Fugees, however, reverse this ideological shift and reconnect their music with its roots in the ideals of both 1970s hip-hop and earlier African-American artistic traditions. Not only that, 1 The Fugees weave critiques of gangsta rap into their lyrics alongside social critiques, giving their music a political weight denied to gangsta rappers by their anti-liberal discourse. Commenting on the unprecedented success of The Score, Martine Bury of Vibe Magazine accurately described its influence as “what amounted to a revolution within the revolution that hip hop was no longer” (378). Indeed, hip-hop, beginning humbly in the early 70s, eventually came to dominate both the music industry and pop-culture. In the process, however, hip-hop itself changed greatly over the 20 years before The Fugees arrived on the scene. Like any form of music, hip-hop evolved with the help of many individuals over several decades and was greatly affected by its environment. In order to understand any major change within it, one must first see how it developed. In effect, hip-hop as we know it today had two separate beginnings. As a form of music hip-hop was born out of the local party scenes of The Bronx and Manhattan in the early 1970s. Local DJs from these low income areas, in opposition to their more successful counterparts in the city’s upscale clubs, would set up dance parties on the streets, in parks, or in project rec-rooms. Out of this environment came the man generally credited with “inventing” hip-hop, Clive Campbell (better known as DJ Kool Herc), who began DJing parties in 1973. His innovative style quickly gained him a reputation in the Bronx party scene. Rather than playing singles or other well known tracks, Kool Herc would “cut” from one “break” to the next, creating a continuous stream of rhythm. The “break” in a funk or disco song is the point at which the rhythm section is highlighted. Usually the vocals and melody drop out and only the drums and sometimes the bass remain. Herc wondered what would happen if he got two copies of the same record and cut back and forth between them in order to prolong the break or sonic 2 climax. Unwittingly, Herc had stumbled upon the breakbeat, the starting point for much hip hop, dance, techno, and jungle (drum ‘n’ bass) today. His serious devotees, the dancers who saved their best moves for the break segment, became known as break boys, or simply b-boys. (Fernando 15) Herc’s style of mixing, which eventually eliminated everything but the “breaks,” was highly popular and inspired other DJs including Afrika Bambaaataa and Grandmaster Flash. Soon the new mixing style took over the party scenes of The Bronx and began to move into Manhattan. As this occurred DJs’ sets increasingly became a demonstration of their skills, and parties developed into live shows which eventually expanded to include a DJ, his MCs (“Masters of Ceremony or ‘mike controllers’” soon to be known as “rappers”), and a host of b-boys (15). Together, these crews, or posses, would tour around African-American neighborhoods holding parties and making mix tapes which were distributed as advertisements for their future shows. During this early era, hip-hop came to embody a new collectivist spirit that echoed earlier forms of African American expression. To many [hip-hop] meant liberation and a return to the real stuff: ‘70s dance music had buried an emotionally charged, folk-based ‘60s soul music which spoke in the victorious poetic rhetoric of civil rights and black power. All those elements of black folk culture that had been denied by the elegance and pretense of the ballroom or the club came back with a vengeance on the avenues and in the parks [of New York City]. […] Most of all, rap put black musical performances back on a collective basis, a social mix in which the community’s ethos could be affirmed […]. (Szwed 43) 3 Afrika Bambaataa, one of the first hip-hip innovators, was especially effective in this respect. As the leader of the New York gang The Black Spades, Bambaataa used his influence to reverse the gang’s social role. Rather than detracting from society, Bambaataa’s group worked to keep “the drug dealers in his area at bay and [to form] the Organization, uniting several different projects against the threat of violence and drugs” (Fernando 15). This initial community effort eventually evolved into the Universal Zulu Nation, “an international hip hop movement that upholds such principles as knowledge, wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, equality, peace, unity, love, and respect in their manifesto” (15). In addition to this community activism, the nascent hip-hop movement also paid its respects to black artists and political leaders of the 1960s. John F. Szwed, writing about hip- hop’s artistic predecessors, cites writers such as Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Stanley Crouch, Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets, and others as forerunners of hip-hop (Szwed 9- 10). Along similar lines Joanna Demers notes that early hip-hop DJs “favoured an elite collection of soul, funk, and R&B for their samples […]. During the 1980s this soul repertoire was known as the ‘Old School’, and for numerous rappers and DJs epitomised an authentic black consciousness” (Demers 41). This collection included works by Norman Whitfield, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, Funkadelic, The Isley Brothers, and even popular mid-60s artists like Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles, Isaac Hayes and Nina Simone. Demers goes on to explain that this music so often sampled by the original hip-hop DJs contained “a previously unheard-of level of racial and political unity” (44). This greatly influenced hip-hop’s original ideology, which would begin to change with the coming of the 1980s 4 The reign of the DJ was soon to end, however, as MCs, who rapped over the beat to escalate the party, began to gain increasing importance in the formerly vocal-less hip-hop music created by the DJs. According to Mtume ya Salaam in his article “The Aesthetics of Rap,” “What began as simply an extra device to add excitement to the show eventually became the essence of the form” (ya Salaam 307). By the late 70s MCs had begun to overtake their DJs in popularity and importance to the music (Fernando 19). This trend was only exacerbated when, after the 1979 release of The Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” the first hip-hop single ever to make it onto the Billboard charts, record companies began signing hip-hop acts. While DJs were essential to the live production of hip-hop music, they could easily be replaced by studio sampling techniques and drum machines. As a result record companies only wanted to sign, and pay, rappers because their voice would be heard on the record, whereas DJs were a nonessential expense. Consequently, 1979 saw hip-hop’s second beginning. The release of “Rapper’s Delight” marks the birth of the hip-hop industry—the money making machine that supports, distributes, and drives the music today. Although major record companies were slow to embrace the new style of music, hip-hop artists were able to put out their music and build local and eventually national followings. Some were signed by smaller more adventurous labels; however, many more struck out on their own, starting up their own labels and recording studios. Throughout the 1980s the hip-hop industry grew steadily thanks to the crossover success of acts like Run-DMC and the popularity of Def Jam, Tommy Boy, Cold Chillin’ and other hip-hop record labels. Hip-hop scenes sprouted up in cities all across the country, most notably in Seattle, Atlanta, Oakland and eventually The City of Compton in Los Angeles.