Mixtape Chronicles: an Ethnographic Investigation Into Hip-Hop and African American Culture Concerning Systemic Racism and Oppression

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Mixtape Chronicles: An Ethnographic Investigation into Hip-Hop and African American Culture Concerning Systemic Racism and Oppression

Kourtney Moore, M.A.

A Dissertation

Technical Communication and Rhetoric

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved

Dr. Michael Faris Chair of Committee

Dr. Kendall Gerdes

Dr. Michael Borshuk

Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School

August, 2020

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not be possible without the guidance and support of my dissertation committee members: Dr. Michael Faris, Dr. Kendall Gerdes (aka Dr. G), and Dr. Michael Borshuk. I especially want to thank my chair, Dr. Michael Faris, for his continuous leadership and encouragement throughout this entire process including the pre-proposal, qualifying exams and full proposal. Through the madness of my crazy schedule, anytime I emailed him, he was always willing to set up a meeting to chat. He was also very timely, direct, and detailed with his feedback on drafts. He challenged me to always think critically, analyze the language I used, and most importantly, encouraged me to keep pushing. Dr. Kendall Gerdes, always offered her help and on numerous occasions, she sent me articles and websites that assisted me with the development of my dissertation. She helped me brainstorm early on in the process and provided insightful suggestions about the methods of this study. Dr. G believed in my research topic and my abilities to execute a rhetorically driven dissertation. I appreciate Dr. Borshuk for agreeing to be a part of my committee, even though I never had a class with him or even knew him before asking him about being a member. His intellect and passion for Black musical culture inspires me to continuously appreciate my deep roots in African American culture. His feedback and suggestions were always on point. He also made me feel like a true scholar, inviting me to participate in academic events and to present my research related to this study. This showed me that Dr. Borshuk believes my research is significant and that meant a lot to me.

A special thank you to some of my previous professors: Dr. Marlon Moore, Dr. Sarah Hallenbeck, Dr. Erin Frost, and Dr. Kristen Moore. Dr. Marlon Moore was the very first Black professor that I had at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW). Her class is where I gained the love for African American literature and resonates with me even today. My first academic lesson of “staying woke” came from Dr. Marlon Moore. Her passion for African American literature, queer studies, and spirituality inspired me to become more conscious of social and racial justice issues. My interest for technical and professional communication (TPC) and rhetoric came ii Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 from Dr. Sarah Hallenback’s professional writing course at UNCW. Dr. Hallenbeck took the time to research universities offering a master’s degrees in TPC and suggested East Carolina University (ECU). Dr. Hallenbeck taught me about being compassionate about professional writing and African American studies, learning about African Americans and bioethics through reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Dr. Erin Frost from ECU is one of the most caring, polite, and encouraging professors I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Her intellectual guidance assisted me in developing my writing and critical thinking skills. Dr. Frost supported me wholeheartedly and provided me with the confidence I needed to continue on to obtain my PhD. Dr. Kristen Moore encouraged me to research problems that need to be solved, and problems that other people like to ignore. She was always more than willing to be there for me to bounce ideas off of her. Dr. Kristen Moore’s social justice activism is extraordinary, and she inspired me to want to be just like her and change the world.

My family is my world and the support that they gave me throughout my educational journey has been nothing short of amazing. My grandmother, late grandfather, mother, and father have always instilled in me the importance education. Every single day my parents tell me how proud I make them. I thank my siblings for their support and encouragement, especially our group message thread, where I vent my frustrations and accomplishments with the research process. I thank my lovely nephews and nieces for being so patience with NeNe, for the days I could not play or the times I could not make it to their own functions because I was hard at work, writing and revising. Lastly, to my husband; wow. I commend you for your dedication to our marriage. Thank you for staying up with me until 4 in the morning while I furiously wrote. Thank you for getting dinner when I was too preoccupied with research. Thank you for listening to my complaints and reassuring me that I made the right decision going back to school. My family is my heart and my motivation; I did this because of them.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... ii

ABSTRACT ...... vii

LIST OF TABLES ...... viii

LIST OF FIGURES ...... ix

THE COME UP: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Statement of Research Problem ...... 6 Research Purpose and Questions ...... 7 Significance of Study ...... 8 Definition of Terms ...... 10 Overview of Chapters ...... 12 Conclusion ...... 15 (THE WARM UP TO) THE WARM UP: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 17

The Power of Black Music ...... 17 1740s — Negro Spirituals ...... 18 1870s — Blues ...... 18 1890s — Jazz ...... 19 1930s — Contemporary Gospel ...... 20 Hip-hop History ...... 20 1970s — Early Rapping and DJing ...... 23 1980s — Golden Age/Gangsta Rap ...... 23 1990s — Nation-conscious Rap ...... 23 2000s — Crunk Music ...... 24 2010s — Trap Music ...... 24 Hip-hop and Black Culture ...... 25 Systemic Racism and Oppression ...... 27 Poverty and Income Disparity ...... 28 Housing ...... 28 Politics ...... 29 Criminal Justice ...... 31 Police Brutality ...... 31 Education ...... 32 Hip-hop and Rhetoric ...... 33 Hip-hop and the Nommodic Rhetorical Behaviors ...... 34 iv Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Hip-hop and Signifyin(g) ...... 41 Critics Who are Opposed to Hip-hop Culture ...... 43 Conclusion ...... 47 THE WARM UP: METHODS AND METHODOLOGY ...... 49

Critical Race Methodology ...... 52 Racism and Master Narratives ...... 53 Rationale for the Use of Counter-stories ...... 54 Data Collection: 3 Phases of Collecting Data ...... 55 Quasi-ethnographic Research ...... 55 Phase 1: Observations at hip-hop shows ...... 56 Phase 2: Short Informal Interviews ...... 64 Phase 3: Longer Formal Interviews ...... 68 Participant Profiles ...... 70 Participant 1 ...... 71 Participant 2 ...... 71 Participant 3 ...... 71 Participant 4 ...... 72 Participant 5 ...... 72 Participant 6 ...... 73 Participant 7 ...... 73 Participant 8 ...... 73 Participant 9 ...... 74 Confidentiality of Participants ...... 75 Data Analysis ...... 75 Thematic Analysis ...... 76 Conclusion ...... 89 FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...... 90

Counter-narrative Approach and African Americans Finding Their Voice .... 91 Findings from Observations (Nine Rhetorical Behaviors) ...... 94 Rhythm ...... 95 Stylin’ ...... 97 Lyrical Quality ...... 98 Improvisation ...... 101 Mythoforms ...... 102 Indirection ...... 103 Soundin’ Out ...... 105 Call and Response ...... 107 v Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Repetition ...... 108 Energy Transference Through the Rhetorical Behaviors ...... 109 Findings from Interviews ...... 112 Participants and Their Relationships with Hip-hop ...... 112 Hip-hop Educates to Encourage Social Justice ...... 113 Hip-Hop Advocates for the Black Community to Create Change ...... 117 Hip-Hop Empowers Blacks to Practice Self-Actualization ...... 118 Discussion of Findings ...... 121 Conclusion ...... 124 THE OFFSEASON: CONCLUSION ...... 126

Implications ...... 128 Limitations ...... 132 Recommendations for Future Research ...... 135 Conclusion ...... 136 REFERENCES ...... 138

APPENDIX INFORMATION SHEET ...... 149

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ABSTRACT Hip-hop culture has received a large amount of criticism from many people, including public figures and scholars, who believe that hip-hop promotes violence, misogyny, drugs, and materialism. Particularly racist, White, or anti-Black critics misunderstand hip-hop and provide fractional interpretations of the culture. Researchers have asserted that hip-hop music is a communication method where African Americans become aware of certain injustices, yet, there is a lack of scholarship surrounding the affect that hip-hop has on African Americans concerning systemic racism and oppression.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between African Americans and hip-hop concerning racism and oppression. This dissertation is an effort to help justify that hip-hop culture is a form of rhetoric that assists African Americans in fighting systemic racism and oppression. Findings from short, informal interviews, and longer, more in-depth interviews show that participants reported that (1) hip-hop helps to fight against systems of oppression by advocating for the Black community to create change, (2) hip-hop educates and shares narratives about real life situations that encourages social justice, and (3) hip-hop is a powerful culture that empowers Blacks to promote Black advancement and practice self-actualization. Results from quasi-ethnographic observations at six hip-hop shows throughout North Carolina show that hip-hop produces a constant transfer of energy between a performer and audience members, promoting social justice efforts. Future studies should investigate the effect of hip-hop concerning systemic racism and oppression with more participants and a full-on, complete ethnography where the researcher can spend more time with the participants.

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LIST OF TABLES

1.1 Terms and definitions ...... 11 3.1 Research Questions and Methods Comparison ...... 50 3.2 Original Codes from First Level Coding from Interviews ...... 79 3.3 Second Level Codes from Interviews ...... 80 3.4 Original Themes from Interviews ...... 82 3.5 Final Themes from Interviews ...... 85 3.6 Original Codes from Observations and Field Notes ...... 87 4.1 Recap of Final Themes ...... 90

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LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 Handwritten field notes for 9th Wonder’s back to school hip-hop show ...... 63 3.2 Typed field notes for 9th Wonder’s back to school hip-hop show ...... 63 3.3 Theme board with second level codes and one worded themes ...... 81 3.4 Bubble map with themes from all six observations ...... 88 5.1 Journey map that explains how hip-hop music can affect Blacks ...... 131

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CHAPTER I

THE COME UP: INTRODUCTION I have been listening to hip-hop music for as long as I can remember but twelve years ago is when I really started getting intrigued by the music genre. My husband, then boyfriend, is an aspiring hip-hop producer and when he would buy musical equipment and records to create his own beats and record his own songs, I would be right there researching with him. He’s actually the one who introduced me to conscious hip-hop, which is normally dominated by underground rappers, and their music was not playing on the radio too often, if at all. I started listening to the lyrics of conscious underground artists and compared that to most of the music that I heard on the radio. I immediately noticed that there was a huge difference between conscious hip-hop and what was predominantly played on the radio, which included gangsta rap and crunk music. In 2008, I heard J. Cole’s (2007) The Come Up for the first time. At this time, Cole was considered to be underground as he was not yet signed to a major record label. As time went on, Cole eventually got signed to Roc Nation, Jay Z’s record label, and when he released his first radio single, “Lights Please,” I then began to research mainstream hip-hop artists who were considered conscious rappers. I noticed that several of these artists addressed numerous social issues related to the Black community.

Cole inspired me to think differently about injustices and the Black community as a whole. He made me want to focus on teaching myself more about being aware of social issues and allowed me to help teach my young Black nephews about becoming strong Black men in the Black community. I have countless videos of my nephews singing J. Cole’s lyrics when they were younger, and me explaining what the lyrics mean, or my nephews explaining what they think the lyrics mean. That is what truly got me interested into all aspects of hip-hop music and the culture itself. For example, on Cole’s (2018) song “BRACKETS,” he talks about system racism stating:

Yeah, I pay taxes, so much taxes, shit don't make sense Where do my dollars go? You see lately, I ain't been convinced 1 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

I guess they say my dollars supposed to build roads and schools But my niggas barely graduate, they ain't got the tools Maybe cause the tax dollars that I make sure I send Get spent hiring some teachers that don't look like them And the curriculum be tricking them, them dollars I spend Got us learning about the heroes with the whitest of skin One thing about the men that's controlling the pen That write history, they always seem to white-out they sins. (track 8) Cole questions why he has to pay so much income tax to the government. Although the government states that tax money goes towards educational institutions, Cole explains that Black students barely graduate, which could attest to the fact that Black teachers are not being hired to teach Black students. Cole also explains that the United States education system was created by Whites, for White students, and the system provides false information about White people’s racist history. White teachers teach about White historical figures and paint these figures as heroes without any flaws. I talk to my nephews a lot of the time about believing only some of what they read in history books simply because these books were written by White people to predominately share White stories, justifying acts of White violence and “forgive” unethical White behavior.

For me Cole’s music is much more than a teaching tool; Cole’s music specifically resonates with me because the music makes me feel like a strong Black woman and acts as my form of meditation. Whenever I need a jump start to my day or I am feeling down and out, simply listening to some Cole soothes me and reminds me that I am a determined, strong-willed, Black woman that can too, inspire other Blacks to create change by promoting social justice. Although I considered myself a part of the culture ever since I was much younger, I never took the time to explore all dimensions, until recently, within the past three years.

It was not until I started my PhD program that I researched as an aspiring scholar and not strictly as a hobby. In my coursework, I studied hip-hop pedagogy and researched police brutality in African American communities. As much as I wanted to solely focus on hip-hop and police brutality for my dissertation, after watching 2 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Childish Gambino’s (2018) music video “This Is America,” I was reminded that hip- hop music speaks to many more issues than solely police brutality. At the beginning of the “This is America” video, a Black man who closely resembles Tracy Martin (Trayvon Martin’s father) walks up to a chair occupied by a guitar, picks up the guitar, and sits in the chair. As the Black man begins to stroke away at the guitar, the camera shifts off of him, onto a shirtless Gambino, wearing pants that resembles part of the uniform of a Confederate soldier. Gambino dances over to the Black man who now has a bag over his head. With the same pose and mannerisms as a Jim Crow caricature, Gambino shoots the innocent guitarist in the back of the head and leaves him for dead. As soon as Gambino kills him, he states, “This is America,” and places the gun on a red cloth, which is brought over by a child. The child then carries the gun away, and shortly after, the man’s body is dragged away from its original position. Directly after the shooting, while there are several actions going on in the background, Gambino and a group of Black school kids dance. Such actions or distractions include White police officers chasing Blacks, a hooded man riding on a white horse, a person committing suicide, and complete destruction of the surroundings.

The entire time while the background dancers continue to dance, they are smiling and cheerful as if they have no care in the world. After the dancing ends, the scene cuts to a choir which is singing the hook to the song. As the all-Black choir sings, Gambino shoots them all with what looks to be the same machine gun with which he shot the guitarist, and again, places it on a red cloth that is then carried away by another child. The same type of dancing by Gambino and the school kids continues. Towards the end of the music video, the chaos and dancing stops. Gambino lights up a joint, begins to smoke it, and then dances on top of a car. In the very last scene of the music video, Gambino is seen hysterically running from a group of White people. The entire music video depicts allusions to key killings of innocent Black people through the use of guns and uses symbols to tell the story of how Blacks are being blinded by Whites, testifying to the fact that White privilege is an issue that still exists in America. Rhetorical race scholar Jennifer LeMesurier (2020) argues that the constant dancing and depictions of gun violence suggest that “The Black body can

3 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 never be more than a violent killer that entertains in its spare time” (p. 148). Just as rhythm and dancing is supposed to be a “natural” part of a Black person’s life, so is violence. Either as an African American being responsible for the killing (Gambino) or being killed (Black actors in the music video), the music video explicitly argues that Black pain, in relation to racism and oppression, is often not a priority in terms of American culture and White feelings are clearly more important (LeMesurier, 2020, p. 147). This portrayal was seen through the many scenes where Gambino would kill a Black person and the enthusiastic dancing continued as if no one died.

Hip-hop sometimes forces listeners to think critically by explaining the issues to African Americans, providing analysis of the root causes of these issues, as LeMesurier (2020) explains in her rhetorical analysis of the “This is America” video. Sometimes these hip-hop songs also offer advice to combat the problems. These issues include systemic racism and oppression, mass incarceration, and lack of employment. In this dissertation, I will address these issues by exploring how hip-hop assists African Americans in fighting systemic racism and oppression while promoting social justice. This study was conducted through a quasi-ethnographic study that consisted of observations and interviews, using a critical race methodology. Hip-hop and legal scholar André Cummings (2012) thought that “Both CRT [critical race theory] and hip hop serve the dual purpose of providing a race-based interdisciplinary theoretical framework for analyzing laws, policies, and administrative procedures that have a deleterious impact on racial minorities” (p. 54). The critical race theoretical perspective helps conceptualize the study because of the vast connection between race, African Americans, and hip-hop.

The title of this project, Mixtape Chronicles: An Ethnographic Investigation into Hip-Hop and African American Culture Concerning Systemic Racism and Oppression, is a play on a series of J. Cole’s mixtapes. J. Cole is a conscious hip-hop artist who continues to release songs with themes concerning racism and oppression. There are countless songs and interviews where Cole expresses his opinions about oppression and racism as it relates to African Americans. He has been a prominent advocate for the Black community addressing Black health, police brutality, mass 4 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 incarceration, White supremacy, and White privilege, just to name a few. He even performed in an orange prison jumpsuit, addressing racial profiling, police brutality, and wrongful imprisonment of Blacks. One example of how Cole (2016) addresses system racism is through his song “4 Your Eyez Only” when he raps:

It took me two felonies to see the trap This crooked ass system set for me And now I fear it’s too late for me to ever be The one that set examples that was never set for me. (track 10) Cole refers to Blacks falling into the “trap” of going to prison for selling drugs, only to become a felon, and notes that the racist American criminal justice system is a system that is not meant to protect Blacks. Once Blacks trip into the “trap” and are labeled as felons, it is hard for other Blacks to not follow in the same footsteps. Later in this same song, Cole (2016) states, “I dedicate these words to you and all the other children/ Affected by the mass incarceration in this nation/ That sent your pops to prison when he needed education” (track 10). Cole further explains how mass incarceration of African Americans affects the children of those incarcerated and suggests that instead of sending Blacks to prison, whose crimes are predominantly nonviolent drug crimes, Blacks should have been educated about better ways to provide for their families. This is important because Cole is providing information about systemic racism, telling his listeners to break the cycle and understand that the justice system will fail Blacks. Another example where Cole explicitly discusses racism in the song “January 28th” when he says,

What's the price for a black man life? I check the toe tag, not one zero in sight I turn the TV on, not one hero in sight Unless he dribble or he fiddle with mics. (track 2) Although a human’s life is priceless, Cole states that racist White America does not value Black lives. The only time that Blacks are somewhat valued is when they provide entertainment by means of sports, music, or comedy. Being Black in America means not being valued as much as Whites are, and it means even if a Black person is considered to be somewhat successful or a “hero” (track 2), at the end of the day, that does not truly matter, because they are still just Black. As seen through these 5 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 examples, Cole is a conscious hip-hop artist who addresses oppression and systemic racism through his music frequently, providing listeners with information and inspiration to keep fighting injustices.

Every chapter in this dissertation is named after one of J. Cole’s official, unofficial, or upcoming mixtapes. Each of the mixtapes has a “sporty” theme to its title. Since this project is centered around hip-hop, and J. Cole is one of the most well- known conscious hip-hop artists in the game right now (and my favorite rapper), I decided that tying the title and chapter names into hip-hop would be like a tribute to the culture. “The Come Up,” as the name of the introduction chapter, signifies the first step in any process and means to come up, or to start the initiative of whatever task is at hand. The Come Up was J. Cole’s first official mixtape, which aligns with the introduction, as it is the start of the dissertation. On The Come Up, Cole (2007) shares stories about who he is as a person: where he’s from, his college life adventures, his character, and his hopes and dreams. Since The Come Up is Cole’s first mixtape, he’s introducing himself to the world, as I am introducing this project in this chapter. In this chapter, I will first state the research problem. Next, I provide the purpose of the research and research questions. Then I discuss the significance of the study and define terms that will be used throughout the dissertation. Lastly, I provide an overview of each chapter.

Statement of Research Problem In order to put the research topic into context, some of the problems related to hip-hop need to be explained. Hip-hop critics and several news media outlets argue that hip-hop promotes violence, materialism, misogyny, and criminality (as I will discuss in Chapter 2), but Africana Studies and hip-hop scholar Trica Rose (1994) believes that hip-hop culture draws attention to real-life racism and oppression (p. 1). The main problem is that racism and oppression still exist, and although it should not be up to hip-hop or Blacks to end oppression, if Black people know how to confront or address a situation in which they feel they are being oppressed, this could possibly help to gradually eliminate oppression. African Americans face several instances of systemic racism and oppression daily, and scholars like Black feminist Patricia Hill 6 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Collins (2006) recognizes that the use of core elements in Black culture assist African Americans with addressing racial oppression (p. 103). One of the most well-known features of Black culture is Black music, more specifically hip-hop, and I believe that hip-hop could be the way to promote change, promote Black advancement, and help eliminate oppression. This study in particular relates to conscious hip-hop, a term that will be further explained throughout the chapters of this dissertation. Critical Race Theorist Kimberle Crenshaw (2002) states that Blacks need to “take up a war of maneuver against racial entrenchment…. We need to determine how to translate our work better, to intervene in ways that help model interventions at the local level, to show people what a difference critical race thinking makes in their own workplaces and communities” (p. 1370). Building on Crenshaw’s (2002) arguments, this study provides rhetoricians of all races with research on how conscious hip-hop, one of Black culture’s most prominent influential means of rhetoric, can intervene in systems of racism and oppression.

Research Purpose and Questions The goal and purpose of this particular research is to explore the relationship between African American subcultures and hip-hop concerning racism and oppression. I understand that systemic racism exists, and I recognize that hip-hop music can provide awareness of injustices, but I want to dig further into the effects that hip-hop has on systemic racism and oppression. The following research questions guides the above inquiry:

• RQ1: How does hip-hop actively promote social justice and create awareness in African American communities? • RQ2: How does hip-hop music help African Americans address and fight against systems of oppression? • RQ3: In which ways does hip-hop construct African Americans’ ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting to certain injustices and oppression? This study seeks to obtain data which will help to address the research gaps related to African Americans respond to the transference of energy that they receive from hip- hop in terms of addressing oppression and systemic racism. Some White people may believe that this research is not necessary. As scholar, social activist, and Black

7 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 feminist bell hooks (2013) states, “Many unaware white folks standing on the outside looking in often express the opinion that black people are too obsessed with race and racism. Yet their standpoint is merely a reflection of white privilege—one that allows them to remain in denial of the impact hardcore racist socialization has on black people” (p. 194). Some Whites frequently believe that racism is discussed too much, and that belief confirms their White privilege. To the contrary, I believe that conversations surrounding racism and Black people’s oppression will always be relevant until racism and oppression is completely obsolete.

This study is qualitative and consists of a multiphase design that has a mixture of quasi-ethnographic observations and short, informal, and longer, more formal interviews. The observations were held at six hip-hop shows in Wilmington and Raleigh, North Carolina and the interviewees were exclusively Black audience members who were at the selected hip-hop shows. Phase 1 included me attending the hip-hop shows in North Carolina observing the audience members and performers. While observing, I took field notes that would later help me develop codes and themes. Phase 2 comprised of short, informal interviews that I held during the intermissions and breaks while at the hip-hop shows. Lastly, phase 3 was dedicated to the longer, more formal interviews that were either held over the phone or via video conference.

This study used a critical race methodology as the foundation of all three phases since power, race, and racism are an important part of my research. Throughout the project, I made the conscious effort to address race and power in every phase. For example, I informed all of the participants who were a part of this study that when answering any question that I asked them, they should always consider race relations and power structures as a part of their answers. I also provided my own input about social issues and had a real, gritty conversation with my participants, from Black woman to Black woman or Black man.

Significance of Study This study is important because it will provide findings that can help African Americans fight systemic racism and oppression. Previous scholars have concluded 8 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 that information is presented to African Americans through hip-hop, but this study addresses how African Americans use that information that they receive from the song in relation to oppression and systemic racism. Many Blacks lack knowledge on what to do in certain situations when they are faced with racial inequality or how to even confront or address issues of oppression. This study will also serve as a corrective to hip-hop critics who disregard hip-hop as a culture. Law scholar Raquel Alvarenga (2005) believes that many hip-hop songs support misogynistic behavior by stating, “sexually explicit messages, encourage the subjugation of women and promote an ethos of disrespect against them” (p. 13). Sometimes, hip-hop presents these themes through songs because it is a reflection and reality of the environment in which African Americans live. Since many Black fathers are locked up, as the result of mass incarceration, young Blacks see their mothers being mistreated by men, who more than likely, had no father figures themselves.

Other scholars, such as Patton, Eschmann, and Butler (2013) suggest that hip- hop “fuels the [violent] behavior” that is seen among African American men, especially on the internet (p. A57). Patton, Eschmann, and Butler (2013) state that internet banging, which is defined as people who are associated with gangs who use social media outlets to “incite dares, trade insults or make threats of violence which may result in homicide or victimization,” (p. A54) is a direct result of African Americans listening to hip-hop music. In almost every ghetto, where many Blacks live, violence is an accurate representation of the surrounding environment. The rhetoric of these scholars is useful, in the sense that these themes are a part of African American culture and help to paint accurate depictions of the harsh realities that Africans Americans face daily. As far as the critics asserting that hip-hop music is a source of violence, they are uneducated about hip-hop culture and what is considered to be “violence” in the culture.

Although this project, or any project concerning conscious hip-hop, cannot change the minds of White critics, this study is important because it will make White critics more aware of what hip-hop can possibly do for African Americans. Awareness is always the first step in relation to conquering the struggle for racial equality (Bell, 9 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

1980, p. 26), and awareness is just one of the known aspects that hip-hop provides, as seen through previous research. This is true for Blacks and Whites who lack experience with hip-hop and oppression. My research will illustrate what happens when hip-hop culture is incorporated with African Americans who have had previous experiences with systemic racism and oppression and indicate how sharing their stories create their own narratives that expose and dismantle misinformed critics. This study is also important because it addresses how African Americans promote social justice in Black communities. Even though the shift in social justice reform has improved, for example, desegregation, there is still much work that needs to be accomplished. In the quest for racial justice, “winning and losing have been part of the same experience” (Crenshaw, 1988, p. 118). This is important because as soon as there is justice in one aspect of racial inequality, there are numerous more injustices that further push back the progression.

The findings that are shared in this dissertation will add to the academic literature concerning communication and rhetoric, and African American and hip-hop studies, by means of capturing and displaying how hip-hop affects African Americans in terms of communicating information pertaining to systemic racism and oppression and what African Americans do with that information once it is received. This project contributes to rhetorical studies because it investigates how Black language through hip-hop is used to impact and influence African Americans, construct meanings and Black identity, maintain African American subculture, differentiate power, and, optimistically, create knowledge and change. Rhetoricians will learn how hip-hop can improve communicational efforts in Black communities when concerning oppression and racism, and ways to better support social justice endeavors, especially when related to hip-hop.

Definition of Terms In order to fully understand some concepts and theories that are discussed throughout this dissertation some terms and definitions that are unique to hip-hop culture and African American studies are listed below in Table 1.1. Some of these

10 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 terms are not widely used outside of hip-hop culture but will be used extensively in the following chapters.

Table 1.1 Terms and Definitions

Term Definition

Break-dancing A specialized form of flips, steps, and moves, with African origins, that was known to be completed by b-boys and b-girls used in hip-hop culture (Banfield, 2010, p. 172).

Conscious Hip- A sub-genre of hip hop that “critiques ongoing anti-Black hop racism and questions the social, political, and economic gains of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement” (Rabaka, 2013, p. 292).

Freestyling An improvisational form of rapping in which hip-hop artists come up with lyrics spontaneously, without prior written lyrics. This is also known as “going off the dome” (Edwards, 2009, p. 125).

Graffiti Tagging Any visual art form of writing, usually with spray paint, used in hip-hop culture to convey a message (Snell & Söderman, 2014, p. 4).

Mainstream Music that is distributed through commercialism that often (Commercial) heavily promotes negative images of hip-hop, such as “guns Hip-hop and bitches” (Rose, 2008, p. 25), that is predominately profit driven. Mainstream artists are usually signed to major record labels while underground hip-hop artists are usually signed to independent labels (Lusted, 2017, p. 74). This type of music is outside of underground hip-hop.

Mixtape A collection of different songs the musical artist complies, that is usually less structured than an album, and consist of songs that attributes to the tastes of its complier (Rabaka, 2013, p. 32).

Oppression An injustice that a particular group experiences, practiced by a society (Young, 1990, p. 56).

Silenced The dismissing or omission of African American identity, ideas, experiences, and voices (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p.58).

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Table 1.1 Continued

Term Definition

Systemic Racism Racial discrimination that is seen in every level of society such as housing, jobs, education, wealth, criminal justice, healthcare, etc., keeping Whites in economic and political power (Feagin, 2000, p. xiv).

Underground Hip-hop music outside of the mainstream commercial realm Hip-hop that usually focuses on independent artists who promote socially conscious, political content (Peterson, 2015, p. 67).

Voice The realities of African Americans who are oppressed, but have expression of their own ideas, stories, experiences, and identity (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p.58).

Overview of Chapters Chapter two, “(The Warm Up To) The Warm Up,” is the literature review. The purpose of the literature review is to provide existing scholarship related to hip-hop, systemic racism, and oppression, to help provide the foundation of knowledge. In this chapter, I discuss the history of Black music and hip-hop and how both histories are related to racism and oppression. I also examine the relationship between hip-hop and Black culture and hip-hop and rhetoric. Lastly, I explore hip-hop criticism and argue how critic’s rhetoric contribute in the conversation of hip-hop. “(The Warm Up To) The Warm Up” is a reference to preparing for the next step in any process, similar to a pre-workout, before the actual workout. (The Warm Up To) The Warm Up is a mixtape that was unofficially released prior to J. Cole’s second official mixtape, The Warm Up. (The Warm Up To) The Warm Up (2009a) was similar to a mixtape sampler or a pre-release of the actual mixtape, The Warm Up, because it included many of the same songs. The songs on this mixtape attributed to Cole attempting to get signed to a major record label. On the mixtape, he produced various types of beats and rapped about an array of different subjects. Cole was basically letting potential record labels know what he could do, so in a way, he created a history of himself. This was actually the mixtape that got him signed to Jay-Z’s record label, Roc Nation. The literature

12 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 review pre-warms up the dissertation by coppin’ knowledge from previous studies and articles to assist in speakin’ game to this particular study.

Chapter three, “The Warm Up,” discusses the methods and methodology for the study. I review Critical Race methodology and why it was the best methodology to use for this particular study. I also explain the data collection process, including all three phases of the quasi-ethnographic study and address the confidentiality of the participants. Later, I explain the data analysis procedures through using thematic analysis where I provide codes and themes. This provides readers with information needed to fully understand chapter 4, where I explain the findings and discussion. Before any game or exercises, it is necessary to warm up and loosen muscles that will be necessary to use during any form of play or sport. This chapter is similar to an actual warm up since it explains how the study was conducted and also prepares readers for the actual findings and discussion of the results. The Warm Up (2009b) was the first official mixtape that Cole released on a major record label, so it was the first time several mainstream listeners heard anything from Cole. This mixtape made the statement that Cole was only just beginning and there was much more to come, hence, the warm up to his hip-hop career. The methods and methodology chapter is the plug for warming up how and why I decided to conduct the study. Chapter three is the real turn up for preparing readers for how I flexed on this project.

In chapter four, “Friday Night Lights,” I review the findings and discussion of the study. The findings will explore what I learned through the observations and interviews. Before I start unfolding what I found, I provide a brief explanation of why I chose to explain the observational findings by means of using the nine rhetorical behaviors as described by Jeffrey Lynn Woodyard (2003). When explaining the interviews, I provide deep and rich quotations from the participants, making sure to explain their narratives thoroughly. I also offer a discussion of the findings, making certain to analyze and draw conclusions from all of the data found. Friday Night Lights, J. Cole’s 2010 official mixtape, was truly about Cole proving himself as an artist, to his listeners. After releasing The Warm Up, Cole had to come bigger and better than ever because that is basically what he said he was going to do. He 13 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 definitely delivered, and possibly exceeded listeners’ expectations, winning Best Mixtape of the Year at the 2011 Black Entertainment Television (BET) Hip Hop Awards (“Hip-hop awards 2011 nominees,” 2016). I personally believe that this was one of the most complete mixtapes that I have ever heard because it sounded more like an album, since it was so well put together.

Typically, Friday Night Lights in sports is a place where all of the action happens; the big stage to showcase all of the hard work and preparation. In this case, I get real with the results and discussion by explaining the four final themes that I found: (1) hip-hop produces a ping-pong effect revealing a constant transfer of energy between a performer and audience members, (2) hip-hop helps to fight against systems of oppression by advocating for the Black community to create change, (3) hip-hop is a powerful culture that empowers Blacks to promote Black advancement and practice self-actualization, and (4) hip-hop educates and shares narratives about real life situations and encourages social justice. The transference of energy theme is the one idea that incorporates all of the themes together into one. Transferring energy refers to the lyrics that audience members would hear and gain knowledge from but transferring energy also consists of the feelings and emotions that audience members and performers would receive from one another. This two-fold concept keeps it “100” within African American and hip-hop culture because hip-hop music promotes education, advocacy, and self-actualization through receiving the energy that was transferred between each other.

Finally, chapter 5, “The Offseason,” is the concluding chapter. In this chapter, I provide implications for the findings, offer research limitations, and I also suggest recommendations for future research. The Offseason (forthcoming) is a speculated, upcoming mixtape that Cole teased that he would be releasing sometime in 2020. For years on many of his songs, Cole has hinted at retirement, but even if the insinuation is not true, “The Offseason” will more than likely be the last mixtape in the sports minded series. My speculation is that Cole’s songs will be about what he’s done so far in the music industry and what he will do next, if anything. For anyone who knows anything about sports, the offseason is for working at getting better, trying new 14 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 workout plans, and thinking back on ways to improve. For this conclusion, I essentially explain the hype of what I learned, and how I plan to link up and make the study better for future research.

Conclusion This dissertation will explain how hip-hop changes African American subcultures, allowing readers to gain knowledge concerning African Americans feelings about their learning through hip-hop. This dissertation also argues that rhetoric plays a vital role in hip-hop artists transferring knowledge and feelings to audience members, which in return helps to promote education, advocacy, and self- actualization. Many of the participants shared narratives about real life situations that encouraged social justice or addressed systemic racism and oppression. Hearing their stories allowed me to hear their voice and share their voices with the rhetoric and communication, hip-hop, and African American studies community, optimistically providing more research on how African Americans use hip-hop to communicate concerning oppression. African Americans communicating with one another about social justice efforts will help the Black community advance politically, socially, and economically. This is important because in order to combat and address injustices, Blacks should support and promote each other, while striving for the common goal of equality. Hip-hop culture acknowledges several of the injustices that are seen around the United States and many hip-hop artists speak directly to their listeners concerning these problems. How the Black listeners use the knowledge, feelings, and emotions gained through listening to hip-hop music is much of what this dissertation will discuss.

While viewing the “This Is America” video, I thought to myself, this really is America. America kills but protects and honor the guns; America uses tools as distractions from the truths of racism and oppression. There are countless facts that prove America as we currently know it is a racist America that does not treat African Americans equal to White Americans. Racism is real. Oppression is real. But change can be real as well. In an interview, Donald Glover informs the world that he is going to retire his stage name “Childish Gambino” after he releases one more album under 15 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 the “Childish Gambino” name. He actually released his latest album 3.15.20 under the names “Childish Gambino” and “Donald Glover Presents.” Glover thinks it is a good thing that he is leaving his name behind. He states, “I like endings. I think they’re important to progress…. I think endings are good, because they force things to get better” (Associated Press, 2018). Endings promote change, and change is what we need in America yesterday. I believe that change is about being persistent, being informed, and being willing to educate others, while standing for what is morally right. Ending racism and oppression is important to the progress of social justice, and hip-hop could be in the process of shaping our cultures to meet injustices at the finish line.

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CHAPTER II:

(THE WARM UP TO) THE WARM UP: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter provides a review of literature concerning hip-hop, systemic racism, and oppression to better understand the study. Reviewing the literature delivers a “warm up to the warm up” to help assist readers with understanding information that will be delivered in the remaining chapters of the dissertation. This sense of understanding begins with African American music since it has been significant to Black culture. Once the history of Black music can be understood, appreciating hip-hop and grasping essential concepts about hip-hop, including the foundations upon which hip-hop was built, will assist in making the link between prior literature and this current study. Hip-hop impacts Black culture by rhetorically explaining the struggles of Black people while also addressing oppression and racism. The goal of this chapter is to deliver readers with the existing research related to hip- hop, oppression, and African American culture. Doing so will allow readers to enhance their understanding of my study as a whole, and why it’s important to have future research. This builds the argument for examining how hip-hop assists African Americans in fighting systemic racism and oppression. In this chapter I first provide research about the history of Black music and how the history helped to shape hip-hop culture. Next, I present a review of hip-hop history and then show the relationship between hip-hop and Black culture. Then, I discuss systemic racism and oppression to show how oppression ties into Black culture. Lastly, I highlight how rhetoric plays a role in hip-hop culture and examine hip-hop criticism.

The Power of Black Music Better appreciation and comprehension of hip-hop and African American music as a whole is only possible after first considering the African cultural and aesthetic foundation. It is important to view the history of Black music because it will provide better understanding of how music, hip-hop in particular, plays a vast role in African American culture. All Black music embodies West African music culture and Black music culture has transformed from Negro spirituals, blues, and ragtime to become jazz, bebop, swing, gospel, which all developed into rock and roll, soul, pop, 17 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

R&B and hip hop (Banfield, 2010, p. 95). Black music from the very beginning has always assisted Blacks with getting through difficult times such as slavery, Black codes, and segregation, and continues to provide Blacks with the means of courage, hope, and perseverance to continue to fight against systems of racism today (Rose, 2008, p. 65). Black music as a part of African American culture continues to help Black people develop a diverse array of ideas, styles, personalities, and provide understanding of modern music such as hip-hop (Banfield, 2010, p. 87). Black music empowers African Americans to demand their voices be heard and seek action in the face of injustices. Some of the major influences on hip-hop includes Negro spirituals, blues, jazz, and gospel music, which are all further explained below.

1740s — Negro Spirituals One of the leading cultural strands in African American history as it relates to racism and oppression is the history of Black music. Beginning with Negro spirituals, Black music specifically is the only type of music created by slaves (Banfield, 2010, p. 7). A Negro spiritual is a religious song that was created by Black slaves that primarily expressed religious faith and hope for freedom (Floyd, 1997, p. 40). Spirituals provided language that expressed the experience of struggle as it was a way that slaves could use their voice to explain their hope for liberation. When Black slaves were brought to America, they would use aspects from West African culture, such as the figure of the West African griot, to express their values through stories. The term griot is used throughout West African culture to label a master musician since music is at the core of most of the griot’s activities (Banks, 2011, p. 22). West African music tradition served “as a life support system,” supporting Blacks through slavery (Banfield, 2010, p. 94). Through the spirituals, the oppressed slaves voiced the issues of struggle, White supremacy, and racial injustices of slavery itself. This is important because the theme of oppression carried from Negro spirituals to other forms of Black music, such as Blues.

1870s — Blues Blues is the most closely related folk music form of secular Black music since Blues grew out of Negro spirituals (Banfield, 2010, p. 103). Blues developed from 18 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 slave hollers and is thought of as a slave song that is sung throughout a “free” community since the origins of Blues music came shortly after the abolition of slavery (Floyd, 1997, p. 76). Black men who were free started looking for jobs, wives, and exploring for a new life. These men were known as bluesman and began singing blues while searching so blues songs were most commonly about the yearning for a better life (Banfield, 2008, p. 103). Often times, White people were the main cause of African American’s troubled lives, but the songs were meant to be uplifting. This is significant because even though slavery ended, Blacks were still oppressed and experienced racism, which they shared through the music (Floyd, 1997, p. 78). The results of blues eventually evolved into jazz because many of the blues musicians traveled through the deep south of Mississippi to New Orleans looking for a better social and economic life (Banfield, 2010, p. 103).

1890s — Jazz Jazz music is based on a mixture of blues, Negro spirituals, and West African culture with some values from White band melodies (Banfield, 2010, p. 104). Jazz music was liked by many people and several times Black musicians performed at White establishments, which caused confrontations (Thompson, 2014, p. 82). This means that Jazz performers had a constant battle with organized crime, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) (Horne, 2019, p. 51), and various other White gangs who would harass Blacks at the night clubs. Blacks were dehumanized, exploited, and persecuted and the musicians and singers spoke of the wrongfulness in some of their jazz songs. For example, the world-renowned jazz musician Louis Armstrong (1929) dealt with some of his racial issues through his song “Black and Blue” as he states, “My only sin is in my skin” (Casey, 2013). This matters because Black musicians were incorporating indirect race rhetoric into their music, by singing lyrics about racial issues, even when performing in front of White audiences. This also attests that jazz musicians profusely promoted social justice and racial equality in the height of the civil rights movement through their music and activism (Horne, 2019, p. 256).

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1930s — Contemporary Gospel Gospel music takes Black music back to African ancestral history of the church. Musical composer and Africana studies professor William Banfield (2010) states, “The single most important institution that helped to define, shape, and instill cultural codes as well as cement aesthetic and artistic performance standards was and is the African American church” (p. 151). The African American church is significant to Black culture because it helped to make music effective, along with many other types of artistic platforms. During times of struggle, African Americans turn to Black Christianity. This has been true since slavery and continues to be true today. In the wake of present oppression and racism, many artists recognize and address racism in their music. For an example, Christian hip-hop artist Sho Baraka’s (2013) song “Jim Crow” states, “There’s ignorance in the masses/ Too many people think racism is past tense/ We fight for blackness” (track 9). In this song, Baraka (2013) is saying that there are many religious people who are ignorant to the fact of contemporary racism and oppression. This is critical because there are many White people who believe that racism does not exists while African Americans are continuing to fight for racial equality every day.

As explained above, all of these genres of Black music have and continue to address racism and oppression over the years. When Blacks speak out about social injustices not only are their voices heard, but they announce their rights, taking a stand against inequality. Many of the same assertions are made through hip-hop culture as well. African Americans struggling against power and White privilege, no matter the genre, has been a huge factor in the history of Black music. From Negro spirituals and blues to jazz and gospel, the power of Black music has provided the Black community with a voice. From the sharing of experiences across the African diaspora, much of Black music has evolved into hip-hop culture.

Hip-hop History The origin of hip-hop music can be traced back to a single place and time: 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in Morris Heights (in the Bronx) on August 11, 1973 when DJ Kool Herc, the inventor of hip-hop music, threw his first party (Williams, 2011, p. 20 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

137). Reports practically always note his unusually large sound speakers, which is a tradition brought with him from the Caribbean, as well as his height (6' 5" tall) (Williams, 2011, p. 139). Herc “changed the game” of music by playing old R&B songs, and more specifically, by playing and mixing various “breaks” of the R&B songs together (Banfield, 2010, p. 172). A break is where the singing stops and only the beat could be heard. Another aspect that set Herc apart from other DJs at the time was the use of two turntables; he was able to sometimes play the same record on both of the turntables, prolonging the breaks, which made the crowd more energetic (Banfield, 2010, p. 172). As the story goes, after a few block parties, Herc began to establish a reputation for himself in the Bronx (Williams, 2011, p. 139). Herc was the beginning of what Black Americans today call hip-hop and the beginning of an intricate culture.

Hip-hop constitutes a multifaceted culture that involves four elements: DJing, MCing (rapping), graffiti, and breakdancing (Williams, 2011, p. 137). Several individuals who do not listen to or know about hip-hop culture are easily confused between rap and hip-hop and some believe the two are one in the same (Jones, 2017). Rap is the art of musically delivering lyrics while hip-hop is the actual culture that includes the four elements stated above (Jones, 2017). To keep it simple, in the words of hip-hop artist KRS-One, “Rap is something you do, hip-hop is something you live” (KRS-One, 2001, track 13). This means that rapping is a form of expressing lyrics, while rhyming through speaking, while hip-hop is the entire culture that encompasses rapping, dancing, DJing, and graffiti tagging. When hip-hop was first being developed in the 1970s, every element of hip-hop revolved around the DJ since the DJ was the person who had the records and played the music at block parties and hip-hop shows. DJs were the key component in controlling the mood of the audience at hip-hop shows and block parties. This early aesthetic is an important factor in early hip-hop since the DJ was the main focal point for musical production and delivery of the music. The DJ collaborated with MCs who assisted with creating rhymes and got the crowd involved (Snell & Söderman, 2014, p. 4). MCs also hyped up the dancers, known as the b-boys and b-girls, to participate in breakdancing. The length and movement of the dancers

21 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 largely depended on the records that the DJ played. While the DJs, MCs, and breakdancers were engaged in their activities at the block parties, graffiti artists tagged nearby walls and subways with vibrant and creative versions of their artist name. Even though graffiti artists created their art at the parties and shows, many graffiti art tags were created at other times, throughout the city. The inspiration of this style of art was also seen on promotional posters for the parties and shows (Snell & Söderman, 2014, p. 4). When African Americans saw the four elements in action, it sparked creative juices for implementing change in the Black community. One change was converting gangs into positive groups for young Blacks.

Although Herc was not a part of gang warfare, hip-hop rose out of gangs that were established because of ghettoization in Harlem and the Bronx. One of the early leaders of hip-hop, Afrika Bambaataa, was once a warlord of the Black Spades gang, which was the largest gang in the 1970s in New York City (Banfield, 2010, p. 172). Bambaataa transformed the Black Spades gang into the Universal Zulu Nation, which is a hip-hop awareness group that is still up and running today. Bambaataa used the four hip-hop elements to draw troubled youth away from gang violence and focus on the aesthetic competition of rival crews concerning who had the best beats, graffti art, dance moves, and lyrics. Instead of continuing to fight, the gang members from these areas began to come together to hold house, block, and park parties, gatherings in schools and community centers, and events in selected clubs. Another early hip-hop group that used their messages to promote activism was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, especially with their 1982 hit song “The Message,” which is recognized as hip-hop’s first conscious or political hip-hop song (Banfield, 2010, p. 173). “The Message” explains the hardships that plagues the Black community such as living in poverty and becoming a part of a system that sets Blacks up for failure. DJs such as Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash were the early pioneers of hip-hop that set the foundation for the culture. To better understand how hip-hop has changed through the years, below is a timeline that portrays the different periods of hip-hop music.

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1970s — Early Rapping and DJing Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and Kool Herc were just a few of the early DJs who started the tradition of rapping over beat breaks of 1960-1970s R&B records (Banfield, 2010, p. 74). The early years of hip-hop most frequently used all four elements which is the main aspect for drawing in such a large audience (Lusted, 2017, p. 13). This drawing in of the audience was referred to as the “rap effect,” using rhetoric as a method to make sure rappers used direct messages, rapping straight at the issues and at the audience (Banfield, 2010, p. 174).

1980s — Golden Age/Gangsta Rap The golden age refers to the mid-late 1980s era of mainstream hip-hop (Rose, 2008, p. 34). When hip-hop became accepted as popular commercial music it was a time for experimentation and innovation since hip-hop was still finding its place in the world (Lusted, 2017, p. 28). During this era, there were many variations of themes and ways of expressing Black pride through different techniques and lyrical cadences. Rappers morphed from the underground hip-hop world, to mainstream superstars, which helped with the production of gangsta rap (Bonnette, 2018, p. 22). Rappers started rapping using raw, uncut language which displayed the perspective and relevance of the community activist nature in Black communities.

1990s — Nation-conscious Rap Nation-conscious rap is a subgenre of hip-hop that speaks more directly to social action and political themes. This type of rap is also called political or conscious hip-hop. Literary, music, and cultural critic Larry Neal states, “the black artist must link his work to the struggle for his liberation and the liberation of his brothers and sisters. He will be furthering the psychological liberation of his people, without which, no change is even possible. The artist and the political activist are one” (Baraka & Neal, 2007, p. 655). Although the original context for this quotation is from the late 1960s, amid the emerging Black Arts Movement, this history is still applicable to and influential for 1900s hip-hop. When Black hip-hop artists speak to the liberation of African Americans, they help with achieving change in terms of oppression. The 1990s was the decade for a new movement that promoted positive political and social 23 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 response to gangsta rap (Rose, 2008, p. 34). This movement included artists like KRS- One, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, Eric B and Rakim, and Salt-N-Pepa. Socially conscious hip-hop provided listeners with issues such as fighting violence and crime, religion and Black culture in general (Lusted, 2017, p. 44). Although gangsta rap was socially conscious, it demanded action through violence and expressing aggression while nation-conscious rap had some of the same political messages, but presented them in a less demanding way, while allowing listeners to form their own views (Lusted, 2017, p. 34).

2000s — Crunk Music Crunk music is a subgenre of hip-hop music that is known for its loud and aggressive hooks that are meant to create an energetic and fun atmosphere (Lusted, 2017, p. 55). Crunk is a combination of hip-hop and electric dance music that used to be played in the clubs often to create a vivacious dance environment. The high-pitched songs that had hard hitting drums in the beats, along with the catchy hooks created reason to dance and have fun, which made many critics believe Crunk did not have a message or substance (Lusted, 2017, p. 55). The message was about having a good time with friends, dancing, drinking, and playing around. Crunk became popular nationally in 2003 when Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz dropped their song “Get Low,” and from viewing the music video, it’s clear that having fun was the objective (Lusted, 2017, p. 55). In the music video, there were several people partying, which included drinking, dancing, laughing and smiling. I remember wanting to experience the club scene when I got older, simply because this music video promoted having fun at the club.

2010s — Trap Music Although trap music originated in the early 2000s, it became popular and expanded in the 2010s. Trap music has a distinctive beat that uses hi-hat cymbals, kick drums and a distinct synthesizer sound (Lusted, 2017, p. 57). During the 2010s, Trap music came to the forefront of the hip-hop scene but the years of the 2010s unwrapped a variety of different type of rappers. There are several artists who are not considered to be trap rappers, but they rap off of trap beats. Some of these artists include political 24 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 rappers like J. Cole and Chance the Rapper. Trap is a term that comes from Black street slang that refers to a Black community where Black people fall into the trap of selling or doing drugs or going to prison because of that type of lifestyle (Bonnette, 2018, p. 44). Trap musical artists like T.I. and Young Jeezy discuss their lives around being drug dealers to provide for their families and their time being incarcerated. The trap has inculcated a survival and lifestyle creed among Blacks and hip-hop artists use hip-hop to discuss life in the trap and ways to escape it.

These are simply the eras of hip-hop, but that is not to say that newer artists, such as Kendrick Lamar or Childish Gambino always fall into the category of time period that they started releasing their music. There are many newer artists who are nation-conscious or even gangsta rappers. I provide this brief history of the eras of hip-hop music to better situate the time periods and type of hip-hop music that will discussed in the following chapters, especially the results chapter. Through the years, hip-hop culture may have innovated the production of beats and flow of the lyrics but has always been a resistance mechanism and a means for Black expression where advocating and educating can be received. Banfield (2010) declares, “All Black music—from spirituals to blues to gospel, big band, bebop, rock, reggae, soul, funk, r&b, and hip-hop—is attached to the same family and bears the mark of African functionality, musical, cultural, social, and spiritual roots. This is the very basis of Black culture” (p. 56). Black culture and hip-hop together, especially for the two latest generations of African Americans, assist with the progression of Black functionality and social justice. What does it mean to be Black, and how is that related to hip-hop?

Hip-hop and Black Culture Hip-hop is a symbol of the Black experience and Black culture. Much of Black culture is about struggling for social justice, overcoming the struggles, and maintaining constant advocacy for the Black race. Partaking in hip-hop culture is a way to transport Black culture from one decade to another. For an example, Social justice and hip-hop scholar Lakeyta Bonnette (2018) states that “Blacks have used culture to disseminate information, increase solidarity, fight against injustice, and maintain political and social movements” (p. 8). Black culture, specifically, Black 25 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 music, has historically been a way that Blacks create their voice and proclaim their rights and stances in social and political domains, from which they are typically excluded (Bonnette, 2018, p. 8). Hip-hop music, particularly political rap, unites African Americans through the music by rapping about matters significant to the Black community and continuously providing relevant information about injustices Blacks face currently, and throughout African American culture (Banfield, 2010, p. 56). From the very beginning of hip-hop’s existence, hip-hop has always critiqued the state of White and Black race relations as it is critical to advise and promote action for change and Black progression.

Hip-hop artists are the leading public influence of the current generation of Blacks. Kitwana (2008) states, “rap music more than anything else has helped shape the new Black youth culture…. [T]hrough their lyrics, style, and attitude [rappers] helped to carve a new Black youth identity into the national landscape” (pp. 9-11). For decades Black expressive style has been related to Black music, so scholars believe that hip-hop is yet another genre of music that lends itself to Black identity (Richardson & Pough, 2016, p. 130). Hip-hop and Black feminist scholars Elaine Richardson and Gwendolyn Pough (2016) further explain how hip-hop is central to Black culture: “An artistic, social, and cultural movement, it is diverse and reflects the local histories, cultures and concerns of its worldwide practitioners, while adhering to hip-hop’s ideological and aesthetic imperatives” (p. 129). Several hip-hop artists such as J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Rapsody, Childish Gambino, Queen Latifah, Jay-Z, MC Lyte, and Nas globally speak to the heritage and culture of the Black community, while also speaking to oppression and racism.

White middle-class people often perceive hip-hop to be an instrument of rebellion because of the art form’s challenges to the whiteness as the norm. Whiteness is centered in American culture, and hip-hop is everything that Whiteness is not. Whites have completely different experiences with economic, social, and political identity than do most Blacks, clearly revealing White privilege, and according to some White people who do not listen to hip-hop, since hip-hop is not White, it is rebellious and not normal. Hip-hop attempts to stay true to African American identity from the 26 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 language and clothing to the morals and values. Staying true to African American identity means becoming a part of Black practices or processes that create Black culture. Hip-hop actively addresses some of the most current themes concerning various injustices, confirming language scholar-activist Geneva Smitherman’s (1997) statement:

Hip-hop/rap culture is a resistance culture. Thus, rap music is not only a Black expressive cultural phenomenon; it is, at the same time, a resisting discourse, a set of communicative practices that constitute a text of resistance against White America's racism and its Eurocentric cultural dominance. (p. 7) Resistance is different from rebellion, in the sense that resistance seeks to disrupt an established system or institution, meaning that resistance can be a positive function, while on the other hand rebellion is an act against a structure or institution (Selbin, 2010, pp. 11&12). Black Americans are often affected by racism and oppression and hip-hop is one of the major ways to name and respond to numerous discriminatory actions (Kitwana, 2008, p. 13). Continuing to face frequent roadblocks, Black Americans are discriminated against in “subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways” (Kitwana, 2008, p. 13), which is a key factor of systemic racism and oppression.

Systemic Racism and Oppression According to sociologist and social theorist Joe Feagin (2000), systemic racism

includes the complex array of antiblack practices, the unjustly gained political-economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the emotion-laden racist framing created by whites to maintain and rationalize their privilege and power. It thus encompasses the white-racist ideologies, attitudes, emotions, images, actions, and institutions of this society. This racism is a material, social, and ideological reality and is indeed systemic, which means that the racist reality is manifested in all major institutions…. [E]ach major part of U.S. society— the economy, politics, education, religion, the family—reflects the fundamental realities of systemic racism. (p. xiv) Systemic racism allows Whites to stay in power while Blacks continue to attempt to take one step forward only to be pushed three steps back. Whiteness lies within the 27 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 realm of every single aspect of a Black person’s daily existence, corrupting, disturbing, and dismantling their everyday life activities. Whites have power politically, socially, and economically which continues to help maintain inequalities and oppression. From a White person’s attitude, to their thought process and emotions, their racist practices and actions underlie many institutions of society such as churches and schools. Much of the Unites States’ civilization is immersed with the existence of systemic racism. Whites are teaching and sharing this anti-Black doctrine to maintain a sense of separateness and White superiority. These stories are a daily reminder that there will always be some type of racial battle that African Americans will continue to have to fight no matter the institution or date. Legal racial segregation has transformed into a sugarcoated racism that uses coded practices to discriminate and create disadvantages regarding Blacks (Collins, 2010, p. 25). Some examples of these coded practices, or systemic racism that Feagin and Collins speak to are listed and explained below.

Poverty and Income Disparity Black Americans are persistently at a disadvantage in terms of careers and income inequality. Blacks are twice as likely to be unemployed as White Americans (Kitwana, 2008, pp. 13-14). Black Americans can have the same educational background, experience, and skills as White Americans; however, Blacks continuously are paid less for the same type of occupations (Kitwana, 2008, p. 14). Also, poverty rates among people without a college degree are significantly higher for African Americans than any other race (Shapiro, Trisi, & Chaudhry, 2017).

Housing More than any other racial group, Black Americans continue to be segregated from White Americans when concerning housing (Kitwana, 2008, p. 14). Even when Blacks have the same financial income as Whites, they are still not able to get loans from mortgage lending companies (Eligon & Gebeloff, 2016). From the 1930s through the 1960s, most Blacks purchased homes through illegitimate home mortgage markets because Whites used any measure possible to keep their precious neighborhoods segregated (Coates, 2018). The government was well aware of illegitimate home 28 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 mortgage markets where third party, White individuals would first purchase a home at an extremely low value and then “sell” it to a Black person while charging Blacks a great deal more than the original purchase price. As late as the 1950s, the National Association of Real Estate Boards’ code of ethics explained that a relator should never introduce a Black person to a predominately White neighborhood because it would decrease the property values (Coates, 2018). Redlining is one factor behind difference in wealth between Blacks and Whites in the United States today. Even now, in the 21st century, racist housing policies still exist. For example, Wells Fargo targeted Black and Latino customers and pushed them into subprime loans which increased property tax revenue, interest rates, and forecloses throughout minority communities (Coates, 2018).

Politics Blacks, compared to Whites, have a harder time succeeding in the political realm in the United States, particularly when it comes to running for political office or voting. It is extremely difficult for Black politicians to get elected to any type of office. Even when Barack Obama won the presidency, his campaign focused on “change” broadly and not on racism specifically—and despite his rather “safe” rhetoric about race, White, racist Republicans saw him as illegitimate because of his race. White Americans only wanted Obama to talk about race if it were in the context of healing. Even the Jeremiah Wright “scandal” was only considered to be a scandal to White Americans and invested in Obama as healer. Despite being 13.4% of the population in the United States (“U.S. Census Bureau,” 2017), only 59 of 541, or 10.9%, members of the 2019 Congress are Black (“Black-American Representatives and Senators,” 2019). Many factors contribute to this lack of political representation, but one particularly important factor is voter suppression. Voter suppression has been exhibited most notably through felon disenfranchisement laws (Alexander, 2012, p. 187). Even if a felon has been out of prison or off of parole for years, before they can have their voting rights restored, in some states, they are required to pay fines or fees which can be considered as being the new poll tax (Alexander, 2012, p. 188). Not allowing felons to vote is racist because Black Americans are four times the rate of

29 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 any other race not likely to vote due to past convictions (Taylor, 2018). This itself is racist because of the disproportionately harsh punishments handed down to people of color.

Also, some states, such as South Carolina and Mississippi, which have a higher proportion of Black residents, are more likely to pass harsher felony disenfranchisement laws (Taylor, 2018). Selected states tailored their laws exclusively to pertain to crimes assumed to be committed more regularly by Black Americans while disregarding crimes believed to be committed more frequently by White Americans (Taylor, 2018). Other than imprisonment or fines, voter ID laws also are seen as suppression. It has been proven that minorities who are considered to have low incomes or are less educated than Whites, have lower access to valid IDs, in correlation to White voters (Barreto, Nuño, & Sanchez, 2009, p. 113). Racial gerrymandering also deprives Black voting power when African Americans do not have enough voting numbers in a particular district because some states deliberately create districting maps to guarantee Whites a win every district. Gerrymandering makes it difficult for Blacks to get representation because acquiring a representative that a Black person voted for is almost impossible when the maps are rigged in the favor of White voters (Soffen, 2016).

Also, since there is a lack of Black political leadership, policy changes that could assist in combating systemic racism throughout Black communities are rarely being created (Kitwana, 2008, p. 14). Politicians are the voice of the people and can vote for change in laws but if there are no Black representatives from the Black community, Whites who have never even stepped foot in a Black neighborhood, have jurisdiction over the policies. There has been a long historical lack of Black political representation in the United States, dating back to the 1960s and 1970s. Civil rights activist and socialist Stokely Carmichael and political scientist and civil rights leader Charles Hamilton (1992) believe that Black representation in an existing electoral framework will never amount to any real change or political force because of the system’s inherent racism (p. 10). Although Carmichael and Hamilton’s (1992) original context for their argument came in 1967, these critiques of U.S. society remain so 30 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 relevant. Since the White power structure rules the Black communities through local Blacks who are responsive to White leaders and not the Black population, Black politicians do not exercise effective power. Black political leaders are only as powerful as their White hidden hand will allow them to be. This is known as the “indirect rule” since Whites are still indirectly controlling the Black community (Carmichael & Hamilton, 1992, p. 10)

Criminal Justice A major drawback from reaching certain goals in the Black community stems from the lack of a fair and just justice system. African Americans receive harsher sentences than Whites for the same exact crimes (Alexander, 2012, p. 167) and are still being incarcerated at a greater rate than Whites (Coates, 2015). One reason for the lopsided rates includes drug crimes; as Michelle Alexander (2012) states, “The uncomfortable reality is that convictions for drug offenses—not violent crime—are the single most important cause of the prison boom in the United States, and people of color are convicted of drug offenses at rates out of all proportion to their drug crimes” (p. 99). People who have been convicted of drug trafficking are receiving the same amount of prison time, sometimes even more, as people who have been convicted of murder (Madigan, 2004). Some of these drug offense criminals who get these harsh sentences are even first-time offenders.

Police Brutality Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, and George Floyd are just a few black men who have been murdered as a result of police brutality. In 2015, The Washington Post created a website equipped with a real-time database to track deadly police shootings. From January 1, 2015 until December 31, 2016, 1,954 people were shot and killed by on-duty police officers in the United States. Of them, 960 were white, and 491 were black (Lowery, 2016). Whites make up about 62 % of the United States population, however, only around 49 % of the citizens killed by police from 2015 to 2016 were Caucasians. African Americans, on the other hand, account for 24 % of those fatally shot and murdered by the police despite being just 13 % of the U.S. population. That means that Black Americans are 2.5 times as 31 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 likely as White Americans to be shot and killed by police officers (Lowery, 2016). There are other disproportionate rates of murder against other people of color, one example being Native Americans, whose death rates by police killings are three times higher than Caucasians, and 12% more than African Americans (Hansen, 2017

Education Black Americans are treated far from equal when it comes to attempting to get educated. African American students who start 4-year bachelor's degrees have the lowest completion rate of any other races (Shapiro et al, 2017). Educational inequality is seen through inner city schools having inferior resources such as outdated textbooks and outdated equipment for Black students. Another example of how systemic racism plays into education is through educational segregation. Sociologist scholar Sean Reardon (2016), being one of the nation’s leading experts on educational inequality, states that majority of Black students are a part of poorer communities, so they have fewer resources which also makes it harder for to attract the best teachers (Brownstein & Boschma, 2016). Since the schools are separated by income and being that several Black students qualify as low income under federal guidelines, schools are also separated by race (Brownstein & Boschma, 2016). Also, since Blacks are viewed as criminals by racist Whites, Black students are “pushed out” of schools “through racially biased school discipline policies” (Alexander, 2012, p. 194). Such policies are similar to the criminal justice system. For example, in numerous cases, White students receive little to no punishment for the same misconducts that Black students commit. The problem isn’t just a matter of how racist White Americans look at African Americans, but how that racist perspective travels culturally, as a persistent pernicious discourse.

These examples of systemic racism are seen in everyday life and are forms of oppression. Although Iris Marion Young (1990) believes that it is impossible to give one basic definition of oppression (p. 57), she explains oppression as an injustice or disadvantage that a particular group experiences because of “the everyday practices of a well-intentioned liberal society” (p. 56). This statement is in contrast with racism being an intentional action of Whites. Because of the systemic constraints, Young 32 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 declares that oppression is structural and not simply the product of a few people’s actions or policies (p. 56). However, W.E.B. Du Bois (2002) explains that laws were created by White men who had no interest or care for Black Americans and did not even have the dignity to treat them as humans, or with the respect that they deserved (p. 265). Laws are structural, and were created by a few White people, meaning that these structures that were put in place were the production of Whites’ actions and policies. Blacks have almost no say so as far as the creation and execution of laws, even though Blacks and Whites share the same space. Du Bois (2002) poses that the world is White and because of this whiteness, oppression is a natural part of being Black (p. 265). Oppression is being accused of committing a crime, being tried by non-peers, and punishing the wrong Black American, while allowing the guilty person to escape (Du Bois, 2002, p. 265). Black oppression is being treated cruelly, simply for being Black. Black oppression corresponds to Young’s description since the everyday life of being Black in America is a constant struggle that faces relentless systemic racism.

Hip-hop and Rhetoric Hip-hop culture uses rhetoric through all four elements of hip-hop, although the rhetoric is seen most through the music by Signifyin(g) and through performances where musical artists act as orators. Signifyin(g), meaning “repetition and revision,” (Gates, 1988, p. 52) is also a part of this Afrocentric rhetoric in a sense that producers take previous Black music and transform samples into new, hip-hop beats, creating a rhetorical effect (Banks, 2006, 128). Gates (1988) argues that Signifyin(g) is able to criticize non-black subject positions through the incorporation of materials from mainstream white America. Woodyard (2003) identifies nine rhetorical behaviors that relate to hip-hop and Black culture that can shed light on the work hip-hop does for African American culture (Woodyard, 2003, p.140). These same nine rhetorical behaviors were seen several times throughout the six hip-hop shows that I visited as a part of this multi-phase study and will later help to explain what I learned from observing the hip-hop shows. These uses of rhetoric through hip-hop exemplify visual,

33 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 lyrical, musical, and aesthetic manifestations of hip hop over the past 50 years and its impact on African American and socio-political culture.

Hip-hop and the Nommodic Rhetorical Behaviors Hip-hop culture is one way that African Americans use rhetoric while partaking in Afrocentricity. According to Africologist Molefi Kete Asante (1987), Afrocentricity is the “most complete philosophical totalization of the African being at the center of his or her existence” (p. 125). This concept is comprised of social, cultural, political, and economic change for Blacks and means that Blacks have a connection with themselves and other African Americans. Afrocentricity is a theory that aims to address unity through the understanding of the history of African people, myths, narratives, and spirituality (Monteiro-Ferreira, 2015, p.3). Incorporating all of these aspects in a network of meaning, Afrocentricity is a way for people of African descent to view their existence in search of their African identity while rejecting systems of oppression. Nommo is the belief of the persuasive, transformative, mystical power of the spoken word (Smitherman, 2000, p. 269). Through Afrocentricity, the purpose of the term nommo is to create balance and harmony within a rhetorical space. The term nommo comes from the Dogon mythology God Amma, who is said to have crafted the first living creatures known as the Nommo (Alkebulan, 2009, p. 2). Nommo gives life through African American culture through the spoken word and can be seen and felt in all components of African American life, including group, personal, mass communication, and interpersonal events wherever African experiences and culture meet (Woodyard, 2003, p.137).

African American studies scholar and educator Jeffrey Lynn Woodyard (2003) created nine nommodic rhetorical behaviors that he borrowed from Melbourne Cummings and Abhik Roy’s ten characteristics of African American interaction. Many African Americans communicate by using at least one of the rhetorical behaviors. The nine nommodic rhetorical behaviors that relate to hip-hop includes rhythm, stylin’, lyrical quality, improvisation, call and response, mythoforms, indirection, repetition, and soundin’ out (Woodyard, 2003, p. 140). All nine rhetorical behaviors along with their particular rhetorical effects, are further described below. 34 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Rhythm

The use of patterns and rhythms help with the flow of speech concerning the language. Attributes such as rate, tone, pitch, and use of pauses affects the rhythm of a speaker. Specifically, African Americans use rhythm differently from Whites, for example through the iconic DJ scratching that is only heard in hip-hop songs. Another example of how Blacks exclusively use rhythm differently is through producer tags on hip-hop songs. Producers have their own saying to show that they produced the track for a hip-hop artist, and they have to elegantly incorporate the tag, usually, at the beginning of a song, by making sure that they are staying aligned to the rhythm. Rhythm in the African American framework is described as “the architecture of being, the inner dynamic that gives it form…only rhythm gives (the word) its effective fullness” (Jahn, 1961, p. 164). Rhythm provides ways to create the flow of words along with sound and it greatly measures the success of the speaker, or rapper. Rhythm shapes Black communities by providing the listeners with balance between the flow of the words, the music, and the connection to the rapper.

An example of how rhythm is used to address oppression and racism is seen in Kanye West’s (2004) song “Never Let me Down,” when West states, “I get down for my grandfather who took my mama/ Made her sit in that seat where white folks ain't want us to eat/ At the tender age of 6, she was arrested for the sit-ins” (track 8) and later confirms “Racism's still alive, they just be concealin' it” (track 8). He shares the story of his mother getting arrest for participating in a sit-in and notes that although it may seem as if White supremacy does not exist, it does, but it’s being hidden. This explains rhythm because the way West flows the lyrics through his cadence is attributed to the success of the listeners understanding of the moment West describes. type of flow West delivers. With this particular rhyming scheme, West (2004) uses a flowing rhythm that allows listeners to be able to keep up with the flow while paying attention to the political lyrics. His rhythmic organization of the lyrics navigate the harmony of the notes meaning the musical instruments to the beat work well with his flow.

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Stylin’

Mannerisms such as gestures, facial expressions, body movements, and posture help to communicate visual messages to audiences (Woodyard, 2003, p.140). Stylin’ can refer to the speakers’ name, the way they dress, hair style, and other aspects of their appearance. Examples of these mannerisms that relate specifically to Blacks includes a raised fist in the air solidifying resistance and strength of Black power in the Black communities (a direct correlation with addressing racism); dapping someone up, which is a greeting or farewell where two people lock fingers or put a bald up fist on top of the other persons fist; and also throwing back of a Black person’s head to another Black person, as a way of saying “What’s up.” These rhetorical choices effect the Black community because a speaker’s elegance delivers suggestions about the listener’s choice of style and helps Blacks to develop their own identity through the artist.

Lyrical Quality

Depending on the rhetorical community, African Americans’ public communication is said to be lyrical, in which the language is related to a song or poetry. The language is usually expressed in a narrative since in Black communities, storytelling is a prominent feature, going back to the West African griot traditions (Banks, 2011, p. 24). Lyrical quality affects the Black community by providing them with accustomed ways of communication. For the Black community, lyrical quality can specifically help with stress, depression, or other emotional problems by means of allowing their body and mind to relax since the lyrics may help them think through some of their problems (Woodyard, 2003, p.141). The listeners also share certain commonalities with the artist’s lyrics which establishes a sense of belongingness to Black culture. For an example, J. Cole’s (2016) song “Neighbors” tells a story of how his house got raided all because his White neighbors thought he was selling drugs out of his house, simply because he is Black. He states:

Every [Black person] feel like a candidate For a Trayvon kinda fate

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Even when your crib sit on a lake Even when your plaques hang on a wall Even when the president jam your tape Took a little break just to annotate How I feel, damn it's late I can't sleep 'cause I'm paranoid Black in a white man territory Cops bust in with the army guns No evidence of the harm we done Just a couple neighbors that assume we slang Only time they see us we be on the news in chains, damn. (track 7) These lyrics rhetorically express that racism and oppression are almost inevitable even when Blacks have nice houses in White neighborhoods, college degrees, and success. Blacks still live in a White person’s world. This story that Cole explains addresses oppression and racism even for someone as successful as himself.

Improvisation

In the Afrocentric view of rhetoric, improvisation is important for the communicator to create a speech or song while the delivery is in an ongoing process (Woodyard, 2003, p.141). Communicators are able to create responses from the audience “off the fly” and promote participation. This rhetorical act allows the orator in the Black community to not be bound to every single written word and allow the audience to be moved by the spirit. In hip-hop, this can be viewed through the art of free-styling, which assists Blacks with developing their own thoughts and promotes critical thinking skills. For an example, lead MC of The Roots hip-hop group, Black Thought freestyled a verse saying,

Waitin’ on change that been low ‘Til the day after tomorrow, I sit by the window In a police state, like ya man Michael Winslow My kinfolk told me there’s a brand-new Jim Crow. (Harvard Innovation Labs, 2016). In these musical bars, Black Thought addresses the current system of racial control and oppression and states that he’s waiting for change. This particular freestyle allowed audience members to think about Jim Crow laws and possibly look further

37 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 research and find literature like Michelle Alexander’s (2012) book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

Call and Response

Throughout African American oral tradition, call and response has been a rhetorical device that has been used for Black communication. African Americans, most notably in the sociocultural context of traditional Black churches and Black musical performances, constantly receive feedback from audiences (Smitherman, 2000, p. 211). Black preachers are the leaders of their church, and as leaders, they lead their congregation into various chants and hymns where audience participation is commanded and appreciated. Just as the preacher, or speaker demands participation from the audience, the audience demands certain gestures, expressions, and tones (Gilyard & Banks, 2018, p. 48). In many Black church services, members will hear the preacher request an “Amen,” simply calling for one by stating, “Can the church say Amen?” and the congregation will respond appropriately. Even though the preacher knows he can receive an “Amen” from the audience, he rhetorically situates himself in a position where he gets the audience involved, which reassures him that they are actively listening and communicating during the sermon. The response also affirms an assent to the caller’s authority.

In African American culture, it is a tradition that the audience provides an appropriate customary response to a masterful presentation or performance (Gates, 1988, p. 261), and in return, both the speaker and the audience create unity. Hip-hop legend Chuck D’s (2014) remake of James Brown’s “Say it Loud” states and calls out, “Say it loud” and the chorus responds, “I’m Black and I’m proud” (track 9). This song mixes traditional funk with hip-hop, noting that no matter how many injustices Blacks may face through oppression and racism, Blacks should still be proud to be Black. This rhetoric is important because it reiterates the notion that Blacks can overcome oppression, keeping a positive outlook on self-love.

Mythoforms

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Mythoforms help African Americans to understand their relationships with one another and their ancestors (Woodyard, 2003, p. 141). These myths explain the history behind why things happen in African American culture, such as liberation and oppression, and assist African Americans with coping with systemic racism that they constantly deal with. Mythoforms help African Americans preserve links to the cultural past. An example of mythoforms in African American culture is Harriet Tubman’s action of removing people out of bondage (Asante, 1987, p. 121). The pattern of not being concerned with individual achievement but rather a collective advancement is a lesson that Tubman taught African Americans to partake in. Her epic journey, even after being dead for years, still helped people to continue her journey, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some of these mythoforms are shared through hip- hop culture, such as Jay-Z’s (2010) “My President,” where he states,

My President is black, but his house is all white Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther could walk Martin Luther walked so Barack Obama could run Barack Obama ran so all the children could fly. (track 17) Jay-Z mentions three Black historical figures who have all fought to bring injustices to light and advocate for the black community. All three of these figures were dedicated to creating better opportunities for the Black community while addressing oppression and racism. Jay-Z rhetorically uses mythoforms to teach listeners about Black history and culture which addresses racism and oppression.

Indirection

Speakers are able to explain certain aspects of African American events without taking a direct approach. When a speaker is indirect rather than straightforward, which creates audience curiosity (Woodyard, 2003, p.141). Indirection was a survival vehicle in the culture of enslaved people, documented in slave narratives where Negro spirituals had indirect escape information, being understood by Blacks only (“Songs of the Underground Railroad,” n.d.). Indirection also help Blacks elevate their mood and get them excited. One example of indirection acting rhetorically through hip-hop can be seen through Nas’s song “Cops Shot the

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Kid,” where Nas (2018) indirectly states that White police officers are killing Black children. Although Nas states, “White kids are brought in alive/ Black kids get hit with like five,” he does not directly say that White police officers are shooting Blacks (Nas, track 2). “White kids are brought in alive” attests to the fact that Whites are brought into custody peacefully while “Black kids get hit with like five” (Nas, 2018, track 2) could mean Blacks are shot five times, or it could mean sentenced to five years of imprisonment, which also addresses racial discrimination.

Repetition

Repetition is the reoccurrence of language or images that help orators clarify a certain point (Woodyard, 2003, p.141). Repetition in Black culture is known to help a crowd remember certain things about important directions or get them more involved, which rhetorically situates them in an augmented context. Repetition also strengthens learning and memory, as seen in Public Enemy’s (1989) song “Fight the Power.” The song rhetorically uses repetition to express the need to fight oppression from Whites who are in power. Throughout the song the phrase “Fight the power” is heavily repeated as part of the hook and all three of the main verses. This act of addressing racism help listeners to keep the phrase in their mind, remembering to always be conscious of White power.

Soundin’ Out

Similar to stylin’, soundin’ out refers to the verbal mannerisms that the orator may have, and African American listeners can listen for unique vocals that are specific to a particular speaker (Woodyard, 2003, p.140). Soundin’ out particularly deals with volume and music quality when the orator delivers the message, which in hip-hop, deals with signifyin(g) by means of beat sampling. Through signifyin(g), a hip-hop beat sampling process is an alternative form of rhetorical address. By the means of modification, musical signifyin(g) incorporates rhetoric through preexisting music, ultimately changing the characteristics and sound, developing a new hip-hop beat (Floyd, 1997, p. 8). For the Black community, soundin’ out enhances the audiences’

40 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 listening experience by providing them with a familiar sound. An example of soundin’ out is provided below, concerning hip-hop artist Meek Mill, in the hip-hop and signifyin(g) section.

Hip-hop and Signifyin(g) Signifyin(g) is a multifaceted phenomenon with many components. In Black rhetoric, to signify is to create meaning in Black language, while using indirect language or wordplay to tease or boast (Gates, 1988, p. 65). Gates (1988) established the term “signifyin(g)” with a parenthetical “g,” to differentiate the association between the traditional African American practice of “signifyin” and the semiotic standard English practice of “signifying” (p. 66). Linguist and educational advocate Geneva Smitherman (2000) describes signifyin(g) as “a type of verbal insult that is leveled at a person…it is often used to make a point, to issue a corrective, or to critique through indirection or humor” (p. 277). Signifyin(g) emphasizes an alteration in context, that is meant for humor or pleasure, and hip-hop culture was specifically developed from altering, or refiguring lived spaces, through previous music genres (Banks, 2006, 128). Signifyin(g) is also seen as repetition, but with some type of noticeable difference (Banks, 2011, p. 89). Some components such as readily available materials (turntables and records), and cost effectiveness (inexpensive spray paint for graffiti art) made it easy for hip-hoppers to modify (Snell & Söderman, 2014, p. 4) or signify existing resources and in return, create hip-hop. By signifyin(g), hip-hoppers are basically remixing context that could already stand on its own as a separate entity but could also be repurposed to create something that is different and acceptable to the producer. Signifying addresses racism by altering racist themes into hip-hop culture. For an example, in rapper Meek Mill’s (2017) song “Young Black America,” he sampled Donald Trump’s racist “What do you have to lose” speech that was geared towards Blacks. In the song, Mill addresses the challenges faced by young African Americans and although racist America seeks to keep Blacks down, Mill advises young Blacks that there is a better way to live other than street life. The use of Trump’s voice as a sample alters the original message that Trump made in his speech.

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Musical Signifyin(g) through Sample-based Beats

Musical signifyin(g) is the alteration of earlier musical material by playing, criticizing, or manipulating it in some type of fashion (Floyd, 1997, 8). The process of musical signifyin(g) allows producers to rhetorically demonstrate their masterful of beat making skills for an audience that has a particular appreciation for hip-hop culture (Peterson, 2014, p. 16). A rhetorical effect of a hip-hop beat is the relationship between the original music compared to the newly, changed sound.

The preexisting material is rhetorically influenced through the means of mocking or showing respect for a particular practice, musical style, process, tone adjustment, vocal variation, or in the case of hip-hop, beat sampling. Hip-hop sampling is when a producer uses another artist’s music to create and convey their own compositional works of art. Sampling allows producers to take previously recorded music from a variety of choices and organize them into a new relationship with new music material. Sampling a beat is not about the original meaning of the song but it is about the producer’s skill in recasting the meaning (Schloss & Chang, 2014, p. 163). Sampling is less about the values of sampled material or the new structure that is imposed on it because what is truly important is the process and underlying aesthetic that links the two together. Hip-hop scholars and enthusiasts Joseph Schloss and Jeff Chang (2014) further explain, “the aesthetic preferences of sample based hip-hop define a frame of reference that serves two purposes: it allows the genre to maintain a consistent character despite using samples from a wide variety of sources and it gives meaning to the choices made by individual producers” (p. 168). The aesthetic goal of a hip-hop producer is to be able to complete a beat while preserving the original sample and coherently creating their own sound.

Various aspects of a hip-hop beat are rhetorically situated because the producer is always keeping the artist and the audience in mind. The producer’s rhetorical choices are based on the style of sound that they are trying to obtain. Choosing between composing and sampling is a rhetorical choice in itself. Hip-hop reveals an African-derived preference for rhythm and groove as musically meaningful in itself, without the need for harmonic progression. Hip-hop music is grounded on a cyclical 42 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 form assembled by a variation of loops and sequences. Looping, a short, repeated section of sound, in hip-hop is viewed as a natural evolution of alteration and is seen prominently in classic hip-hop songs (Schloss & Chang, 2014, p. 137). Looping does not change the sound of the musical aspects referring to harmony, rhythm, tone, or melody, but looping does adjust the receptivity that the sound is interpreted (Schloss & Chang, 2014, p. 138). Within sampling and music production, the producer must account for chopping, which is the primary method for sampling. Chopping means taking a hip-hop sample directly from a source and splitting the short sample into tiny pieces, rearranging them, or applying various techniques such as slowing down the tempo or adding pauses. Several hip-hop producers take samples from records because they have a true, authentic to hip-hop culture sound that is desired in hip-hop beats and this speaks to intertextuality since producers are transposing original compositions to a hip-hop musical style.

Amongst the many important components of Afrocentricity, including resisting systems of oppression, the main goal of an African American communicator is “transformation” (Smith, 1972, P. 17). Afrocentric rhetoric aims to bring stability and harmony to the Black community (Smith, 1972, P. 16) and by analyzing the live performances that I visit, through the 9 nommodic rhetorical behaviors, I will be able to see if particular hip-hop artists are attempting to accomplish transformation, if the rhetorical behaviors are present throughout the observation material.

Critics Who are Opposed to Hip-hop Culture People who do not listen to hip-hop music or who are anti-Black often misunderstand hip-hop music and argue that hip-hop is destructive, promotes atheism, and does not speak to important topics that will stay current as the song grows older. For example, because of the physicality of some images, some critics charge hip-hop with being damaging to African American culture. Known for speaking out about police brutality through his music, Kendrick Lamar was criticized by talk show host and journalist Geraldo Rivera after performing on top of a police car that was decorated in graffiti (a major theme in hip-hop culture) at the 2015 Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards. Rivera stated, “Hip-hop has done more 43 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 damage to black and brown people than racism in the last 10 years” (Kreps, 2015). After Lamar responded to Rivera on a couple of songs off of his DAMN album, Rivera continued to bash hip-hop by stating that hip-hop music is “very destructive culturally,” because hip-hop encourages African Americans to be so different from mainstream White America, evident in Rivera’s antagonistic worldview in signs like participants’ sagging pants or visible tattoos (Kreps, 2017). Many other music genres have some of the same themes that what according to Rivera, makes hip-hop destructive. Rivera also stated that hip-hop is the worst role model for African Americans (Kreps, 2017). Rivera is looking to villainize hip-hop culture without looking at the entirety of it. Hip-hop artists speak to the culture that Blacks have grown up in and continue to perpetuate that Lamar standing on the police car was an act of art imitating life or life imitating art meaning that this was a part of an activist maneuver.

Another critic who believes hip-hop is destructive is legal scholar Raquel Alvarenga (2005). Alvarenga (2005) argues that some hip-hop songs spit lyrics that are too sexually explicit and encourage listeners to disregard, disrespect, and degrade women (p. 13). Misogynistic lyrics that are sometimes present in hip-hop songs are used in an educational way that address real life experiences that some artists dealt with. The rhetoric that the artists use portrays real scenarios and the artists speak the truth as they state in many of their songs that want to “keep it 100” (Jadakiss, 2020; Hussle, 2016). Other scholars such as Patton, Eschmann, and Butler (2013) suggest that hip-hop promotes violence (p. A57). These scholars are correct when they state that violent lyrics are a part of hip-hop music and the rhetoric that the artists use to show how they overcome violence or use violence to protect their loved ones, are situations that they have faced. This type of rhetoric is how hip-hop artists communicate their beliefs, what Blacks have seen and what Blacks have been through.

As another tactic to speak against hip-hop, critics argue that hip-hop is the cause for a decline in religious beliefs. Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has been a long-time critic of hip-hop music, most recently citing hip-hop as being the reason for the decline in Christianity (Bump, 2015). O’Reilly states, “The rap industry, for 44 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 example, often glorifies depraved behavior, and that sinks into the minds of some young people—the group that is most likely to reject religion” (Bump, 2015). O’Reilly’s claim that hip-hop “glorifies depraved behavior” (Bump, 2015) works as rhetoric because hip-hop addresses real life concerns, many of which in the Black community, deal with nonconventional methods or behaviors. Basically, in O’Reilly’s narrative, young people’s listening to hip-hop steers them away from Jesus and removes them from wanting to be associated with religion; this statement is completely racist because there are many religious people who listen to hip-hop and thrive as being a part of the culture. O’Reilly is claiming that hip-hop is not White Christianity which is true, but hip-hop was never meant to be White anything, especially not White Christianity, which in all reality is White Supremacy. Diversity and systematic theologian Jeannine Fletcher (2017) states:

… the theology of Christian supremacy gave birth to the ideology of White supremacy, and White supremacy grew from a dangerous ideology to an accepted position inherited by Whites. The systems and structures of White supremacy have been intimately joined with Christian supremacy, such that undoing White supremacy will also require relinquishing the ideologies and theologies of Christian supremacy. (pp. 15- 16) Christianity has always been about White people having power and is one of the main reasons why White supremacy exists today. The current political and social structures in the United States are based off of White Christianity and therefore joined with White supremacy. This is important because O’Reilly is using his rhetoric to divide Black and White Christians. He asserts that Blacks reject religion because of hip-hop but if they were to listen to a more predominantly White genre, such as country music, they will be more religious. Religious identity and experience are actually at the core of hip-hop. Rap artists are bridge figures that combine two of the most powerful traditions in black culture: preaching and music (Miller & Pinn, 2014, p. 18). Rappers appeal to the rhetorical practices articulately performed in African American religious experiences, and the cultural effectiveness of Black singing/musical traditional, to produce a captivating hybrid (Miller & Pinn, 2014, p. 18).

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Additionally, some critics believe that hip-hop cannot and does not address important topics that Blacks will be able to use at any given time. Canadian author and political commentator Mark Steyn is yet another person who criticizes hip-hop. Steyn believes that hip-hop music is not an “authentic expression of black identity” because hip-hop doesn’t have any human feelings (Friedersdorf, 2013). Steyn’s larger argument is that hip-hop is not “fundamental,” meaning that the lyrics in hip-hop songs will not be significant as the songs get older; he believes that hip-hop is unfeeling because hip-hop lyrics are not going to be of central importance as time passes. By unfeeling, Steyn is suggesting that hip-hop is emotionless, not caring for certain aspects of life that matter to him. The accusation that hip-hop is not authentic, especially being presented by a White man, proves that Steyn disregards hip-hop culture because he, as a White man, cannot relate to some aspects that Black people can. Steyn’s rhetoric is racist because as a White man, he is telling Blacks that their culture is not authentic. This type of moral argument has damaged the reception and reputation of Black vernacular music for over a century.

Several White people have responded to hip-hop with widespread moral panic where they are linking violence and hatred to everything that hip-hop the culture stands for (Jones, 2013, p. 5). Some Whites truly believe that hip-hop is pure evil and it threatens the society of White America. This moral panic with Black music has been going on for years. For example, blues music was considered to be the “devil’s music” in the 1920s (Rose, 2008, p. 66). Many White and Black middle-class listeners dismissed the overly sexualized lyrics of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Ma Rainey as insignificant or offensive, while later scholars, such as Angela Davis (1999), have pointed out that those same lyrics were offering a counter discourse from a queer and working-class perspective that challenged the hegemony of the middle-class norm (p. 40). Other than sexuality, blues music discussed violence, poverty, and injustices, all of which were seen as taboo subject in that time period (Rose, 2008, p. 66). Although blues music was accused of luring people into unacceptable behavior and lifestyles, it is now known for being an artifact of the “golden black age,” and was credited for being the point of creation for rock and roll and jazz (Rose, 2008, p. 66). Similar to

46 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 blues, for the first several decades, Jazz music was deemed to be dangerous and degrading. White America feared that jazz music would lure middle-class whites to inappropriate sexual and social behaviors. The Black jazz musicians, performers, and fans were labeled as drug addicts and criminals, while today jazz music is believed by some people to be the greatest American music in history (Rose, 2008, pp. 66-67).

One of the White power ploys that is seen in Black cultural criticism includes lessening the significance of a specific group of people by asserting that they have no history, displays no craft or innovation, carries no sophistication, and lacks intellectual influence (Banfield, 2010, p. 173). Just as other Black vernacular music such as blues and jazz rose out of the misconceptions, hip-hop has flourished as well. There are many other people who have the same beliefs as Rivera, O’Reilly, and Steyn and they do not take the time to understand hip-hop culture and the significance that it has on African American subcultures. These misunderstandings provide partial accounts of hip-hop and African American culture.

Conclusion Black music has been one of the greatest aspects of African American culture. Through various Black music genres, African Americans have been displaying their struggles, communicating with other Blacks, while pouring their hearts out for and about the culture. Hip-hop is one of the current genes of Black music that supports Blacks through their daily lives, acknowledging and seeking action for injustices. Oppression, as seen through systemic racism, is still a part of life that Blacks face every day that they open their front door and walk out into White America. Hip-hop culture is a way that Blacks fight against these systems of oppressions and this chapter’s purpose was to survey previous research that will help understand my study and findings. Hip-hop critics have a very narrow, tunnel vision about the culture because there is a lot beautiful hip-hop that they overlook and fail to mention. As long as Blacks are a part of a marginalized population, they will continue to face oppression and have to find ways to help combat racism. For the first time ever, hip-hop is the most popular music genre in the United States (McIntyre, 2017); Kendrick Lamar

47 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 even won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for music, adding the hip-hop genre to a very short list (jazz and classical) of previous prize winners (Lamarre, 2018).

Hip-hop is making history and for the next several years to come, I believe that hip-hop will be one of those ways for African Americans to contest injustices. The gap in rhetoric scholarship allows this study to answer questions about African Americans combatting racism and oppression through hip-hop. Current understandings of hip- hop, racism, and oppression are missing data on how African Americans combat issues of oppression and systemic racism through hip-hop. This study is important because the field of rhetoric is growing to be more inclusive and this study will contribute to the diversity of rhetoric scholarship, allowing scholars to gain knowledge concerning hip-hop, social justice, and African Americans’ ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting to certain injustices and oppression. The next chapter will focus on the methods and methodology for the study.

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CHAPTER III

THE WARM UP: METHODS AND METHODOLOGY Because my research questions focus on hip-hop culture and the ways hip-hop constructs African Americans ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting to certain injustices and oppression, a combination of qualitative methods was most suitable. This study was Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved (IRB2019-661), and readers should refer to appendixes for supporting material when necessary. Due to the nature of this study, I submitted the IRB under the Exempt Limited category where I was only required to provide an information sheet, which is the same as a consent form but no signatures from the participants were required. I decided on a qualitative, multiphase study that consists of quasi-ethnographic observations and short, informal, and longer, more formal interviews with audience members at selected hip-hop shows. In phase 1, I attended hip-hop shows in North Carolina, where I observed the entire show environment (lighting, sound, set changes), paying close attention to the audience members and the performers. While at the shows I stood with the crowd and acted as a participant-observer. Although I did not set out to observe a specific number of audience members, I watched potential participants closer than others. Potential participants were people who I wanted to ask for their participation in the interview process, who appeared to be African American and who did not look preoccupied or highly intoxicated. I did not mind observing audience members who appeared intoxicated, but I did not want to interview intoxicated people since I wanted to make sure the participants would be sober enough to completely focus on the questions I asked them while at the hip-hop shows. Also, the participants had to be capable to give consent to participate in the study and being intoxicated would taint their consent.

While observing, I took extensive field notes, which are explained in detail below in the data collection section. For phase 2, I conducted short, informal interviews during the intermissions/ breaks at the hip-hop shows. These interviews were held inside the venue, unless certain unforeseen circumstances forced the interviews to be held right outside of the venue. For phase 3, I held longer, more formal, semi-structured interviews over the phone or via video conference. The date, 49 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 time, and method (phone or video conference) of interview was decided by the participant. This mixed method approach helped me answer my research questions because I was able to gain insight of the inner experience of participants, determine how meanings are created through and in hip-hop culture, and to discover, rather than conduct experimental research or test variables (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 12).

Taking another look at my research questions, the best way for me to answer how African Americans perceive hip-hop and why they make certain decisions concerning oppression and systemic racism, was through interviews and observations. Table 3.1 provides an overview of how my research questions aligns with their respective methods.

Table 3.1 Research Questions and Methods Comparison Research Questions Methods (RQ1) How does hip-hop actively Quasi-ethnographic observations, short promote social justice and create interview sessions, and long interview awareness in African American sessions. communities? (RQ2) How does hip-hop music help Short and long interview sessions. (The African Americans address and fight observations did not explicitly answer this against systems of oppression? type of question since this was a more in- depth question that required conversations with participants.) (RQ3) In which ways does hip-hop Short and long interview sessions. (The construct African Americans’ ways observations did not explicitly answer this of thinking, feeling, and reactions to type of question since this was a more in- certain injustices and oppression? depth question that required conversations with participants.) Hereafter, when referring to these particular research questions, the first question will be represented by RQ1, the second RQ2, and the third RQ3.

RQ1 was mainly answered through observations and the short interview sessions. This was because of the term “actively” in the question and the type of questions that were asked during the short interview. “Actively” refers to current or recent times so present hip-hop shows provided me with some insight on how present-day hip-hop promotes social justice and create awareness. I was able to listen to and analyze some of the lyrics from the hip-hop shows through the observations and ask questions about 50 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 the particular hip-hop shows that were observed. Also, the short interview questions helped me gain more understanding on Black identity and hip-hop culture. The short interview sessions also helped to answer RQ2 and RQ3, but these questions were mostly answered through the long interview sessions because I was able to get a more in depth, rich exploration of hip-hop and oppression. These questions also allowed me to spend more one-on-one time with my participants, really getting to the bottom of their thinking and feeling processes. Optimally, answering my research questions will promote social change, in the sense that people will place emphasizes on how hip-hop can promote education and become more about Black progression and self-knowledge.

As I designed my research project, I followed the studies of Ralph Cintron (1997) and Ana Muñiz (2015), since these two scholars provide examples of continuous ethnographic thinking and mixed method approaches, such as interviews. Known for his ethnographies, rhetorical theorist Ralph Cintron (2002) explains that critical ethnography creates social change which could be subtle adjustments that both meet the needs of the people in power and the powerless (p. 941). This means that only when looking at both, the powerful and the powerless, in unison as a complex system, can the potential adjustments be discovered (Cintron, 2002, p. 941). Muñiz (2015) agrees by stating it is not valuable to conduct a study that concentrates exclusively on the injustices concerning marginalized people because change does not come solely from the powerless telling their stories to the powerful (p. 164). Critical race theories of power and race shaped my decisions and design of this research project by emphasizing the perspective that White privilege is what helps to keep Whites elite and in power, while understanding that Blacks are socially, economically, and legally deprived through these socio-cultural forces. This determines how my participants and I perceived each other and ourselves, experiences, and how we respond to oppression as it relates to hip-hop. In this chapter, first, I review critical race methodology and the rationale for using such methodology. Next, I discuss data collection including all three phases of the study and speak to the confidentiality of the participants. Lastly, I explain how I analyzed the data through thematic analysis, while providing information on codes and themes, and end with a conclusion.

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Critical Race Methodology I decided to use a critical race methodology as the foundation of my study since race, racism, and power play an integral role in my research. According to critical race theory (CRT) scholars Daniel Solórzano and Tara Yosso (2002), critical race methodology is an approach to research that:

(a) foregrounds race and racism in all aspects of the research process. However, it also challenges the separate discourses on race, gender, and class by showing how these three elements intersect to affect the experiences of students of color; (b) challenges the traditional research paradigms, texts, and theories used to explain the experiences of students of color; (c) offers a liberatory or transformative solution to racial, gender, and class subordination; (d) focuses on the racialized, gendered, and classed experiences of students of color. Furthermore, it views these experiences as sources of strength and (e) uses the interdisciplinary knowledge base of ethnic studies, women’s studies, sociology, history, humanities, and the law to better understand the experiences of students of color. (p. 24) These five premises collectively signify a challenge to existing racism, race, and power. Critical race methodology explains that racism is many times hidden in the rhetoric of what is considered to be “the norm,” but when injustices or oppression are brought to light, victims of systemic racism and oppression can find their voice. Although critical race methodology was originally used specifically for education and legal studies, rhetoricians implement CRT into their research as well. This methodology still aligns with my research study because it goes beyond pedagogy by answering theoretical, methodological, and conceptual questions related to the experiences of people of color (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 26). Whenever I spoke with my participants, I made sure to welcome and encourage conversations about race and power and also let them know that we were in a safe place of discussion. For example, one of my participants made a comment about a White person who was complaining about the loud music at one of the shows and apologized for pointing it out. I informed the participant that it was okay to make the statement but asked to

52 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 further explain the comment and asked why he felt as he did. I also informed him of race consciousness and explained that through the interviews, our interactions with one another, even from the first moment that I approached him, we should be aware of, and speak to, race and power. I made sure to explicitly speak to my participants as a Black woman to a Black man or woman and wanted them to answer the questions with the color of their skin in mind.

Racism and Master Narratives Racism is created, justified, and maintained through the use of “master narratives” or majoritarian stories in storytelling. Master narratives are stories told about Blacks generated from a legacy of racial privilege, meant to discredit and demoralize Blacks socially, economically, and politically (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 28). Master narratives somewhat define White privilege and assist in maintaining racism’s stories since it puts Whites at an advantage to have better opportunities and benefits simply because they are White (Harris, 1993, p. 285). In other words, “a majoritarian story is one that privileges Whites, men, the middle and/or upper class, and heterosexuals by naming these social locations as natural or normative points of reference” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 28). Since White privilege is the norm, it is often invisible (McIntosh, 1989, p. 148) so the master narratives seem natural. For example, research has been conducted that confirms many children are taught that racism happened by accident (Woodson, 2015, p. 321). Woodson (2015) states, “Understanding racism as an accident neutralizes the scope and structure of institutional and structural racism in the United States” (322). This means that depicting racism as an accident fortifies White Supremacy because it encourages White beneficiaries to suspend their ethical sense. Sometimes, even Blacks buy into and tell master narratives which confirms the importance of recognizing the power of White privilege in constructing stories about race (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 28). For example, some older Black people criticize hip-hop because of the master narratives created by White critics and White media outlets (Sullivan, 2003, p. 608).

These master narratives shaped my practices by allowing me to confront and disprove some of the master narratives that my participants shared through the 53 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 interviews. For an example, one of my participants said that they would like to see more Black people get off of government assistance, more specifically The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and hoped that more low- income Blacks could become as financially stable as most Whites. I informed him that White people receive more SNAP benefits and government assistance as a whole, compared to Blacks, and told him that White people, including several White Republicans, create these untrue narratives, based on racism, and White America media outlets support these fallacious narratives. Also, a critical race methodology allowed my participants and myself to create our own narratives. The way to counter these stories and tell about the experiences of Blacks is to create and share counter- stories.

Rationale for the Use of Counter-stories A counter-story, also called counter-narrative, is “a method of telling the stories of marginalized people whose experiences are not often told” and a tool for revealing, investigating, and challenging the master narratives of racial privilege (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 32). These counter-stories can display a new reality to Blacks and Whites by showing the possibilities that hip-hop can reach concerning racism and oppression, beyond the current research (Delgado, 1989, p. 2412). My results will be shared through a counter-story so that I can share the stories of my participants and give life to the results in a way that will challenge the master narratives about hip-hop. Through the counter-stories, critical race methodology offers a way to understand the experiences of African Americans and challenges traditional methodologies because it requires me to develop “theories of social transformation wherein knowledge is generated specifically for the purpose of addressing and ameliorating conditions of oppression, poverty, or deprivation” (Lincoln, 1993, p. 33). Critical race methodology allows me to help other Black people who are hurt and humiliated by racism and other forms of oppression, discover that they are not alone and hopefully become empowered participants, hearing their own stories, and stories of others (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 27).The remaining sections below will discuss

54 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 the implementation of methods for this study, which includes the data collection, confidentiality of participants, and data analysis.

Data Collection: 3 Phases of Collecting Data As stated in the introduction of this chapter, collecting the data consisted of three phases. This section will explain all three phases, which include observations, short interviews, and long interviews. Critical race methodologies shaped the participant selection for both of the interviews and the analysis of the data because all were performed with the consideration of racialized experiences of each participant. I will first explain quasi-ethnographic research and then explain each individual phase. Phase one will review the site selection, description of venues, and field note process. Phases two and three will discuss the population of study, recruitment process, and interview questions.

Quasi-ethnographic Research Although I am focusing on ethnographic research and not ethnography specifically, I used many aspects of ethnography, such as representing the culture graphically and observing Blacks who are a part of the culture. The term “quasi” refers to the short timescale of the study and smaller number of visits to the hip-hop shows, compared to a full-length ethnography. Ethnography is defined as “the study of culture from the stance of a researcher who enters and participates in that culture. Because it comes from anthropology, it is more focused on the researcher joining in with—even merging with—the context” (Sullivan & Spilka, 2010, p. 22). I consider myself to be a part of hip-hop culture, so being at the hip-hop shows felt like being in my own element. While at the hip-hop shows, I was a participant-observer, participating and joining in the events, while listening and watching. I knew being at the shows allowed me to establish relationships with the participants and the interactions with the audience members helped me build rapport. I considered the rapport with the participants to be imperative because in order for them to be truthful and forthcoming with answers to the interview questions that I prepared, they should feel comfortable to talk with me about such sensitive topics, such as systemic racism and oppression.

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The participant’s willingness to open up and talk to me, showed their commitment to the data collection process.

Even though voice and language are critical to ethnography, the observer’s physical presence and visual observations are also crucial to document descriptive accounts of the events, people, and practices that are encountered (Poole, 2005, p. 168). Ethnography is not simply about documentation but it is also about being able to visualize some things that would never be gathered through an interview or conversation (Back, 2006, p. 553). For example, seeing and partaking in the interactions provides a different viewpoint than simply being told about a particular interaction. This is similar to a doctor being able to see their patients’ symptoms verses their patient’s only telling what their symptoms are. Through qualitative research, researchers are focused on studying “issues of interest in detail, in their natural settings, with the aim of discovering the explanations for and the key patterns in the interaction of people with their environments” (Sullivan & Spilka, 2010, pp. 7- 8). Visiting the hip-hop shows permitted me to focus on the relationships between the audience members and their environment, gaining insights that could not have been received from interviews alone. Although critical ethnographers like Cintron (2002) and Muñiz (2015) helped me shape my practices, as I mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, I first wanted to get a raw understanding of what ethnography was and the difference between basic ethnography and ethnography that focused on race and racism. That is why I also draw from scholars like Sullivan and Spilka (2010) because they provided me with clear definitions that related to ethnography as an entire method so that I could better understand CRT scholars and be able to incorporate both into my study.

Phase 1: Observations at hip-hop shows This research involved observing Black audience members who were at hip- hop shows around Wilmington and Raleigh, North Carolina. I decided to only observe African Americans because I am interested in the effects of hip-hop on Black audiences. This study specifically targeted this group of people because the hip-hop shows were in a setting where African Americans gathered together to support hip-hop 56 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 culture, and it was easier to find and attend hip-hop shows, rather than other events, such as house parties. This section will discuss the site selection process that includes how and why I decided to observe particular shows, provides an overview of the venues, and reviews the field note process.

Site Selection

As a part of the mixed-methods approach, I visited 6 hip-hop shows over the course of 3 months conducting ethnographic research. I found out about the shows through social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, going into local record stores, and by word of mouth through relatives and friends. I selected these six hip-hop shows based on a number of different factors such as location and the amount of diversity and audience members I thought the shows would have. I also researched the type of performers and DJs that were going to be present at the show. Location was key because the hip-hop shows had to be in Wilmington or Raleigh, North Carolina to make the commute for me feasible. Also, I thought there would be a good turnout of people in larger, more known cities such as Wilmington and Raleigh. I also had to make sure that I could work around the shows’ schedule and my personal schedule, so I would not have any conflicts.

In regard to the amount of diversity and number of audience members who I thought were going to attend, I checked out how well the show promotors advertised the show. For example, I asked some of the show promotors about their various mediums for advertisement. Also, all participants had to be over the age of 18, so I looked for venues that had age requirements and who had Black promoters. Keeping the critical race methodology in mind, when I would research the promoters, I checked their social media pages to see if they posted anything about racism or injustices, just to see what type of memes or images they shared with people looking at their pages. I looked on Facebook and other social media outlets to see how many people noted that they were going to a show or were interested in the show. Since social media users usually have their profile pictures of themselves, I was able to see if the person who said they were going to be attending appeared to be African American. Of course, I am

57 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 going off appearances here, which is problematic, but I felt that this would give me a rough estimate as to the expected audience makeup. Again, I checked these people’s pages as well to see if they posted anything related to race or racism. I visited record stores and radio stations to see if posters and flyers were advertising the shows, and if admission to the show required a ticket, I asked the venues about ticket sales. Another aspect that was important in deciding on what shows to attend was the actual rap artists and DJs who were performing. I chose artists who would be considered as political or conscious rappers because their audience would be better situated to answer the interview questions since political rappers speak more about social issues and injustices. Considering all of these criteria, I ultimately decided to go to 2 shows in Raleigh, North Carolina, one that featured the rapper Elzhi and one that featured local rappers and DJ and producer 9th Wonder, and 4 shows in Wilmington, North Carolina, one that headlined the rapper Common, and the other 3 shows featured local rappers from the Wilmington, NC area. An example of a show that I did not attend was T-Pain and DJ Trellz because it did not meet the above criteria. That show did not meet the criteria because although T-Pain is a part of hip-hop culture, he is known as a hype or party rapper who usually does not rap about social issues. This does not implicitly argue that rappers who are not considered conscious rappers are inherently apolitical or not politically useful; I went to shows where I thought I could gather the most data referring to conscious hip-hop.

Descriptions of the Venues

Since hip-hop is a multifaceted culture, encompassing various elements, it is important to note the setting of the venues, along with the themes found from the field notes. The shows I visited happened at vastly different places, creating a unique space for each show. The various venues had their own mark on hip-hop culture from the set-up of the building to how the music flowed throughout the space, which had a rhetorical effect on the audience. All of the venues were rhetorically situated in a way that allowed the audience members to be a part of hip-hop culture, in the moment. For an example, some of the venues had posters signed by well-known hip-hop artists

58 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 from previous shows, while other venues had graffiti artists present, tagging on the ground and blank canvases. The signed posters took back some of the participants to the early hip-hop days, seeing vintage posters and seeing actual graffiti artists, which depending on the city people live in, is sort of rare. Also, most of the venues were in downtown areas. Although more information about each venue will be provided in the next chapter, below is a detailed account of each of the venues:

Local 506 (Chapel Hill, NC outside of Raleigh, NC) — This venue was a club. When I first walked into the club, I noticed the floor plan was exposed so there was a lot of open space. When I pivoted to the left, at the back of the building was the stage and to the left of the stage was the bar. I arrived 30 minutes early before the show started and there were still a lot of audience members arriving although the building was already halfway full. Once the place was at what seemed to be full capacity, because of the lack of moving space, the show shortly began. Most of the audience members were wearing jeans and jackets. The building was cold inside and the air was full of smoke that resembled a heavy fog. This venue had approximately 220 people and roughly three-quarters of the people appeared to be African American.

5 Star Restaurant (Raleigh, NC) — Grammy-nominated producer 9th Wonder held a back-to-school drive hip-hop show where people came and dropped off school supplies while enjoying some old school hip-hop and a few performances from Raleigh, NC artist Ian Kelly. This restaurant has a dining area to the right of the main entrance, and directly to the left was an open floor plan or “club,” where there was standing room and the DJ equipment setup. Several people were eating in the restaurant, and as the start of the show approached, a few people began to walk over from their tables to enjoy the show. These audience members were in more formal style clothing like dresses and dress shirts. The venue was nonsmoking, so the air was clear, but was full of food aromas. 5 Star Restaurant had close to 200 people in attendance for this show, where roughly four-fifths of the audience appeared to be African American.

Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre (Wilmington, NC) —The Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre venue had 2 different shows—Academy and Grammy award-winning 59 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 rapper Common and Wilmington, NC local hip-hop group Unity—but the setup was the same for both. This is an outside venue that has huge stadium lights and a seating area that resembles stadium seating in the shape of a semicircle. Huge speakers were stacked one on top of the other. The stage was at the front of the semicircle. At the show where Common was the performer, the weather was beautiful, approximately 78 degrees and the air was clear. Common’s show was packed where there had to be over 1,000 people and half of the audience appeared to be Black. At the Unity’s show, it was a bit cooler, around 66 degrees and I noticed my breath vapor condensation. The seats were cold, but the venue also had big industrial heaters which knocked off some of the cold. Also, at Unity’s show, there were graffiti artists spray painting on canvases and selling them at the end of the show. Only about 400 people were present for Unity’s show where close to all of the audience members were Black.

Gravity Records (Wilmington, NC) — Gravity is a relaxing record store in the heart of downtown Wilmington. Every time I enter the store, there is always some type of soul or funk tune that is playing in the background. When I first entered the store, I noticed tons of vinyl records in crates, labeled by genres like rock, hip-hop, soul and so forth. In the center of the record store there is a space for the DJ, performer, and audience to stand. The walls were full of musical posters and records. The cash register was positioned to the left of the entrance on a clear glass cabinet that had retro vinyl and Gravity Records stickers being displayed in the cabinet. The two local performers had different set ups at the two separate shows. Local hip-hop artist V.I. had built a stage and had it in the middle of the store, so he was overlooking the crowd. At this show, about 120 people were present, where a little over four-fifths of the audience members were Black. The other performer, Fuzz Jaxx, had no stage and was standing at eye level with the crowd. His crowd consisted of approximately 90 audience members, three-quarters of them being African American.

As far as my position at the shows, every show was different, but I did try to spend half of my time towards the front of the audience and half of my time towards the back of the crowd. I did this because I wanted to capture the entire atmosphere of the show and I wanted to see if there was a difference in audience reactions from the 60 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 audience members who were closer to the performers compared to the audience members who were further away. This constant back and forth process allowed me to interact with more people rather than me just staying put in one place. It also allowed me to get an overall feel and view of everything going on. My movement had an effect on what I could see and hear, and in return affected the thoroughness of my field notes.

Field Notes for Observations

As I was observing, I recorded clear, in depth field notes. By in depth I mean descriptions that most people can use their five senses to understand, such as the type of clothing people were wearing, the color of the paint on the wall, the smell of the venue, the pitches of sounds, or the way the smoke in the air feels. Field notes assisted me in drawing conclusions from the observations that I gathered at the shows (Powell, 2006, p. 35). The field note process originates from what Tracey (2013) refers to as raw records, which are first hand, unprocessed, jotted down, scratch notes (Tracy, 2013, p.114). My field notes modeled the following:

Descriptive Content Setting: Date: Time: Describe the environment: Describe how the participants interacted with the environment: Describe how the participants interacted with the artist (verbal/nonverbal communication): Describe how the participants interacted with the other audience members (verbal/nonverbal communication): Describe the participants and their roles: Describe the meaning of what was observed from the perspectives of the participants (if possible): Describe any impact you might have had while at the show: List any exact quotes or close approximations of comments that relate directly to the project: Reflective Content Note ideas, impressions or thoughts you have about what you observed: Note insights about what you have observed and speculations about specific things that occurred: 61 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Note questions or concerns: After the observations were completed, I typed out, articulated, and synthesized the field notes into a more vivid, coherent record. From these observations and field notes, I became better situated to answer my research questions and able to explain some aspects of hip-hop culture from active participation.

I decided what to record by first taking a visual scan of everything in the venue. I looked at and recorded people’s physical appearances like their hair, clothes, and shoes. I wrote down descriptions of their facial expressions, how they danced, and their interactions with one another. I also wrote about the venue itself, as far as the walls, temperature, floors, stage, and the layout of the building. These were all things that I could see. Another deciding factor on what to record was by what I heard. I recorded the type of songs, the conversations I overhead, outside noises that could be heard from the inside, and any other type of unusual noises or sounds. The last aspect of how I decided what to record was by scents that I smelled that were strong. If people were smoking or were wearing heavy colognes or perfumes or if the building had a distinctive order, I recorded it all. Ultimately, I tried to record everything that I could see, hear, and smell. Even if I thought it was not going to be particularly useful, I still wrote it down since I preferred having more information than not enough. An example of my field notes handwritten and typed can be seen in Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2.

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fttWNor~ Observation !j

Figure 3.1 Handwritten field notes for 9th Wonder’s back to school hip-hop show. This figure depicts handwritten field notes for 9th Wonder’s back to school drive hip-hop show at the 5 Star Restaurant in Raleigh, NC.

Observation #3-Field Notes Moore 1 Observation #3-Field Notes Moore 2

Descriptive Content • Some people referred to me as the “School Girl,” saying that other audience members Setting: 5 Star Restaurant mentioned me Date: 08/16/2019 List any exact quotes or close approximations of comments that relate directly to the project: Time: 10:00 PM-2:00 AM • 9th is the truth Describe the environment: • This venue was a restaurant that was sectioned off into 2 sections: Restaurant and “Club” • This is why I come to these shows; it’s a personal benefit and it helps the Black • Brick Building/ Very warm inside of building community • Drop box in the middle of the two sections for school supplies • This was genius; eat, then party • Mix of older/younger audience members and mix of old school/new school hip-hop • I’m tired but I don’t want to leave • Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves • I heard they had to bring out another box Describe how the participants interacted with the environment: • I love your style • Audience members were dancing or “holding up the wall” • • People would move in between the restaurant and the club Play some “Rap” • One audience member started break dancing in middle of the floor, so the other • This that good shit right here audience members created a circle around him Reflective Content Describe how the participants interacted with the artist (verbal/nonverbal communication): Note ideas, impressions or thoughts you have about what you observed: • Audience members and the Performer/DJ participated in call and response • I think it was a successful event; there were lots of school supplies, the restaurant had a • The performer sometimes gave the microphone to a person in the audience to spit or lot of business, and the audience members were enjoying the music. It was a win-win-win complete a rhyme situation. • The audience shouted out songs they wanted to hear Note insights about what you have observed and speculations about specific things that • DJ would stop the music and let the audience sing acapella and then start the music back up occurred: • Artist stated there would be “No show without y’all” • I think it was such a huge crowd because it was a way for the community to have fun Describe how the participants interacted with the other audience members (verbal/nonverbal while giving back. Usually for these type of hip-hop shows, there is a cover charge for communication): entry into the venue, but it was completely free. Even though I’m sure the organizers • Audience members talked, danced, and sung with one another were hoping to get a donation of school supplies from every audience member, it was • They encouraged each other when singing/dancing not required. • People were holding drinks for one another • It seemed as if everyone was a part of the same atmosphere and there were no bad vibes Describe the participants and their roles: present. • Audience: laughing, drinking, dancing, singing along, having fun • DJ: Hype man that would mix, starch, and pump up the crowd • Hip-hop is a way to forget about your problems or maybe a way to embrace them. • Artist: Leader of call and response, rap, dance, story-tell Note questions, comments, or concerns: Describe the meaning of what was observed from the perspectives of the participants (if • Physical descriptions of audience members: most appeared to be African American, possible): wearing slacks, dress shirts/polos, dresses/heels • Everyone was playing their roles and seemed like a family; like a true culture • Sounds: music and every so often a train’s horn • Instead of trying to differentiate the old hip-hop generation from the new hip-hop • Smells: scent of Asian cuisine generation, the DJ was trying to bring the two eras together and not keep them a part since he was playing a mixture from back to back • Ask restaurant manager about hip-hop as it relates to the restaurant Describe any impact you might have had while at the show: • Ask Staff about usual crowd/Does the musical performer get some of the restaurants • I don’t think I had a huge impact profits? • I was being a part of the culture, trying not to stand out • What is Black Jedi Zulu? Why were signs posted? Figure 3.2 Typed field notes for 9th Wonder’s back to school hip-hop show. This figure represents typed field notes for 9th Wonder’s back to school drive hip-hop show at the 5 Star Restaurant in Raleigh, NC.

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As you can see from the two field note documents, Figure 3.1 is written quite sloppily since it was while I was at the show where lighting was not too great, and I did not care how the presentation looked. The format of my field notes did limit what I could write down since there was little space to write but I did not want to have pages of field notes for the sake of organization and time to write. Many of the venues were dark so I had to use a flash light on my phone to see what I was writing or jot down notes in my Notes application on my phone. I tried to write quickly so I didn’t stand out as the person with the flashlight on or the person with the notepad and cards frantically writing. Sometimes, White people who were at the shows working as security or attending as an audience member would approach me asking what I was doing. I made sure to choose my words wisely, especially when describing my study as one that dealt with racism and oppression. Even at that moment, when I was explaining my project to Whites, again, I used the critical race methodology to explain master stories and counter stories to them. Figure 3.2, compared to Figure 3.1 is neat and more thought out. I was able to take out some unnecessary information or add text that I thought would improve the notes. As I typed the field notes, it brought me back to the exact moment of the hip-hop show, allowing me to recall and relate to the facts. It was also easier for me to find information that I was looking for on the typed field notes opposed to the handwritten document.

Phase 2: Short Informal Interviews The short, informal interviews were the second phase of the study. These interviews were held on site at the venues, allowing me to get to know participants and see them interact with the hip-hop show environment. I was able to gain information on the type of songs they liked and a sense of the type of person they were as it relates to hip-hop culture from simply asking them a few questions as it pertained to the specific hip-hop show that they were at. Because of the critical race methodology, while going over the short interview questions, I made sure to inform participants of my experience with racism simply to see what participants would say about their experiences and consciousness of the existence of racism, noting questions to ask in

64 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 the follow-up, longer interview. This section provides information on the population of study, recruitment process, and interview questions for the short interviews only.

Population of Study

This phase included eight total participants for the short interview. Six of the participants were men and two were women. All of them were African American, ages ranging from 21 to 37. Out of the eight participants, four had some type of education beyond high school and the other four did not. Seven of the participants were at the shows to support their friends or just to enjoy the music while only one participant stated that they were only there because they had nothing else to do. One of the participants was from Washington, DC, three were from Wilmington, NC, one from Winston-Salem, NC, one from Virginia Beach, VA, and the other two were from Raleigh, NC.

Recruitment

While at the hip-hop shows, before the shows started and during breaks, I recruited participants by handing potential participants a card with contact information and a brief explanation of the study. At the bottom of the card was a detachable piece that asked for the potential participants name and contact information. Below is the text that was present on the card:

My name is Kourtney and I am a PhD student at Texas Tech University, currently working on my dissertation. I am doing some research on hip-hop culture and social issues concerning African Americans. These issues include systemic racism and oppression, like mass incarceration, lack of employment, and miseducation. In my study, I propose to examine how hip-hop assists African Americans in fighting systemic racism and oppression. I do not believe that the ending of oppression is up to Blacks, but if Black people know how to confront or address a situation in which they feel they are being oppressed, this could possibly help to gradually fade oppression. Sounds interesting and want to help? Please consider talking to me about your experiences with hip-hop culture. I will not take up more than an hour of your time. If interested, fill out 65 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

your name and phone number on the detachable portion of this card and I will contact you to schedule an interview. If you have any questions you can contact me at (my personal cell phone number) via text or call. Thank you. I decided on the participants by their engagement with the environment before the show or during the breaks. For an example, if I saw someone at the bar ordering an alcoholic beverage, I did not approach them, but I did approach people who were standing by themselves or dancing. I asked the potential participants if they would like to participate in a short interview during the intermission/ breaks, and then later a longer, more in-depth interview. The very first show that I went to confirmed my identity as an amateur ethnographer. At first, I would approach potential participants saying something like “Hi, my name is Kourtney, and I am working on a project about…,” but I quickly learned that people were not interested in knowing about me or my project as the first thing that came out of my mouth. After getting denied and rejected more than a few times, I redeveloped my strategy and actually tried to have a plain conversation. Instead of introducing myself, I would say something like “Those are some fire shoes, what kind are they? Where did you get them from?” After making small talk with potential participants, they were more willing to accept my offer to be a part of my study. I would walk up to people in groups, but it was much harder to get someone to stick around to answer questions, so I found it easier to walk up to people who were standing by themselves.

To the contrary of me not expecting any of the participants to flirt with me, four out of eight of my participants approached me in a coquettish manner, which of course, I used to my advantage. It seemed as if the men were more willing to participate than the women. When I approached my participants, again, I would first make small talk about their shoes or outfits and then I would introduce myself and my project. If the potential participants approached me, I would engage in their conversation for about two or three minutes and then say something like, “So would you like to help me out with something that’s important to me?” After they confirmed that they wanted to be a part of my study, I provided them with an information sheet. The information sheet explained the purpose of my study, went over the risk and

66 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 benefits, confidentiality, explained that participation was completely voluntary, and addressed the time constraints of both the short and long interview. At the conclusion of the short interviews, I received the index cards back with the participants contact information, so I could contact them later. Out of the eight participants five agreed to be a part of both interviews, while three people could solely participate in the short interview.

Short Interviews

The short interviews asked questions that helped me learn about the participants’ experiences with hip-hop and the particular show that they attended. They lasted no longer than 10 minutes. The following questions were asked as part of the short, informal interview:

• Why did you come to this show? • What are you hoping to get out of the show? • How do you situate yourself as a part of hip-hop culture? • What most interested you about hip-hop culture? These questions allowed me to “break the ice” and find out a little information about the audience and their expectations for the show. It seemed like many of the people who talked to me for an extended period of time were the ones who were open to both the longer and shorter interview. These “informal conversational interviews” which lasted between 5 and 10 minutes are defined as ethnographic interviews and they are meant to be impromptu and impulsive (Tracey, 2013, p.140). These interviews were particularly valuable to my study because they strengthened the observations since it gave me an opportunity to bring up some things that I noticed while observing and the participants were able to verify, expand, refute, or defend their explanations, as it was still very fresh in their minds. During the interview, I took notes with a pencil and a notepad. These notes were notes to myself about questions to later ask the participants or ask them to elaborate on if we had time. The critical race methodology allowed me to even bring up the difference of race according to the attendance of the audience members at the shows. I would point out the number of Blacks compared to Whites and asked their thoughts about race and racism. The process for recruiting these

67 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 participants for the long interview is covered below in the phase three recruitment section.

Phase 3: Longer Formal Interviews The longer, more formal interviews were the third phase of the study. In these interviews, I was able to ask specific questions about racism and oppression and get thorough details on my participants’ experiences with hip-hop and oppression. Since these interviews were longer, I gained more insight on my participants and connected with them while noting our commonalities and gaining respect for each other. This section delivers information about the population of the study, recruitment process, and interview questions specifically for the longer, formal interviews.

Population of Study

This phase had six total participants that participated the long interview. One was a woman and the other five were men. Five of these participants were also interviewees for the shorter interview. All of these participants were African American and ranged in ages from 21 to 41. Four of the participants had education beyond a high school diploma, and two did not. One of the participants was from Washington, DC, two were from Wilmington, NC, one from Winston-Salem, NC, and the other two were from Raleigh, NC.

Recruitment

The process for recruiting participants for the longer interviews was actually at the same time that I recruited participants for the short interviews. After I concluded the short interviews and received the index cards with their contact information while at the hip-hop shows, I informed the participants that I would contact them between one and two weeks after that particular hip-hop show to set up the longer interview. I only had one participant who could not participate in the short interview and opted to only participate in the longer interview. Some of the participants were willing to assist with both interviews, while others were only able to partake in one, meaning there was an overlap of participants from both interview sessions. This equated to a total of nine 68 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 participants for both of the short and long interviews combined. Once I left from the shows, I transferred the participants’ contact information to a password protected file and shredded the index cards. I contacted all of the participants that left me their information by calling them one by one from my cellphone. If they did not answer, I left them a voicemail. If a voicemail was not available, I sent them a text message.

Four responded immediately; however, the other two were a little harder to get in contact with. After leaving the two non-responders two voicemails, I texted them, reminding them who I was and my intentions for the interview, and eventually they both texted back and I was able to set up the interview. When each of the individuals responded back, I informed them that they could choose the date and time of the interview as long as it was within a week of the time that we spoke. All of the participants were good about keeping their word on the date and time of the interview. They also decided if they wanted to talk over the phone or over video chat. Four decided on video chat while the other two decided on a phone interview. When the time came for the actual long interview, I first thanked the participants and went over the information sheet again just to remind them of the expected length of the interview, risk and benefits, confidentiality, and informed them that they could withdraw and cease participation at any time.

Long Interviews

The longer interviews had a series of questions pertaining to oppression and systemic racism and interpretations of some hip-hop songs. Interview questions were shaped using a critical race theory framework intended to illuminate the participants' racialized experiences as African American people who listened to hip-hop. They lasted from 30 minutes to an hour. These questions included the following:

• Why did you get interested in hip-hop? • If you consider yourself a part of hip-hop culture, why? • What part of the culture can you most relate to and why? • What does hip-hop music do for you? • How do you feel when you listen to hip-hop music? • In what ways are you empowered by hip-hop culture?

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• As far as the social issues that you may be aware of, such as gun violence or mass incarceration, how do you think some hip-hop artists address these issues? • How does hip-hop music make you think differently about social issues? • What have you noticed, if anything, that has changed from when you first began to listen to hip-hop music, until current day hip-hop? • Thinking back to recent hip-hop songs, which song(s), if any, did you notice as addressing systemic racism or oppression? What was your reaction to that particular song(s)? • How does that make you feel about the direction that hip-hop is headed? These types of questions helped me get to the root of my research questions since I was able to rhetorically construct meaning while creating a story through the data obtained. The interview process was an active process where I gained a great deal of knowledge about the participant, while also learning a lot about myself. Therefore, not only did I have to examine the data that was answered through directly asking questions, but I also reviewed the interactions that the participant and myself with one another. Aspects such as my tone, hand gestures, or facial expressions may have altered some of the communication between the participant and myself. For example, one of the participants made a comment about a particular rapper and stated that since I rolled my eyes, he knew he could express himself freely since he thought I did not care for the rapper, like himself. That was not the case at all (I actually liked the rapper he was discussing), and I did not recall rolling my eyes, but this actually worked as an advantage.

Participant Profiles In this study, the participants included nine African Americans who attended hip-hop shows in Wilmington, NC or Raleigh, NC. Their ages ranged from 21 to 41 who consisted of seven men and two women. Five out of nine participants actually rap, DJ, or break dance as a “second job” and one participant is hoping to become known for his producing. It is important to know the history about participants and their relationship and experiences with hip-hop to better understand their responses to questions in the interviews.

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Participant 1 Participant 1, who participated in phase 2 and 3, was born and raised in Washington, DC, where there was a huge underground hip-hop scene that he became a part of. Hip-hop was a way that he grew closer to his siblings as his older sisters taught him about the culture. This participant is 31 years old and he grew up on artists like Biggie, Tupac, Nas and Jay Z, learning the ins and outs of rhyming. This persuaded him to become a part of underground hip-hop, going to various local shows and eventually setting the foundation for him to open up his own small recording studio. Attending a hip-hop show is also how he met the love of his life, now wife, and they both are grateful for hip-hop influence on their lives, particularly their love life.

Participant 2 Participant 2, who participated in phase 2 and phase 3, lives in Wilmington, North Carolina and started listening to hip-hop when he was just seven years old. At first the beats were what caught his ears but as he got older, the lyrics became most interesting and he could actually understand the meanings behind the songs. Hip-hop to him is a part of his everyday life and he tries to teach his children about the impact that hip-hop could have on them, depending on the type of songs that they listen to. This 40-year-old admits that he is not too keen on the new school hip-hop but still respects the genre and could never disrespect it by talking down on it. He believes that being a part of hip-hop culture and being Black go hand in hand and is inevitable.

Participant 3 Participant 3, who participated in phase 2 only, is a FedEx delivery driver who came from a musically inclined family. When he is not slinging boxes, he DJs for parties, weddings, and various other functions. What first fascinated him about hip- hop was seeing all of his uncles DJing and having the opportunity to learn about the DJing equipment. Hearing the scratching noise is the most beautiful sound he knows. He grew up spending his weekends fixing music equipment and going to record stores almost every weekend. Having the talent of knowing when to scratch came naturally to him and gets easier with each record he spins. Like two other participants, he is also a part of the hip-hop generationers, which hip-hop activist and political analyst Bakari 71 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Kitwana (2008) refers to African Americans born between 1965 and 1984 (p. xiii). Since he is 41 years old, he feels that he has a lot to offer to young, upcoming DJs around his area and considers himself a mentor.

Participant 4 Participant 4, who participated in phase 2 only, works at a small technology company as a computer engineer and states that hip-hop got her through high school, college, and even rough days at her current job. Listening to hip-hop while thinking through tough problems pertaining to work helps her accomplish getting the job done. She is a 39-year-old hip-hop head who listens to nothing but old school hip-hop and does not even want to discuss the newer generation of hip-hop. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, she was considered one of the main hip-hop gurus in Atlanta, along with some of her friends really introducing hip-hop elements and partaking in Atlanta’s hip-hop culture. She used to go to clubs and dance since she was one of the first b- girls to pop and stated that she used to be on late night local television channels dancing. She does not listen to the radio and will only attend hip-hop shows that are of local artists, most which are her friends, or hip-hop shows of old school rappers. To this day, she still break dances and attributes most of her career success to early hip- hop culture.

Participant 5 Participant 5, who participated in phase 2 only, is a 28-year-old elementary school teacher who declared that she uses hip-hop in her classes, but only because most of her students like to listen to hip-hop. She does not believe that she is an active hip-hop listener because she mostly listens to gospel or soul music and admitted to only being at that hip-hop show because she had nothing else to do and heard that the show was offering free drinks. She talked a lot about how incorporating songs about the alphabet or numbers into well-known hip-hop songs got her students involved and helped them to retain the information. As far as her personal connection with hip-hop, she really only knows and listens to a few songs.

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Participant 6 Participant 6, who participated in phase 2 and phase 3, thinks of himself as one of the hottest producers in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He grew up without a father and with a mother who had to work most of the time, so he stayed with his grandparents a lot as he grew into a teenager. He remembers being around ten years old, going through his grandfather’s records, playing them on a turntable and trying to recreate some of the mixes he heard Grandmaster Flash mixing. He got introduced to hip-hop through tagging along at his uncle’s house parties. Although he was supposed to be focused on fetching records for the DJs, he was more concerned with learning how to mix and scratch himself. As time passed and technology evolved, he started buying beat machines and creating beats. He dedicates 60% (his estimate) of his free time to making the music that he grew up on, hoping that one day it will pay off. At only 25- years-old, since more than half of his life has been dedicated to producing and DJing, he believes hip-hop culture makes him who he is today.

Participant 7 Participant 7, participated in phase 3 only, is a 24-year-old undergraduate college student who is studying psychology and hopes to be able to tie in hip-hop music into his research. He is a versatile hip-hop listener, asserting that he enjoys listening to any type of hip-hop and R&B music. He grew up listening to the type of music his parents listen to such as blues and soul music, but as a teenager when he got his first iPod, he was able to explore more by listening to more types of genres. He really took a liking to hip-hop and was influenced by his friends. They would compare playlists, making sure that they had the latest hip-hop songs. On any given day he can listen to hard core, trap music, while within the same couple of minutes, listen to hip- hop songs with political messages. He is in support of all hip-hop music and has been to several hip-hop shows of political artists, old and new, and the newer generation of trap artists.

Participant 8 Participant 8, who participated in phase 2 and phase 3, was born and raised in the Bronx, NY around the golden hip-hop time period. He is a 32-year-old surgical 73 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 assistant who grew up listening to artists that he refers to as smooth hip-hop, such as LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, and Slick Rick. These were prominent commercial hip- hop artists that influenced his life and the way that he sees the world. Part of the reason why he moved away from the Bronx and went to college was because of Nas’s song “I Can” where Nas proclaims that as Blacks, we can do anything and be anything that we want to be. He stated that while working in the operating room, depending on the surgeon and associated staff, hip-hop is sometimes played while operating on patients. He pointed out that usually it is old school hip-hop that is played, and he’s never heard a complaint about music being played.

Participant 9 Participant 9, who participated in phase 2 and phase 3, prepares alcoholic beverages as a bartender during the day and performs hip-hop at night. Unlike my other participants who grew up around hip-hop, participant 9 did not, but he really started listening and paying attention to hip-hop his last year of high school at the age of 18. This 26-year-old began busing tables for a night club, where they play hip-hop music a lot, so he had to listen to the music while working. Once he researched some of the rappers, he began keeping his own rhyme book and started learning about the basics of rapping. After studying all of the hip-hop eras, he decided to align his rapping with that of boom bap, or what’s considered old school hip-hop. Since he works at a night club, it was easy for him to perform at shows at that particular night club and his first time performing, he was overjoyed with excitement and has been performing and going to local shows ever since.

Along with the observations, these participants were the sole resource for receiving the data I needed to complete this study. They were willing to be a part of the study without any direct benefit to them, other than knowing they were helping a sista out. These participant profiles not only present Black narratives, but they prove that these participants are credible sources of the information that they provide. Since they all had diverse experiences with hip-hop culture, it was refreshing and empowering to formulate a mixture of their vivid experiences through codes and later themes, that are noted in the following sections. 74 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Confidentiality of Participants I made it a top priority to keep my participants’ identity confidential throughout all three phases of this study. After I collected the contact information on the index card from the participants from phase one while at the hip-hop show, I transferred all of the contact information to a password protected file, only accessible to myself. After I contacted the participants via their phone numbers to call or text the participants, I made sure to delete all of the call records and text message transcripts from my iPhone 10. After the interviews were held, all identifying information was removed from the data upon transcription. Each participant was given a numeric identifier. The number included the date of interview, first two letters of the last name of the participant, and the initials of the city. So, an interview in Wilmington, NC with Candice Horde (a pseudonym) on October 17, 2019 would be given the numeric identifier:101719--HO--WILM. For the purposes of confidentiality, the participants are identified as Participant 1, 2, 3, and so forth for the duration of this dissertation.

Data Analysis I decided to analyze my data through thematic analysis because I felt that the best way to investigate African American cultural beliefs, practices, and values, as it relates to hip-hop and oppression and systemic racism, was to create a complete, comprehensive analysis of what the themes from the data contribute to the overall understanding of the study. Themes create stories and with the type and amount of data that I collected, creating a counter narrative through themes, seemed to be the most appropriate approach, relating closely to the critical race methodology framework. Ultimately, thematic analysis allowed me to pinpoint the most important main ideas surrounding my data, permitting me to address the bigger picture concerned with my research questions. For both of the interviews, before I started to record, the participants had to read the information sheet and I provided them with verbal notice that the sessions were going to be recorded. They then provided me with verbal consent that they still wanted to participate and that it was okay for me to record the interview. Although I did record the short interviews, I was not able to use or transcribe them because the loud music overpowered the participant’s voice and my

75 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 voice. The recordings were made using a voice recording application on an iPhone 10. After the interview, the digital files were transferred to a secure, password protected folder. The interviews were transcribed, de-identified and the audio digital files will be deleted after 2 years. In this section, I explain the rationale for using thematic analysis along with identifying all of the codes and themes that I created from the interviews and observations.

Thematic Analysis Thematic analysis is a method used to identify, analyze, and report patterns within an entire data corpus (Scharp & Sanders, 2018, p. 1). Besides organizing and describing data in rich detail, thematic analysis allowed me to interpret the many different aspects of my data set (Boyatzis, 1998, p. vii). Although there is no one, specific definition of a theme (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 82), I looked for patterns of shared meaning across my data corpus that were also highlighted by central concepts that were related to my research questions. I also found it helpful to locate themes by summarizing and collating information into thematic maps (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 89), from the initial coding process to defining and naming themes. I analyzed the data by means of deductive interest, focusing on my specific research questions, while following Braun and Clarke’s (2006) 6 steps of thematic analysis:

1. Familiarizing yourself with your data 2. Generating initial codes 3. Searching for themes 4. Reviewing themes 5. Defining and naming themes 6. Producing the report (p. 87) With step one, familiarizing yourself with your data, first I transcribed all of the interviews and typed up and expanded on my observational notes. I used MovieCaptioner software to transcribe the interviews into typed documents. I kept reading and rereading the data, making note of my initial thoughts. Keeping the critical race methodology in mind through the entire data analysis process, I kept highlighting and reviewing the responses related to the participants' experiences with

76 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 race and racism. I made sure to immerse myself into the data, allowing myself to be as familiar with the breadth and depth of the content.

Coding Process

Step two, generating initial codes, is a direct correlation between my initial thoughts about the data and what was interesting about the information. For this particular step, I also borrowed from social justice activist and scholar Natasha Jones’s (2017) two-level coding process, which includes general and more specific ideas across participants and within the interviews and observations themselves (p. 329). I’m more of a hands-on type of researcher whenever it comes to analyzing my data so instead of analyzing my research on a laptop screen, I printed out all of my transcripts and organized them according to the type of interview it was. Since the short interviews and observations mostly answered RQ1, I put all of the short interview transcriptions and field notes into one pile. Then I put the long interview transcriptions into another pile. I placed the interviewer’s numeric identifier at the top of each of the transcriptions, so I could easily identify each of the participants in case I had follow up questions to ask them. Once I had all of my research labeled with identifiers and placed in their respective pile, I then color coded the transcriptions in relation to all four of my research questions. If participants stated something that dealt with my first research question I would highlight it in blue, green for the second question, yellow for the third question, and orange for the fourth question. I made sure to create a key with these color codes even though I put aside the short interview transcriptions and field notes, I still had a color for that particular research question because there were some questions I asked in the longer interview that pertained to social justice and awareness as well. When I created codes, I did so by focusing on the responses that helped to answer my research questions.

In the first level of coding, I developed a broad code that could be a concept, an action, belief, relationship, or cultural practice (Tracy, 2013, p. 189). The first level coding was mostly descriptive and concerned the who, what and where. The second level of coding synthesizes and categorizes the initial codes into interpretative

77 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 concepts, and is more concerned about the why (Tracy, 2013, p. 194). Some of the initial codes that I created for RQ1 included sharing life stories, assisting with rough times during social issues, and controlling ones’ destiny. The second level codes for RQ1 were directional healing and learning through the community. The initial codes for RQ2 consisted of speaking out against wrongdoings, understanding world views, and breaking points vs breakthrough points, while the second level codes for RQ2 comprised of listening to gain value and discovering true meanings of lyrical purpose. The last research question, RQ3 had initial codes like being conscious of surroundings and conversations, and how to perceive what is said, heard, or seen. Second level codes for RQ3 were identified as recognizing the power of voices and actions, and what to do with power once Blacks realize they have power.

I established the first level of coding for all three reading questions by finding similarities between the answers to the interview questions identified in the transcriptions and connections between my field notes. Once I found parallels between the data, I tried to summarize them in phrases that would give me a gist of the connections. The second level coding was created in the same way, but I focused on making the phrases even more direct and simple. For an example, three participants answered the question If you consider yourself a part of hip-hop culture, why? by using similar answers like “I was taught by my uncle,” “Being a part of the Crips…,” or “I got my family name tatted on me,” I then turned those phrases into a first level code identified like “sharing life stories” which in return outputted a second level code like “learning through the community.” All three answers from the participants dealt with someone introducing them to hip-hop, showing them how important hip-hop is to the Black community. Overall, there was a total of 62 raw, initial codes from all 14 interviews that were held. Below, Table 3.2 identifies the codes from the first level of coding:

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Table 3.2 Original Codes from First Level Coding from Interviews Research Question Research Question Research Question 1 2 3 Community Teach Uplifting Helping family Create change Empowering Control Purpose Happy Protection Breakthrough Exciting Love Understanding one another Frustrated Security Breaking point Perception Sharing See something say something Game changer Communication Injustice Superpowers Look Out Pity Powerful Legacy Listening Compassionate Life Stories Valuable information Scary Safe Mentors Conscious Reassurance How/why something is said Eye opener Expression Be bold/stand up Reality vs impostor Dedication Discovering Prosperous Resemblance Rejoicing Power of the people Powerful Role model Legit Balance Leaders of the blind Truth Passion for change Witness Informed Living Power of change Togetherness Tough Healing

These 62 codes were a lot to review so I made sure to go back through the responses from the participants very carefully which took several hours and days to do. Just to review one code, sometimes it took over two hours because I wanted to

79 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 make sure I fully understood the code and the meaning behind it. At times I felt like I was taking too much time or creating too many codes, but I still continued to record all codes because I knew I had a second level coding process that allowed me to eliminate more than half of the initial codes.

After completing the first level of coding, I reduced the 62 initial codes into just 14 codes, making them very specific and narrow while also removing unnecessary codes. The process for narrowing down the above codes included reviewing all the codes to see which ones could be combined, completely excluded, or made into a more coherent code. Table 3.3 identifies the 14, more narrow codes.

Table 3.3 Second Level Codes from Interviews Research Question Research Question 2 Research Question 3 1 Community for Be there for the younger Power of change/power of healing generations when injustices the people happen Helping family Create change through action Empowering Blacks to be understand more Security Discover past injustices and Perception of the speak on it information that is given and received Creating a legacy Breakthrough/ Breaking We are Superheroes/have through storytelling point superpowers Life Stories help to See something wrong, say keep Black identity something to help both alive parties involved

Creating these more specific codes involved crafting the best words or phrases that helped tell the stories of the participants. Generating these 14 more unique codes helped when creating themes since the codes were turning into actual phrases. This process was a constant back and forth process between the first level coding and the original responses because I did not want to lose sight of the actual responses that the participants provided. After coding, it was easier to produce the themes that are discussed below. 80 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Searching, Reviewing, and Defining and Naming Themes

Steps 3-5 deal with searching, reviewing, and defining and naming themes. In the third step, searching for themes, I organized the identified codes in the previous section and placed them into potential themes, attempting to identify broader patterns of meaning. To create potential themes, I created what I called a theme board to clearly see all of my codes at once. At the top of the board was the title, RQ1, RQ2, and RQ3 in their own columns. Beneath each research question, I had a list of several codes that I wrote on a sticky note and stuck the sticky note to the respective column on the white board. Figure 3.3 below exhibits what the theme board looked like:

Figure 3.3 Theme board with second level codes and one worded themes. This figure depicts a theme board that has second level codes and main one worded themes at the bottom of the board.

Once I had all of the codes on the board I began to link them together and try to create a summary of all of the codes. At the bottom of each column, I wrote a word 81 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 or phrase that I thought connected most, if not all of the codes, together and that word or phrase turned out to be a potential theme. Two of the potential themes for RQ1 were education and integration. I felt that all of the codes for RQ1 always came back to hip-hop educating the participants about social justice and making them aware of injustices but also making them aware of their own identity. Thinking back on the type of questions that was answered during the interviews for this particular research question, and the field notes from the observations, Black identity was at the forefront of RQ1. A part of being Black is being informed about social injustices. As far as RQ2 is concerned, advocacy was a potential theme. Many of the data and codes connect hip-hop to advocating for the Black community as a way to address and fight against oppression. For RQ3, I feel that dual power was a potential theme. I refer to power as the influence that hip-hop has on African Americans who are a part of the culture, meaning the rappers and DJs can use their power as a form of rhetoric to affect the feelings and thoughts of African Americans. Also, hip-hop is a part of a power dynamic where people from other cultures are informed and shown a deeper meaning into the origins of hip-hop.

While I searched for themes I thought about how possible relationships could be formed between the codes and potential themes. The themes identify what the data actually means and consist of descriptions and ideas that relate to a specific culture, and can be used to explain certain events, ethics, or statements. The third phase is ended with an assortment of the candidate themes that are mentioned above and assisted in developing individual themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 90). Table 3.4 illustrates the original nine themes for the separate three research questions.

Table 3.4 Original Themes from Interviews Research Question 1 Research Question 2 Research Question 3 Educating about social Advocating for the Black Hip-hop is powerful tool to justice community assist with telling about Black culture Educating/ sharing Younger generation looking Hip-hop gives Blacks power stories about Black up to musical artists for to use against racism identity guidance

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Table 3.4 Continued Research Question 1 Research Question 2 Research Question 3 A part of Black Awareness and dedication Hip-hop makes Blacks feel identity is learning the to the Black community powerful struggle

I created these themes from developing an overarching story comprised by the 14 codes that are seen in Table 3.3 The themes are a direct correlation of the codes, but they are a more combined, detailed, exclusive account of what the participants stated during their interviews. Looking at the codes, I took the deeper meaning from each one of them for an example the code “creating a legacy through storytelling” to me meant that hip-hop culture is not something that is necessarily explicitly taught; its living through the experiences of other Black people, sharing their involvements and understanding of what it means to be Black. Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis scholar James Paul Gee (1989) explains discourse as being an “identity kit” that provides instructions on how to talk, act, and write (p. 7). Gee (1989) states that discourses are not learned through instruction, "but by enculturation into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse" (p. 7). Gee (1989) makes a clear distinction between direct instruction and enculturation, explaining that enculturation is being with the people who are a part of the culture, doing the things that make the culture what it is (p. 7).

I look at creating a legacy as people who live through moments that mean something to Black culture and it being their duty to tell other Blacks about it. Essentially that means that hip-hop artists or any Black person who is a part of the hip- hop culture are educating each other about the injustices, social issues, and struggles of Blacks as a whole, by living through it. Sometimes legacies are about providing the tools to the next generation, even if the person who gave the tools cannot see or never will see what the next person will actually do with it. It’s about living on and knowing that they tried to provide hope, inspiration, or whatever it may be to keep the Black race alive and informed. After analyzing the nine themes, I was able to get even more

83 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 precise and create three main themes from the interviews, which are noted in Table 3.5.

With the fourth step, reviewing themes, I checked to make sure the potential themes functioned with both the coded extracts and the entire set of data. I reviewed the themes by the means of going back through the data that I originally coded and made sure that the codes were accurate and if they were, I read and reread the codes alongside the themes to make sure that they made sense. I then went column by column in terms of the actual research question itself and compared the question with the theme to see if the theme actually fully answered the question. For an example, RQ3 had 3 parts of the question so I had to see if one theme answered all 3 parts or think of other themes to add for that particular research question. If the coded data formed a coherent pattern, then I made sure the individual themes were valid by means of reevaluating them and seeing how they connected to the data set as a whole. Sometimes I noticed that some candidate themes were not really themes at all because there was not enough data to support it while other themes that were originally separate, collapsed into one theme. An example of a candidate theme that did not have enough information to support it was younger generations looking up to musical artists for guidance. I did not have research that backed up younger generations because several of my participants were from the hip-hop generation, being a part of the same generation of the artists that they listened to. An example of two candidate themes that merged into one included educating and sharing stories about Black identity. Initially they were separate themes, but I felt that since both sharing and educating were similar, I could combine them into on theme.

While I was reviewing the themes, I also refined them, which allowed me to either expand or revise as the themes developed. The refining process included me looking up certain terms to make sure I was using them correctly since there are many different words that sometimes have the same meaning but should be used in different contexts, for example, the words indoctrinate vs inculcate. This step was a lot of rereading to determine if certain candidate themes truly related back to the entire data set. It took me going back through steps one, two, and three, repeatedly to make sure I 84 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 was grasping all of the data and ultimately creating the appropriate theme for all of the information that I gathered. At the end of this step, the story that the data was beginning to tell, began to unfold, which meant that it was time for me to decide on some concreate terms and phrases for the themes that I originally thought about using.

Step five, defining and naming themes, begins with refining the specifics of each theme, creating clear and concise definitions and names for each theme, and finishes with coherency of the overall story that the analysis tells (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 92). When I defined each theme, I made sure to come up with actual definitions for the phases or words to make sure that I had a clear understanding for the theme. For an example, for RQ3, I initially came up with the phrase dual power, not knowing that dual power is actually a term that explains a strategy where two powers existed at the same time by two different groups, and each group competed with one another for legitimacy (“Dual Power,” 2018). I had to figure out a word I could change dual to that expressed what I was thinking in my mind. I was thinking that the word power is used in two different ways when referring to hip-hop but dual was the incorrect word to choose. I first searched for synonyms for dual, but none of those words really expressed what I was attempting to say. After doing a standard Google search for “word meaning having two parts,” I decided on the word “twofold.” After defining all of the themes to the best of my ability, in a way that I understood it and thought that other readers would understand it, I tried to make sure each theme told a story through the research question. I made sure to define each theme and thoroughly represent the story that each individual theme had to tell, which went beyond surface meanings. Table 3.5 below list the 3 final themes.

Table 3.5 Final Themes from Interviews Research Question 1 Research Question 2 Research Question 3 Hip-hop educates and Hip-hop helps to fight Hip-hop is a powerful shares narratives about against systems of culture that empowers real life situations that oppression by advocating Blacks to promote Black encourages social for the Black community advancement and practice justice to create change self-actualization

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Braun and Clarke (2006) declares, “Analysis involves a constant moving back and forward between the entire data set, the coded extracts of data that you are analyzing, and the analysis of the data that you are producing” (p. 86). Throughout this entire process, there was always a continuous act of reading, and rereading, the ideas, codes, and themes to make sure that they always led back to answering my research questions. This process took up an extensive amount of time, sometimes jumping from the themes to the codes or the ideas to the themes. The endless thinking, constant back and forth of extractions and insertions through sticky notes and reading and rereading were at the foundation of creating themes for the data. This is return, led me to the production of step 6, Producing the report, which will be further explained in chapter 4, as it discusses the results.

Codes Produced from Observations

I attended six hip-hop shows over the course of three months and took field notes at each of the venues. While observing, I made sure to write down many details about the audience, artists, and the environment itself, to get an overall feel for the entire atmosphere of the hip-hop show. Once I was done observing, I typed up the field notes and made any corrections like adding or taking away information as I saw fit. For example, some of the notes that I took on my phone for the sake of light, I converted to the typed-up field notes instead of putting it on the handwritten field notes. Once all of the field notes were typed up, I analyzed them all individually, making note of main points on sticky notes. These main points are similar to the first level coding process the interviews, however, I did not use a second level coding process since the similarities were much clearer for the observations. The 50 initial codes can be seen below in Table 3.6.

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Table 3.6 Original Codes from Observations and Field Notes Observation Observation Observatio Observation 4 Observation Observatio 2 n 3 n 6 1 5 Entertainmen All love Having a Smiling and Call and Complete t good time wild response Togetherness Drunk/Ube Free Call and Dance Fun time r shirts response battle Loud Expression Food Whole Finish the Laughter drive next line Colorful Call and Engaging Wild dancing Stop Call and clothes response “Broke music and response and tired” then continue Engaging the Funny Non- Exciting Free Helping “ladies” profit drinks to dance Slow dancing Beautiful School Smoking/passin Cold temp Hot day supplies g cigs Freeze/play Old Happy Heavy old Drive safe school/new school school battle Call and Trash Soul train Encouraging Express response talking line each other yourself Relaxing Large Audience clothing space sip and pass Hennesse y Call and response

After the development of the codes for the observations, it was clear to me which codes all of the observations had in common, which were call and response, encouraging environment and there seemed to be no bad vibes. Looking at the sticky notes that I placed under each of the observations, similar to Table 3.6, on all six of the field notes, I mentioned call and response, and on all of them I described the

87 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 atmosphere as being upbeat and a joyful experience. This information allowed me to create a bubble map to generate themes from the main two codes that were discovered.

Themes Produced from Observations

From the 2 main points, I created a bubble map with all of the venues on the outside and the main points on the inside create a visual around the differences. Figure 3.4 displays a bubble map similar to the one I crated. One of the main differences that I noticed was the type of venue the hip-hop show was held at. Knowing this information, I created two themes based on the similarities that I mentioned above.

Gravity Records 1

5 Star Local 506 Restaurant

Call and Response Encouraging Environment Greenfield Greenfield Lake Lake Amphitheatre Amphitheatre 1 2

Gravity Records 2

Figure 3.4 Bubble map with themes from all six observations. This figure demonstrates a bubble map that displays two common themes in the center, with all six of the different shows and venues surrounding the themes. The two themes that I generated from the bubble map were hip-hop uses call and response as a means of connection with the audience and hip-hop artists create encouraging environments for the audience members and other performers to simply be themselves and have a good time. Call and response was seen through speaking but also through playing and stopping the music at certain points. Encouragement meant that audience members were encouraging one another to sing or dance, and the artists either verbally encouraged, or physically encouraged, through passing around drinks

88 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 or hand gestures. After thinking about these two themes, I combined them into one because I felt that when the artist would start a call and response chant, it would also encourage the environment. The ultimate theme I created from the observations was that hip-hop produces a ping-pong effect revealing a constant transfer of energy between a performer and audience members.

Conclusion Deciding on using a combination of qualitative methods including quasi- ethnographic observations and interviews provided me with a data corpus that was rich with information. The observations allowed me to be a participant-observer, engaging with participants while at the hip-hop shows, and the interviews permitted me to gain data from actual hip-hop heads who know and love the culture. The thematic analysis process helped me decide what themes made meaningful contributions to answering my research questions. I was able to turn a cluster of complicated data into a story that rhetorically alludes to the legitimacy and merit of this study. Because master narratives diminish the fruitfulness and complexities of African American and hip-hop culture, by using a critical race methodology, I was able to focus on race and oppression specifically, when talking to my participants, allowing them to help me create our own counter-story. The methods and methodology of this study were determined and centered around my research questions, to make sure they could be answered at the highest level possible. The next chapter will discuss the results.

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CHAPTER IV:

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The purpose of this chapter is to provide the findings of the study and offer a discussion of the findings. I explain the observational findings through Woodyard’s (2003) nine nommodic rhetorical behaviors and the interview findings through various counter-narratives to help expose, analyze, and challenge White privilege and the negative theories about African Americans and hip-hop culture. To recap all four themes established from both observations and interviews, Table 4.1 provides the final themes that were discussed in the previous chapter:

Table 4.1 Recap of Final Themes Method Themes Observations Hip-hop produces a ping-pong effect revealing a constant transfer of energy between a performer and audience members. Interviews Hip-hop helps to fight against systems of oppression by advocating for the Black community to create change. Hip-hop is a powerful culture that empowers Blacks to promote Black advancement and practice self-actualization. Hip-hop educates and shares narratives about real life situations that encourages social justice.

Hip-hop allows Blacks to recognize the purpose, messages, and impact that the four elements—DJing, MCing (rapping), graffiti, and breakdancing—have on the Black community concerning systemic racism and oppression. These themes will be further explained, analyzed, and synthesized in the following sections. As stated in the previous chapter, a critical race theory methodology heavily focuses on presenting counter-narratives to contradict racist portrayals of certain social experiences—in the case of this study, hip-hop, systemic racism and oppression. African Americans are faced with oppression quite often but their experiences as it deals with hip-hop culture and oppression are not being shared or acknowledged in rhetoric studies. My research questions, reiterated below, are tailored to answering questions that help to understand

90 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 the relationship between African Americans, oppression and systemic racism, and hip- hop:

• (RQ1) How does hip-hop actively promote social justice and create awareness in African American communities? • (RQ2) How does hip-hop music help African Americans address and fight against systems of oppression? • (RQ3) In which ways does hip-hop construct African Americans’ ways of thinking, feeling, and reactions to certain injustices and oppression? To assist in answering my research questions, I use quotations from interviews along with interpretative summaries and analysis. To help with understanding my research questions, this chapter argues that hip-hop influences change concerning systemic racism and oppression, within African American subculture. Hip-hop first influences change by transferring energy from hip-hop artists to the listeners. When the artists transfer energy, they change the listener’s feelings towards social justice and also the listeners receive knowledge from the lyrics, to help promote social justice and create awareness. Once the energy is received, the listeners can then encourage advocacy, education, and the power of self-actualization.

In this chapter, I first provide a brief explanation for why I chose to take a counter-narrative approach to the findings of this study. Then, I provide the findings that I discovered through observing the six hip-hop shows while referring the findings to the only theme created from the observational field notes. Next, I discuss the findings from the interviews while first discussing one particular participant who at first did not consider herself as part of hip-hop culture, and then explain and expound on the themes from the interviews. Lastly, I provide a discussion of the findings and end with a conclusion.

Counter-narrative Approach and African Americans Finding Their Voice As I explained in chapter 3, a counter-narrative, also called a counter-story, helps African Americans tell their stories while challenging the White master narratives that are often told (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 32). I chose to take a counter-narrative approach because counter-narratives can show that believing in White master stories “is ridiculous, self-serving, or cruel. They can show us the way

91 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 out of the trap of unjustified exclusion. They can help us understand when it is time to reallocate power” (Delgado, 1989, p. 2415). Counter-narratives can help change the reality of Black lives, showing people of all races that life can be different from the current reality of racism and oppression. Counter-narratives enrich the vision of equality and teach all races that constructing a new reality, one where Blacks are treated just as equally as Whites, could be richer than the master narrative or the counter-narrative alone, subverting and deepening Black culture (Delgado, 1989, p. 2415). Because I take a counter-narrative approach to explain these results, I rely deeply on quotations from participants in an effort to preserve the participants’ voices and perspectives (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p. 58). It is necessary for Blacks to create their own voice for three reasons: (1) reality is socially constructed, (2) stories allow people who are oppressed the ability to protect and maintain their positions and histories (self-preservation), and (3) the exchange of stories from Blacks to other races (mainly White) allows those who are unaware of the lack of social justice for Blacks, to view the world differently (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p. 57).

The first reason for Blacks needing to create their own voice illustrates that the way Blacks present themselves to Whites is shaped somewhat by their exchanges with other people and their life experiences. How African Americans were brought up in their culture and what they believe in affects how they represent themselves and how other people understand them. Just as with Black people, White peoples’ perceptions of reality are shaped by their backgrounds and beliefs. Whites and Blacks construct social reality by passing on stories and through social interactions (Delgado, 1989, p. 2415). Stories structure reality, since stories help to decide what is or what ought to be and vice versa. The patterns of what is seen and learned by Whites and Blacks also shape what people believe and these “patterns of perceptions” (Delgado, 1989, p. 2416) tempt Blacks, and especially Whites to believe that “it is what it is,” meaning that many Whites believe in the fictitious stories about African Americans and their minds cannot and will not be changed. It is as if alternate social realities are not explored or if they are explored, they are rejected and ultimately, White peoples’ stories are believed (Delgado, 1989, p. 2417). To help end the war between Black and

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White stories, Blacks must continue to tell their own stories to help muffle the White stories.

A second reason for Blacks needing to create their own voice demonstrates that when Blacks share their stories it exemplifies how they became oppressed and helps them to deal with the reality of oppression, since in the past, storytelling has been a type of medicine to help heal the oppressed (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p. 57). Subordinated groups like Blacks have always told stories (Delgado, 1989, p. 2435). For example, Black slaves told stories about their oppression, struggles, and pain through various methods such as letters and songs (Delgado, 1989, p. 2435). Oppressed groups such as African Americans know that stories are essential to their own liberation and survival, as a means of self-preservation (Delgado, 1989, p. 2436). A main cause of Blacks losing confidence or hope is self-condemnation because some Blacks believe that their subordination, low income jobs, lack of education, and many other types of systemic racism, is their own fault (Delgado, 1989, p. 2437). A way to reject self-condemnation is to tell stories. By realizing and accepting facts of African American’s own oppression, such as systemic racism, Blacks gain healing (Delgado, 1989, p. 2437). If Blacks tell stories about how they came to be oppressed, they can stop blaming themselves for the oppression and help to heal their mental and behavioral health. Ultimately, stories about the oppression of Blacks lead to liberation, healing and mental wellbeing.

Finally, Blacks creating their own voice with stories can affect Whites by helping them become aware of racial oppression and how social justice is needed for Blacks. Stories about African Americans’ struggles, that are told by Blacks themselves, help Whites to view the world from a different point of view. Since America is run by a white-dominated society, where Whites are in control of every rein of power, racial reform, such as social justice, must include Whites. Whites’ complacent attitudes are present because of their dominated stories and these stories are obstacles to racial reform progress (Delgado, 1989, p. 2437). Whites should listen to Blacks’ stories to improve and enhance the value of their own reality. Since reality is created through communication and social interactions with one another, telling 93 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 stories is a way to help Whites reverse their opinions about racial oppression and understand that life may be fair and just in their point of view, but for African Americans, life is unjust, full of exclusion and inequality.

Although Blacks who are a part of hip-hop culture confront challenges as Blacks live and interact within an economic, social, and political system in which racial inequalities remain, the narratives that I gathered from these nine participants validate their intense awareness of the opportunities and possibilities for hip-hop’s force against oppressive structures and systems. These participants, then, connect hip- hop to African American culture through their actions and in the construction of their own narratives. This counter-narrative approach allows the voices of Blacks to be heard and provides Blacks with a method for telling their stories, which is a first step on the road to justice (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2005, p. 58). I will first explain my findings from the observations that I conducted at the six hip-hop shows, though viewing the nine rhetorical behaviors mentioned in chapter two. Then I explore the findings from the interviews, while sharing direct stories and quotes from the participants.

Findings from Observations (Nine Rhetorical Behaviors) From observing six hip-hop shows, I developed one theme that was consistent with each of the shows. This theme was that hip-hop produces a constant transfer of energy between a performer and audience members. The transference of energy theme was created with Woodyard’s (2003) nine rhetorical behaviors in mind. In chapter two, I provided nine rhetorical behaviors that relate to hip-hop that many African Americans use to communicate, which includes rhythm, stylin’, lyrical quality, improvisation, call and response, mythoforms, indirection, repetition, and soundin’ out (Woodyard, 2003, p. 140). These nine rhetorical behaviors help me explain how I saw rhetoric being used at the six hip-hop shows. As far as deciding on which hip-hop shows highlight the particular behavior, I decided to use the behavior that was seen the most through my field notes at that given show. Several of the shows used many forms of rhetoric, but instead of explaining how each individual show used each of the nine behaviors, it is more beneficial to focus on one of the behaviors for individual shows. 94 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Explaining the rhetorical behavior that I saw the most frequently at each individual show helps to eliminate the repetitiveness of how and why the particular behavior was used. Also, following my field notes, I only highlight in detail one or two rhetorical behaviors for each show. Many of these behaviors were mentioned in chapter 3, where I developed codes and themes from the observations (Table 3.6), and they all contribute to the overall theme that that hip-hop offers a constant transfer of energy between a performer and audience members. This transfer of energy presents ways that hip-hop promotes social justice while creating awareness in African American communities through nommo. As I explained in chapter two, nommo is the idea of the persuasive, transformative, supernatural power of the spoken word (Smitherman, 2000, p. 269) and through Afrocentricity, the purpose of the term nommo is to create balance and harmony within a rhetorical space. Below, to help explain what I learned from the observations in regard to RQ1, I define each rhetorical behavior and then illustrate what was seen at the hip-hop shows and what it says about racism and social justice.

Rhythm Rhythm is a rhetorical behavior that promotes the transference of energy by its use of rate, tone, pitch, and pauses. Rhythm is the use of patterns that help with the flow of speech (Jahn, 1961, p. 164). Rhythm provides a balance of flow of lyrics, music, and connection to the musical artist. Although rhythm was seen through all six shows, it was seen more explicitly at Elzhi’s show at the venue Local 506 club because of the DJ scratching and use of producer tags. Elzhi had this personal DJ who travels and tours with him, so the DJ knew what to play, when to play it, and how he could layer in the DJ scratches to have a natural feel. Unlike the shows where there were local artists performing, Elzhi actually had a DJ who would incorporate the iconic DJ scratches throughout most, if not all, of Elzhi’s songs. The audience members could see the DJ truly scratching the records, creating distinguished, rhythmic sounds that are heard only in the hip-hop music genre. When I heard the DJ scratching, I automatically knew either the DJ was about to switch songs or was amping the audience up for a breakdown of the melody. It was very likely that many

95 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 people in the audience knew this as well. The DJ has to have a sense of rhythm to be successful in scratching because a part of DJ scratching is producing the heightening of audience vibes. In a lot of current day hip-hop the use of DJ scratching has been excluded so hearing it, brings audiences back to the birth of hip-hop, when hip-hop was nothing but Blacks trying to create their music for their people. Originally hip-hop music began at a block party (Williams, 2011, p. 137) so the music was created for Blacks to have something to groove or rock to.

The scratching was a way for audience members to receive the energy that the DJ was providing. When the DJ would scratch at different rates, going fast or slow, and use different pitches to create various frequencies of the scratch sound, the crowd would respond with body language that said they were really feeling the music. Pausing the scratch midway would also create an appealing effect that seemed to signify pleasure from audience members. When the DJ would switch up the scratch type, the audience would then change the way they danced and responded to the music. By the DJ transferring this pleasurable energy, audience members’ body language and facial expressions changed, as if the music made them feel secure and comfortable, like there was no worry in the world at that particular moment. The rhetoric behind the scratch allowed audience members to feel the same beat that the DJ felt, and allowed the crowd to become hype. The same energetic energy that the DJ had, passed on to the audience members as if they became the DJ in that moment and time.

Another example of rhythm at Elzhi’s show was seen through producer tags that that were on his beats. Producer tags allows the audience to know who created the beat for Elzhi and this is another thing that is only seen in hip-hop songs. Producer tags are basically a shout out from the rapper to the producer, giving them props for producing the beat that the performer raps over. One specific producer tag I heard at the show was “Khrysis on the board with the heat.” This creates a sense of togetherness in the Black community and hip-hop culture as a whole because its shows support for Black producers since the tag is not mandatory in songs. When the DJ played producer tags, especially in repetition, the DJ transferred a type of energy that 96 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 promoted happiness because the DJ created an encouraging, energetic feeling. I could see audience members smiling and throwing their hands up as they would repeat the producer tag. Audience members also seemed to be electrified from hearing the tags because they would become hyped, yelling the producer’s name. This matters because if something as simple as putting a person’s tag on a song shows support in the Black community, then it says that hip-hop promotes Black advancement through exemplifying Blacks endorsing one another. Focusing on RQ1, Black advancement encourages social justice and creates awareness in African American communities since Blacks are trying to get ahead economically and become successful. When hip- hop artists and producers look out for one another it also provides more opportunity for the music to be heard and spread throughout the community, which again teaches Blacks to be mindful of supporting one another in the Black community.

Stylin’ The rhetorical behavior stylin’ helps to transfer energy from the performer to the audience members and vice versa because both performer and audience members mimic each others’ movements. Stylin’ refers to the mannerisms such as gestures, facial expressions, body movements, and posture that help to communicate visual messages to audiences (Woodyard, 2003, p.140). While at Gravity Records in Wilmington, North Carolina, hip-hop artist V.I. exhibited the use of several mannerisms that relate specifically to Blacks and hip-hop culture. The first example included him moving his left hand in a fan like motion, going back and forth when he rapped, sometimes grabbing his crotch. I saw these movements being done at all of the other shows as well, but V.I. did it a lot more than all of the other performers. This movement helps hip-hop artists specifically when they are rapping, to feel the lyrics and beat, keeping the flow and rhythm of the song on point (as Participant 9 later told me). These gestures are a part of everyday hip-hop performances, communicating to Black audience members that the performers are trying to connect with them and the music in a way that everyone benefits from the performance. This movement, along with V.I.’s exciting energy transferred to several audience members as they were also moving their hands in the same motion as V.I. when reciting the words of certain

97 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 songs or just grooving to the beat. Some of them were even closing their eyes as they were singing some of the songs, which shows a sign of intimacy, fully absorbing the words of the songs and immerging themselves in the music, transferring love. V.I. has an R&B type feel to his music, so several of his songs were slower and soulful, transferring passion to the audience members.

V.I. also raised his fist in the air, chanting to the audience “Now raise your fist up in the air, and wave it like you just don’t care.” The raised fist in the air solidifying Black power in the Black community and he insisted on getting the audience involved in a song where he spoke about Black power. The Black power movement was originally a social and political movement that advocated for Black equality and exposed color conscious racism (Collins, 2006, p. 3). The Black power effort was a call to all Black people to relegitimize Blackness and redefine the Black experience that concerned the daily struggle of being Black in America (Smitherman, 1973, p. 259). Considering RQ1, the Black power fist is still a symbol that stands for Blacks fighting against racism and oppression together as a culture and in that moment at the show, all Blacks were standing in unison, with their fist in the air, speaking for social justice. This gesture is important because it speaks to race and racism, making audience members aware of injustices, allowing them to become a part of active advocacy. When V.I. raised his fist in the air, not only did the audience members imitate the action, but V.I.’s passionate and enthusiastic energy transferred to the audience members because they were excited to share this moment with V.I. and the other audience members. The enjoyment of raising their fist in the air showed through the audience members’ actions because some of them held their fists up throughout the entire show. Transferring the passion and encouragement behind the Black power movement was just one of V.I.’s rhetorical moves in getting the audience involved physically and emotionally.

Lyrical Quality Lyrical quality as a rhetorical behavior assists performers in transferring energy to audience members by providing them with feelings that are used to connect to the performer and the song. Lyrical quality is language that is related to a song or 98 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 poetry and usually expressed in a narrative (Banks, 2011, p. 24). Lyrical quality in a song is often expressed through storytelling. Storytelling is a huge part of African American culture, and many hip-hop artists share stories of themselves and others through their lyrics. When Common performed at the Greenfield Lake Amphitheater in Wilmington, North Carolina, he paid tribute to Assata Shakur, former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army through performing his song “A Song for Assata.” The song tells the narrative of Shakur being accused of multiple crimes and being convicted for killing a White State Trooper, ultimately being convicted and incarcerated, even though there was medical evidence stating that it was impossible for Shakur to pull a trigger at the time of the shooting because of her own gun wounds. The song explains that there was mistreatment of the available evidence by law enforcement and that Shakur was wrongfully accused and shot while her hands were in the air (Shakur, 2001, p. 96). The way that Common tells Shakur’s story through the song shows how Common is expressing his emotions and pouring his heart out into this song. The song specifically states,

Cause federal and state was built for a Black fate Her emptiness was filled with beatings and court dates They fabricated cases, hoping one would stick And said she robbed places that didn't exist. (Common, 2000, track 15) This shows lyrical quality because of Common’s use of a beautiful, poetic bar, using figurative language to express his concerns about Shakur’s chaotic state. In this bar, Common is saying that federal and state prisons were built specifically for Blacks, and according to Whites, it is a Black person’s fate to be a part of the system. Common uses figurative language, claiming Shakur’s heart was empty from the pain she endured, yet that emptiness was satisfied and full. The emptiness was “full” since she was getting frequent beatings and numerous court dates for a crime that she did not commit. These lyrics express lyrical quality because Common puts his heart on this song, showcasing his feelings and thoughts about Shakur’s situation. Audience members could feel the same pain that Common did when he wrote the song. Common’s performance of this song was heart felt and transferred energy of determination and perseverance to continue the work that Shakur started with the

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Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. Hearing the song was similar to reading the autobiography of Shakur, following along in the pages of the book. Common also mentions Shakur being mistreated in the hospital after being transported there after she got shot, and wronged while incarcerated simply because she was a Black woman who was said to have killed a White cop (Shakur, 2001, p. 8).

Out of all of the hundreds of songs that Common has written and performed, he decided to perform that particular song I believe, because of a couple of reasons. The first reason is because Assata Shakur grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina for part of her life, so she has a connection with Wilmington (Shakur, 2001, p. 18). Common even mentions North Carolina in the song. The second reason is because of the racial history that Wilmington holds, including the Wilmington massacre of 1898, where White supremacists overthrew a prominently Black government, killing and injuring several African Americans (LaFrance & Newkirk, 2017). Common knew that the history of both Shakur’s life and Wilmington as a city were filled with racism and injustices. Many of the Black audience members shouted out Shakur’s name and held their fists in the air.

Revisiting RQ1, it was one of the best moments at the show because it highlighted social justice where most of the audience members were social justice activists in that moment and controlled the performance, just for a while. When Common performed this song, he transferred varying types of energy. Some of the energy was sorrow, while some was positive and inspiring energy, reminding audience members that social justice was and still is what Shakur and many other Blacks are fighting for. Audience members were feeling the song, and emotions ran high, as some of the audience members were crying, and others were comforting them with hugs and wiping their tears away. Common’s cadence was emotional as he rapped and audience members could feel the same emotions that he did. He transferred those emotions of pain and heart break to the audience members, who shared those same emotions, but then transferred back to Common a sense of hope and determination to fight for social justice. The combination of positive and painful energy showed in both Common and the audience members. 100 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Improvisation Improvisation is a rhetorical behavior that performers use to engage audience members in the show and is a technique that helps to transfer energy to loosen up the performer and audience members. Improvisation is creating a speech or song without previous preparation (Woodyard, 2003, p. 141). At Wilmington’s local hip-hop artist Fuzz Jaxx’s show, improvisation in the form of freestyling was implemented for a good portion of the show. Jaxx started off the show by asking audience members to provide him with topics so that he could “go off of the dome,” meaning freestyle. When Jaxx asked for topics, he was in a really playful and joking mood and he transferred that same energy to audience members. The audience members became comfortable from the peaceful energy that Jaxx shared, basically allowing them to enjoy the show even more. This allowed them to enjoy the show more because that type of energy provided the audience members with a foreshadowing of how the rest of the show was going to be. Audience members provided miscellaneous topics such as feet or cheese, but also more serious topics, such as Black police officers, the Klu Klux Klan (KKK), and Donald Trump. Jaxx was very conscious of what words he used, although he spoke the truth about whatever he was freestyling about. He went off the dome spittin’, “They try to hang me like the KKK, call it hang time/Or kill me dead like MLK with a silenced nine.” The art of freestyling is about coming up with clever lines that were not previously written down or thought of. Freestyling in hip- hop helps Blacks improve their critical thinking skills since they have to come up with material “off the fly.”

Another way that Jaxx’s show emphasized improvisation was through the use of the audience’s participation in their own freestyle battle. Some audience members were selected as participants in a freestyle battle for their chance to win the hearts of the crowd. This method was used at the beginning of the show to loosen the audience up since Jaxx stated that everyone seemed quiet and unenthusiastic at the show. Since several of the audience members were not musically inclined, or not used to freestyling, several of them paused or stumbled over their words, which in turn made everyone laugh and start talking to one another. Both of these examples of freestyling

101 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 suggest that improvisation was part of the cause of the show’s liveliness and promoted social justice through the use of freestyle topics related to racism, addressing social issues and advocating for improvement in the Black community. Specifically with RQ1 in mind, freestyling promotes social justice and create awareness in African American communities since many freestyles are about everyday social issues that are of concern to the Black community. Freestyling transferred relaxing energy that helped the audience members to loosen up and enjoy themselves. After the freestyling sessions audience members were visibly happy and laughing, taking to many other audience members. The emotions of joy and amusement were also transferred as Jaxx uplifted the crowd when he talked about social issues that were going on in Wilmington, NC, many of which audience members could relate to. Audience members would bounce their heads back and forth while shouting “Damn right” or “Gon Jaxx,” showing interest and agreeing with his lyrics relating to social justice.

Mythoforms Mythoforms as a rhetorical behavior is used to transfer energy that promotes motivation and attentiveness to audience members. A mythoform is a symbol, fictional, or nonfictional character that helps to explain African American’s existence in a racist society. Mythoforms are myths that explain the history of African American culture (Woodyard, 2003, p. 141). The 9th Wonder school supply drive and hip-hop show, one of the audience members yelled “Play some Rap,” referring to the North Carolina rapper Rapsody. Rapsody is a female rapper who has been known to speak up for Black women’s rights, and the support of Black women can be seen through her most recent album entitled Eve. Every song on the album is named after the name of an influential Black woman, and one of the songs that the DJ played was called “Sojourner.” Sojourner Truth is a mythoform because her story has helped many African Americans understand Black history and culture and has also inspired many Blacks to continue on their journey, whatever journey that may be. The song “Sojourner” is about perseverance and no matter how tiring persistence may be, keeping on and never giving up will provide Blacks with the power that they need accomplish what they want to. Rapsody naming this song after Sojourner Truth more

102 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 than likely prompted listeners to research Sojourner Truth, for Blacks who may not already know her history. This helps to build the relationships between Blacks and their ancestors. Mythoforms are important because they keep Black history alive. Not only was this particular song speaking about mythoforms, but from the DJ playing a quick snippet through Rapsody’s album, the audience gained knowledge about Black women’s journeys.

Audience members learned about prominent Black women such as Maya Angelo, Michelle Obama, Nina Simone, and Myrlie Evers, through songs that discussed their experiences in racist America. Calling attention to RQ1, the action of the DJ playing through these various songs was a mythoform in itself, since the combination of all of the songs on Eve tell a story meant to help Blacks on their quest for social justice and liberation from oppression. These particular mythoforms transferred energy that encouraged determination, optimism, and inspiration because these songs related to Black women’s struggle and perseverance. Audience members were happy to hear songs about Black women fighting for social justice as they actually called for more songs to be played after the DJ stopped. The audience members were also smiling and engaged with the songs, singing, laughing, dancing, pointing their fingers in the air as to say “Keep it pumpin!” There are not too many songs by Black women hip-hop artists that are about other powerful and ambitious Black women so this was a very exciting moment at the back to school drive. The DJ was hyped too, doing his two-step at the DJ booth, and his hyped energy transferred to the audience members as they were jumping up and down. Because these songs are about Black women in African American history they help to extend Blacks’ knowledge about the truths and sacrifices in the past, that help to promote social justice today. Receiving the positive energy from hearing these songs will continue to push more Blacks towards the social justice initiative.

Indirection The rhetorical behavior indirection helps to transfer energy by providing audience members with a sense of anticipation or attentiveness. Indirection is when a speaker is indirect rather than straight forward, which creates audience curiosity 103 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

(Woodyard, 2003, p.141). One use of indirection at the Elzhi show was Elzhi teasing out a possible new collaboration that he is working on and going to release. He did not say who the other artist was, but he did state that he has been cooking in the lab with a fairly seasoned scientist, meaning he has been working in the studio with either another rapper or producer who’s been in the music business for a while. Elzhi transferred energy related to curiosity because he acted as if he did not know the name of the other person that he has been working with. Audience members began to beg Elzhi for answers saying “Come on El” or actually boo him. All audience members wanted to know more information as Elzhi’s play on words and look of uncertainty transferred to audience members in the form of anxious energy. Elzhi hinting at new music gave audience members something to look forward to and something to further discuss amongst themselves, which they did.

Real hip-hop heads know the support that Elzhi and Nas have for one another and since the DJ played a lot of Nas before Elzhi came to the stage, the inference the audience had was that Elzhi is working on music with Nas. One of Nas’s songs that was played was “I Gave You Power.” This song used indirection since Nas is rapping from the perspective of a gun. The entire song while Nas is rapping, listeners think he is referring to a human, but in all reality, the story is being narrated from the gun’s point of view. Nas is not being straightforward about the story, although he teases out the gun concept, but never explicitly states it is a gun that is describing itself as having human characteristics. Another song that was played was “Sly Fox.” “Sly Fox” is a song that ultimately disses Fox News, without actually saying Fox News. Nas says things like “the fox” or just “fox” and blames the news outlet for exploiting African Americans and hip-hop culture and keeping slave culture alive, even in today’s society. Sneak dissing has been a part of hip-hop culture for a while and it is a form indirection since rappers are providing subliminal messages to other people, and many times they do not mention the name of the person that they are dissing.

Recalling RQ1, Nas promoted social justice through standing up for African American culture and hip-hop culture, revealing Fox News racist anchors, and the epitome of White supremacy through statements that bash African Americans but yet 104 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 support the alt-right movement. As the DJ played the song, he would shout out “Fuck Fox,” which got the audience members amped up. His relentless attitude transferred a mixture of angry and anxious energy to audience members. Some audience members showed signs of disgust by smacking their teeth and waving off the DJ, while others were amping up the DJ, provoking him to turn up the music louder. This DJ transferred a combination of energy that left audience members feeling tense, furious, or agitated, although the song still promoted social justice. This affect on the audience changed the mood of the show, until the DJ played a different song.

Soundin’ Out Soundin’ out as a rhetorical behavior helps performers transfer energetic energy to audience members. Soundin’ out refers to the verbal mannerisms that the orator may have, including a unique set of vocals that are specific to a particular speaker (Woodyard, 2003, p. 140). Having a unique voice is an example of soundin’ out. Out of the six shows included in this study, the one rapper who has that unique, distinctive voice is Common. That could partly be because I am used to hearing his songs, but even with live performances, he sounds the same as he does on a record that is recorded and played on the radio. To me, sounding the same shows that Common is naturally talented as he seems on a record, since songs are heavily modified and edited to sound a certain way. Common’s uniqueness comes from his calm verbal mannerisms such as his smooth cadence. This calm energy that Common had, transferred to the audience, especially when he performed songs that had a more R&B feel them. Common’s voice was like a soothing energy that made the audience members settle down and truly listen to what Common was saying. Even if he was not singing, and simply talking, there were many times where the venue was so quiet that you could only hear Common’s voice.

Enjoying the tranquility of Common’s voice created peace with audience members. Many audience members seemed to be in a state of relaxation, taking in the pleasure in hearing Common’s distinctive voice. Several hip-hop artist vocal qualities sound the same, like the mentioned example above, with Nas and Elzhi, but some rappers, have a distinctive vocal sound or voice that immediately lets listeners know it 105 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 is that particular rapper. Basically, there is no one else that sounds like Common. For that matter, the same thing goes for beats. Some producer’s beats sound the same, but some, like DJ Premier, as soon as the beat plays, hip-hop listeners just know from the breakdown of the beat and looping of the drums that it’s a DJ Premier beat.

Another example of soundin’ out that was seen at Common’s show came from his performance of his song “Testify,” mainly because of its heavily use of sampled vocals that are a part of the beat. This song’s beat has an intricate layering of vocals that changes various pitches and tones throughout the song’s entirety. The sample vocals are so overpowering than Common’s distinguished voice is sometimes lost in the vocal harmonizing. It is almost impossible to hit the same note as the sampled voice because of the different changes, but that did not stop audience members from trying. Audience members sung along with the song which had Common looking as if he was in awe that the audience members were so into the song, actually pouring their hearts out into the song, speaking directly to Common through his own music. It was a beautiful experience and seemed as if there was a direct conversation between Common and his audience members. This is important because it further exemplifies how these rhetorical behaviors transferred energy between the performers and audience members. Common also performed his song “I Have a Dream” where he used Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice from his famous speech as a refrain in the hook of the song. Without Common explaining whose voice was recorded, audience members automatically knew it was King’s iconic voice. He performed “I Have a Dream” directly after performing “A Song for Assata,” suggesting that one day there will be social justice for all Black people, including Shakur.

These songs in particular relate directly to RQ1, promoting social justice for African Americans and creates awareness of injustices, current and past. Hearing a distinguished, prominent Black voice, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., transferred exciting energy to the audience members. During “I Have a Dream,” the audience members stood up and yelled along with the lyrics, “My dream is to be free!” This was a very exciting moment because numerous audience members were involved, swaying from side to side. Common also transferred hope and some of the audience’s response 106 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 to the transference of hope was linking arms together while the song was being performed. King’s dream focused on equality for Black Americans and Common performing “I Have A Dream” moves King’s dream forward, transferring hope and promoting social justice.

Call and Response Call and response is a well-known rhetorical behavior that transfers energy by a performer directly speaking to audience members, affecting their emotions. Call and response is when a speaker verbally or musically calls out to the audience and the audience responds to the call (Gilyard & Banks, 2018, p. 48). The call and response rhetorical behavior was seen at all of the shows. This behavior was created either vocally or instrumentally and was most seen at the 9th Wonder hip-hop show and school supply drive. The call and response seen at this show was a little different because not only was there traditional call and response, but there was also a call and response mixed with auction chant, where people were donating money for school supplies. The speaker started it off by saying “I have $20, who else has $20?” and someone in the audience would respond “I have $25, who else has $25” and so forth. This transferred a type of caring energy because audience members were giving out of the kindness of their hearts. When someone said they were giving to the cause, it persuaded another audience member to give. Everyone was transferring energy to one another, transferring love. One act of kindness was followed by another, creating a sort of ripple effect, but this effect began with the transference of energy from the speaker to a person in the audience and so forth.

Another form of call and response that was seen included the DJ and performer stating “When I say…You say…” or would call specifically on “the ladies” or “the fellas” to say or do something. When there was not a direct vocal request to participate in call and response, the performer would hold out the microphone to the audience members, which prompted them to sing or rap, and then pull the microphone back and continue to rap, until there was another call for the audience’s participation. By simply asking the audience to say something, it gives the audience the drive to take part in the culture on demand. Call and response was also achieved instrumentally from the DJ 107 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 playing an instrumental and then pausing it to allow the vocals to slowly filter in. Sometimes the DJ would not even play the vocals, and let the audience complete the song by themselves. It was amazing to see how much of the crowd knew the lyrics word for word. Also, the DJ would play instrumentals of old school hip-hop, dating back to the 1980s, working his way up to new school, current day hip-hop. Thinking about RQ1, these examples actually share narratives through hip-hop and assist Blacks by providing them with a means of receiving the energy they need to encourage social justice.

Call and response specifically helps transfer energy because of the use of the back and forth communication between the performer and the audience. The energy that was transferred at the 9th Wonder show put the audience members in a giving mood. The call and response rhetorical behavior helped people become comfortable with giving and seemed as if the speaker was asking for help directly, as the speaker would request a certain response back to whatever the call was. For example, when the DJ called on the ladies to say, “our kids” after he said, “we support,” this call and response affected the emotions of the women in the audience and transferred power to them. The women received empowerment because participating in the call and response reassured women that Blacks do support children in the Black community, simply by being at the event.

Repetition Repetition as a rhetorical behavior provides ways for performers to transfer powerful energy related to togetherness. Repetition is the reoccurrence of language or images that help orators clarify a certain point (Woodyard, 2003, p. 141). From the group Unity’s show, I can still hear “UNITY” being shouted over and over again. This use of repetition kept the audience engaged and a part of the show. It was as if the crowd knew their role at the show and that was to keep the performers hype, just as they were keeping the crowd hype. Another use of repetition at the show was the use of repetitive pictures that were being shown through a projector, onto a projector screen. There were five images that were being circulated on the projector screen that included an individual picture of each member of the group, and then a group photo of 108 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 all of the members together. Anytime that the group said the word “unity” the group photo would flash on the screen. The group emphasized that everything needed to be done in unison, for an example when they wanted the audience to clap, or wave their hands, they requested that everyone do the action together, in one motion. Unity explained that when done together, everything is better, and that’s how they viewed their music. If one of the members of the group sounded bad, they all sounded bad or if one group member wanted to wear red, they all would wear red. Throughout their entire musical performance a different type of call and response was used. Instead of the group calling and the audience responding, it was more like the group and the audience members all called at once, and all responded at once, which usually consisted of repeating the word “unity.” This show was different from the other five shows because of its vast use of repetition and unanimity of the audience members’ actions.

All of the group members are younger Black males, speaking about uniting and coming together, which I believe speaks for all Blacks, creating unity for Black advancement and progression which also is a part of social justice. This directly refers back to RQ1 because UNITY addressed and promoted social justice. Repeating certain words or lyrics helped to create a joyful experience because the audience members felt like they were a big part of the show. The audience members actually made the show successful since they were communicating with the performers. The energy that was received from the performers, to the audience members, was then transferred back to the performers and this ping-pong effect made the performers become even more hyped than they previously were. Both the audience and performers transferred energy that showed joy and happiness because both were excited, smiling, encouraging each other to participate in the repetition throughout the show.

Energy Transference Through the Rhetorical Behaviors All nine rhetorical behaviors that were seen at the six various shows helped to organize what I learned from attending the shows and all relate to transferring energy. Transferring of energy is the theme that was gathered from the codes from the field notes, throughout all of the hip-hop shows that I visited and is a way that hip-hop 109 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 rhetorically effects audience members. By transferring energy, I am referring to how performers provide audience members with the necessary knowledge and determination needed to promote social justice. When energy is transformed, it is a feeling that the audience members receive that makes them want to promote social change in Black communities.

Various studies have shown that people of all races are emotionally affected by music (DeNora, 1999; Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008; Scherer & Zentner, 2001). One of the most interesting aspects of music is that music has “the ability to evoke emotions in listeners” (Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008, p. 668). As seen in this study, depending on the situation and environment, an evoked emotion can be positive or negative and can affect people differently. Music historian Tia DeNora (1999) suggest that “music is a device or resource to which people turn in order to regulate themselves as aesthetic agents, as feeling, thinking and acting beings in their day-to-day lives”. (p. 45) Music can inspire specific attributes, feelings, and identity characteristics in everyday life. Music is also an important function related to emotional mood changes (p. 54). In everyday life, music usually increases positive effects such as alertness and focus (Sloboda, O’Neil, & Ivaldi, 2001, p. 9). When energy was transferred at the hip-hop shows, through a means of changing emotions, audience members were visibly more alert and focused on promoting social justice efforts. This change in their mood was seen on their faces and in their movement as they were more attune with the affect that the music had on their body and feelings. Specifically, when focusing on hip-hop music, hip-hop and its affectivity relates to arousal and energetic emotions (Cook, Roy, & Welker, 2019, p. 151). When the performers transferred energy to the audience members, audience members became aroused, expressing their feelings, emotions, and responses to Woodyard’s (2003) nine rhetorical behaviors that were presented in the hip-hop music at the shows. Hip-hop produces a ping-pong effect revealing a constant transfer of energy between a performer and audience members, making both parties enjoy the show more and partake in constant communication.

When Common performed “A Song for Assata,” he transferred serious energy as I could see the seriousness in the audiences’ faces. I could feel the urgency of 110 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 needing change and hear the deeply emotional chants of Assata’s name. At Elzhi’s show, I could see the audiences’ reactions to the DJ scratching the records. Their faces scrunched up, in a good way, while their ears turned towards the DJ booth, bussin’ moves like “yeah, this is where it’s at.” This transference of good vibes, especially from the DJ playing a lot of old school conscious hip-hop, alluded to bringing back a “blast from the past” in the Black community. The group Unity transferred emotions of togetherness where audience members were locking arms, singing and two-steppin together. They transferred a feeling of what it is like to be a part of a family but also what it means to be together in the struggle. 9th Wonder’s back to school drive literally transferred hope. Hope that young Black children can have just as many school supplies and good materials for school as White children. 9th Wonder also transferred optimism that Black children can have equal or greater education than White children. Jaxx’s freestyles transferred energy related to purpose. Audience members were laughing and having fun while learning and even partaking in the battles themselves. Audience members understood that their purpose for being at the show was to enjoy themselves but also to learn, which everyone seemed to be doing.

V.I.’s performance transferred energy of empowerment though the raising of his fist. This alluded to the fact that Black power is still present today and Blacks are still fighting for social justice. All of these examples of how hip-hop transferred energy at the hip-hop shows that were a part of this study says that Black people care for one another, their communities, and they want to be a part of social justice initiatives. This was seen in their facial expressions, movements, and even sometimes lack of energy, all of which is considered to be a form of communication. Seeing these nine rhetorical behaviors throughout many of the performances at the hip-hop shows suggest that the performers were aiming to transform Black audience members, bringing balance and harmony to all of the shows. The theme of transferring of energy throughout all of the shows develops a sense of coherence amongst the Black community, promoting social justice in African American culture.

111 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Findings from Interviews Each of the nine participants explained their ideas and feelings about their experiences being an African American and being a part of hip-hop culture. These accounts help to reveal the themes found from this study and also help to build an understanding of the themes that emerged. Based on the participants’ responses, the following themes developed related to the overall effect that hip-hop has on African American subculture: 1) hip-hop educates and shares narratives about real life situations that encourages social justice; 2) hip-hop helps to fight against systems of oppression by advocating for the Black community to create change and guidance, especially for the younger generation; and 3) hip-hop is a powerful culture that empowers Blacks to promote Black advancement and practice self-actualization.

Participants and Their Relationships with Hip-hop As noted from the participants’ profile section in the previous chapter, all nine participants had varying experiences with hip-hop, some seeing themselves more a part of hip-hop culture than others. In the next paragraph, I focus on one participant who felt that she was less a part of the culture to show that hip-hop can still be beneficial to people who may not listen to hip-hop on a day to day basis. Highlighting Participant 5 is important because it suggests that some Blacks can relate to and become aware of oppression, as it is shown through hip-hop culture. Chapter two’s literature review suggest that Blacks have a deep musical background, dating back to slave narratives, and from this study, I can see clear evidence of how Black music history creates a sense of unity and identity in the Black community. None of the participants knew each other and the participants grew up in completely different cities, yet they all had life involvements related to oppression and they all acknowledged how hip-hop disturbs those experiences. One of those accounts is of a woman who just started listening to hip-hop five years ago.

Participant 5 was one of the participants who did not have a deep connection with hip-hop, although she was familiar with other genres of Black music. When participant 5 started her student teaching internship about six years ago, she provided the parents of her kindergarten students with an informational sheet that asked various 112 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 questions about their children. One of the questions asked about the child’s favorite songs, and after receiving the responses she told me that 100% of her Black students had only hip-hop songs as their favorites. After getting such an overwhelming response, she chose to listen to some of the songs herself, in order to have more of a connection with her students and was really taken aback while listening. She states, “I had to start listening [to hip-hop music] and some of it is some good stuff. I felt that a piece of my culture was hidden from me because my parents are much older than my peers’ parents, so I didn’t listen to that type of music” (Participant 5).

For the past six years she has been listening to hip-hop more than ever, and she now feels as if she is receiving back some of that missed hip-hop culture. Participant 5 explained that her oppression was often different from the type of oppression she heard about and seen in hip-hop culture. She grew up with a White step-father who tried not to talk about race, reminding her that to him, the color of her skin did not matter. Also, whenever problems of oppression would arise, it would be “swept under the rug” (Participant 5). This is one example where hip-hop made its way to an African American who did not truly know the impact of the music but hip-hop ended up making a difference in the way she views oppression, especially for her students. Although I cannot speak for the entire Black population, I can speak for the population of my study in confirming that one way or another, hip-hop found all nine of the participants. Is that because they are Black? Although that cannot really be verified, I’d like to think that their race has a lot to do with their experiences with hip-hop, specifically because their narratives provides that indication. Hip-hop educated Participant 5 on a great deal of her culture that she was unaware of, which also in return helped to educate her students.

Hip-hop Educates to Encourage Social Justice Several categories of codes focused on educating through hip-hop and those codes compiled to create the theme, “hip-hop educates and shares narratives about real life situations that encourages social justice.” This theme addressed research question one, How does hip-hop actively promote social justice and create awareness in African American communities? One participant clearly stated that narratives related 113 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 to the criminal justice system and communication with police help him understand injustices and teaches him about social justice:

I’ve always known hip-hop to use that platform to speak out, obviously you’re going to have themes within the lyrics, whether it's something really overt, people directly speaking to marginalized populations, gun violence, the flaws and injustice within our criminal justice system or people can do it even more creative, like narrative prose, whatever kind of literary function you want to use. (Participant 2) This participant told me that hip-hop taught him about social issues when he could not get the information from other platforms. It taught him what the issues were and gave him options to solving certain issues. This is important because hip-hop taught him how to approach police officers, and how to talk at job interviews, when he did not know how else to get that information, when asking others was not available to him, as he states:

You know listening to Nubian, I think back in ‘94 or ‘95, so I had to be around 14 years old, I heard the song “Claimin I’m A Criminal.” That song taught me not to fight or talk back to cops. You know things like remain silent until you have your lawyer present. Those directions were actually implanted in the song and stays with me even to this day. I’ve been stopped before and questioned and did just that, stayed quiet because like the song says, police have a license to kill Black people. (Participant 2) Since police officers are killing Blacks at an excessive rate and job inequality is clearly common, Blacks learn about speaking out about these social issues, and speaking up for social justice. Blacks are not only educated through the music, but they are also taught through the arts like dancing and graffiti as another participant states:

I think hip-hop really educated me on racism and police issues like brutality, in different parts of the United States to be honest. I feel like I wasn't aware of things that were going on in New York, things that were going on in Atlanta, or things that were going on in Los Angeles. Until I saw this huge graffiti tag that had different states and the number of Black voters in those places, I was just kind of homed in on social issues in North Carolina. So, it really just gave me a deeper 114 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

insight into social issues in different parts of States and what we can do to help like protest and vote. (Participant 3) Participant 3 stated that he never voted before there was a huge push in the hip-hop community that informed him he should vote in that current election and thereafter. Participant 3’s behavior changed because he felt like his vote mattered and he wanted to help to improve Black voter turnout rate. He remembers the graffiti tag being on the side of a corner store and having vibrant colors, which made several people stop by and admire the work. But he did more than admire it; he researched the information that was provided through the tag. He learned about registering to vote, the voting process, and how change can happen through politics. Before that, he never cared to vote because he did not think his vote mattered. Voting is definitely a step in the right direction of social justice, and for this participant, it changed how he now sees politics, and he said it changed him because he will always vote, no matter what. This is Black progression, and what I refer to as education on the go. After he became interested in voting through the graffiti tag, it prompted him to want to learn more, and after he learned, he shared and taught the knowledge to other Blacks.

Another participant talked about learning political terminology through hip- hop, which made him research certain words and forced him to become aware of some policies because he wanted to understand the songs that he was listening to:

Hip-hop culture originated with happiness and playfulness but as the time progressed, you're looking at the 80s, and hip-hop and Reaganomics, and war on drugs. All these different things led to a decline in the African American community. So hip hop then became the platform to address what issues were going on in the Black neighborhoods. Thus, you start getting your first taste of political hip hop, for example NWA, “Fuck the Police.” (Participant 8) He did not know what Reaganomics was until he heard the term used by the rapper Nas, almost 10 years after Reaganomics began. Besides Nas, rappers like Elzhi and Killer Mike have songs named after Ronald Reagan, sharing real life narratives about Reagan’s policies that harmed the Black community. For example, Killer Mike (2012) chops it up saying, “But thanks to Reaganomics, prisons turned to profits/ Cos free labor is the cornerstone of US economics/Cos slavery was abolished, unless you are in 115 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 prison” (track 6). Mike (2012) is explaining that Ronald Reagan supported private companies taking over prisons, meaning prisoners were turned into profits since prison is a form of slavery where the companies received free labor. Since Blacks are incarcerated at a greater rate than Whites (Coates, 2015), this particular example affected many African Americans. When Blacks heard these lyrics, they learned about Reaganomics, a real-life situation that heavily affected Blacks in America. These types of songs also educate Blacks on their own histories, to be knowledgeable and encourage Blacks to stand up for themselves and promote social justice, just as the artists do.

Another way that hip-hop promotes social justice through educating listeners is through recorded interviews that musical artists have with Blacks who have seen social injustices first hand:

J. Cole always puts clips of real people in his songs. You have a few others, but I hear it in a lot of his songs basically saying this is real shit, everyday life and a call for help like, damn, do you hear this White People? Do you hear this Congress? But even if they hear it, they not really listening to us. (Participant 7) One of J. Cole’s songs, “Be Free” discusses breaking systems of racism and in between him rapping, he plays clips of an interview he had with a Black man who tells a story about his unarmed friend getting killed by a police officer. Hearing the pain in Cole’s voice while he recites the hook “All we want to do is be free” and hearing the hurt in the man’s voice as he expresses his story allows the listener to connect to the story and essentially grieve with the artist and man being interviewed. The first time I heard the song it sent shocks through my body because the message was so powerful. Not only was Cole providing a message, but he also allowed a regular person’s voice to be heard, letting Black listeners know that injustice can happen to any of them and these real-life situations do happen every day. While listeners hear Cole’s song being played, it was as if Cole transferred his power to the interviewee, who then transfers even more energy, in the form of pain, to the listeners by allowing the listeners to be a part of the pain that the interviewee felt. It was as if listeners shared in the hurt that the interviewee felt and saw. Sometimes, to get a point across, the other person has to feel 116 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 the emotion to truly understand it. This transferring of energy relates to the actions seen at the hip-hop shows I visited, which also relates to advocating for Blacks to create change.

Hip-Hop Advocates for the Black Community to Create Change In order to fight against systems of oppression, I think it is important not only to educate Blacks about the injustices, but also teach them how to advocate for one another. Hip-hop culture has been in support of equality since it was created, and still speaks to advocacy through many avenues. This theme speaks to research question two, How does hip-hop music help African Americans address and fight against systems of oppression? Participant 9 states that many times hip-hop reminds him to keep supporting Blacks by not forgetting the injustices, speaking to them, and standing up for Blacks who are affected by systemic racism. Advocacy is something that needs to be constant because in order to want constant change, you have to constantly support:

Depending on who you're listening to, what you listen to, what they're talking about can give you a different view of the subject. Sometimes you see something on the news and we become so desensitized, well I can speak for myself, I became desensitized to these issues because they continuously happen and sometimes when I listen to a new song or something and it's mentioned by who or whatever artists is performing, it kind of jars me and forces me to open my eyes and look at the bigger picture of the problem at hand. Because so many bad things are happening on a daily basis in this country, we've been so desensitized. But hip-hop, it's just another way that kind of makes you think, well, if it's getting to this person who's got all this money and they feel strong enough to speak about it, then maybe I need to pay attention to this and support it as well. (Participant 9) Remembering names like Treyvon Martin and Sandra Bland can sometimes be difficult since so many other people have been victims of social injustices, but it is important. This is important because the more people who forget, the more difficult it will be to get them back on board. Participant 9 knows that he is guilty of not paying

117 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 attention as he should but asserts that hip-hop is helping him to stay focused on supporting the fight against oppression.

There are many ways to advocate for the Black community, something as simple as staying aware like Participant 9, or something more physical like getting involved in protest and marches, such as Participant 6:

There are a lot of newer artists drawing a lot of attention to institutional racism and oppression through their music, folks like Kendrick and J. Cole. Whether they're doing it to the music or whether they're just doing it in advocacy and getting involved in rallies. Chance the Rapper was someone who made me march in the Atlanta march for social justice and women about two years ago. It made me feel alive, like I was making a difference, Chance was proud of me and my mom was, and so were my daughters. I drove nine hours just to march, and I’d do it again. (Participant 6) Marching on behalf of the Black community was uplifting for Participant 6. He listened to one of the rappers call to advocate and he came through for all Black people, not just the ones in Atlanta, but everywhere. Many participants mentioned Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole because they are some of the newer hip-hop artists who are not afraid to openly support the Black community. Thinking back to when the Black Lives Matter movement first began, Lamar’s song “Alright” was thought of as the Black anthem by hip-hop heads in many Black communities. The song is a protest song, declaring that through everything that Blacks have been through and even everything that we are currently going through, Blacks will persevere, no matter what. Sometimes it feels empowering just to hear that you are not alone, even though you know it, to hear it is inspirational.

Hip-Hop Empowers Blacks to Practice Self-Actualization When interviewing all of the participants, I noticed that when I asked questions pertaining the third research question, In which ways does hip-hop construct African Americans’ ways of thinking, feeling, and reactions to certain injustices and oppression?, most of the participants made comments referring to the difficulty of answering the questions. They had to take more time to think about the responses

118 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 related to how they personally felt, thought about, and reacted to oppression and injustices, compared to all other questions asked. This theme does answer the third research question and I believe that it was the most difficult to ask because it speaks directly to their thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The role of power was a reoccurring code that kept appearing when going through the transcriptions during the coding process. I learned that Blacks feel like they are powerful and untouchable when engaged in hip-hop culture. The culture gives them the recipe for self-actualization as Participant 1 recalls:

I think about “The Blacker the Berry” by Kendrick Lamar because it tackles systemic racism, but it also tackles the contradictions made by the African American community in regard to the, the, the killings. If you listen to what Kendrick says, he pretty much goes on and says that these things are happening, but the Black community is a bunch of hypocrites because not only do we allow it to happen, but we enhance it ourselves. I can’t deny that if a police officer or even a Black person were to kill my brother, I would, without a doubt kill them. I know I’m wrong. Kendrick says I wrong, and that’s something I, myself, have to work on. I’m trying. (Participant 1) On the song “The Blacker the Berry,” Lamar (2015) spits knowledge:

Remind me of these Compton Crip gangs that live next door Beefin' with Pirus, only death settle the score So don't matter how much I say I like to preach with the Panthers Or tell Georgia State "Marcus Garvey got all the answers" Or try to celebrate February like it's my B-Day Or eat watermelon, chicken, and Kool-Aid on weekdays Or jump high enough to get Michael Jordan endorsements Or watch BET 'cause urban support is important So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street When gang banging make me kill a nigga blacker than me? Hypocrite! (track 13) No matter how supportive Blacks are of movements such as Black power, social justice, and Black Lives Matter, some Black people still harm other Blacks. Gangs, specifically, provokes Blacks to kill other Blacks. This is important because Lamar is saying why should it matter if White people are killing Blacks, if Black people are

119 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 killing other Black people. Lamar puts Blacks on blast to make a statement that Blacks need to stop killing one another. This task in itself will be a right move in the area of Black advancement. Participant 1 ultimately says that Black people have to support one another by means of helping and not killing, and Participant 1 himself is working on becoming a better Black person and part of the Black community. African Americans cannot say that the rest of the world needs to do better without first attempting to better themselves. Lamar taught Participant 1 about being a hypocrite, as Participant 1 confessed that he is currently a part of a gang. Songs like “The Blacker the Berry” gave him a different perspective about gangs and Black people supporting one another in general. He is currently trying to educate himself and others about gang violence and looking for other ways to handle disagreements through his set (gang), other than through violence, especially violence dealing with another Black person.

Hip-hop influences Blacks to be great and do great things for African American culture. The power of the culture gives Blacks a voice, even when they think they are voiceless, and with that voice, self-change is expected as Participant 7 explains:

It influences me. It makes me feel good. I love listening to it. I’m really aware of myself. It makes me really aware of the importance of knowledge against spreading knowledge, and soaking it in. I have a deeper sensitivity to other people's backgrounds and to other people's struggles. Hip hop is such a communicative tool for people from all walks of life to kind of just unite. Whether you like more of the production side of things, the lyric side of things, dancing, DJ, graffiti, you know, the fashion, the language, you have to respect that. (Participant 7) One beautiful thing that hip-hop does, is it makes African Americans more empathetic and compassionate while having a deeper cultural competence. Participant 7 understands himself and others better through hip-hop culture. Being Black, listening to another Black person educating and advocating, truly inspires African Americans to want to be the change that hip-hop speaks about. A lot of times when Blacks are partaking in hip-hop cultural activities, they are in a group, at parties, shows, or family gatherings, but sometimes the cultural experiences happens when they are alone. 120 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020

Being alone provides Blacks with the opportunity of practicing self-actualization which promotes Black advancement because its helping a person first and foremost, help to advance theirself, in order for them to use their superpowers to then help advance the Black community. Participant 7 stated that being African American and being a part of hip-hop culture makes him feel like he could do anything he wanted to. It makes him feel like he can save other Blacks, while having fun doing it. Out of all of the superheroes I’ve ever seen in movies, one thing that they all have in common is they find out themselves what their power is and how to best use it. No one else is able to use their power for them. The same thing goes with self-actualization; hip-hop inspires African Americans to find their own power, promote themselves, and then use it for the good of the Black community.

Discussion of Findings The results of this study indicate that hip-hop helps to fight systematic racism and oppression by transferring energy, and encouraging advocacy, education, and the power of self-actualization. As seen through the observation findings, transferred energy can mean anything from pain and fear to dedication to the Black race and good vibes. One way that energy was transferred at the hip-hop shows, was through various emotions that were shared from the performers to the audience members. The hip-hop music affected the audience members by changing their feelings, from using Woodyard’s (2003) nine rhetorical behaviors. When energy that affects the audience’s feelings and emotions are transferred, at the same time, knowledge from the performers’ lyrics are also transferred to the audience members. The knowledge type of transference of energy is a form of rhetorical contextualization where it “enable(s) us to size up a given situation, call it into question, get at who and what is left out (whether accidentally, purposefully, or systematically), and what difference it makes to various people and groups” (Wander, 1996, p. 403). Rhetorical scholar Rebecca Nowacek (2011) understands transfer as an application that “bring(s) knowledge or skills from an earlier context into contact with a later context” (p. 25). Hip-hop music transfers the knowledge learned from listening to the music, to conversations and implementations of social justice. Nowacek (2011) also calls this contextualization

121 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 where the earlier context, in this case hip-hop, changes the perception of the later context, in this situation, the social context of responses to African Americans’ injustices (p. 25).

Hip-hop artists provided audience members with a type of spiritual force and factual information needed to promote social justice and create awareness of power and social injustices. Rhetorically looking at hip-hop as a means to promote social justice calls into question White supremacy and focuses on how Blacks address issues dealing with injustices. Observing the audience member at the hip-hop shows that were a part of this study, allowed me to learn that transferred energy allows Black people to use what they learn or receive from the shows to address injustices. This is important because rhetorical contextualization showed me that hip-hop listeners actually use the knowledge and emotions received from hip-hop culture, to help promote social justice in Black communities.

When African Americans partake in hip-hop culture, they feel powerful in knowing that better can come and will come, and they have the power needed to be the start of change in the Black communities. This is important because racism and oppression still exists and is very much alive, especially in various institutions where Blacks are not able to get ahead, and Blacks need the encouragement to continue on. Hip-hop provides this type of encouragement. From job positions, to acceptance into college, to getting a car loan, Blacks are continuously being denied simply because of the color of their skin. Hip-hop addresses these issues and provide Black people with ways to cope and fight against the rejections. These findings are consistent with that of Dyson (1991) who attests that hip-hop communicates “the desire of young black people to reclaim their history, reactivate forms of black radicalism, and contest the powers of despair, hopelessness, and genocide that presently besiege the black community” (p.24). My study confirms that Blacks are able to build stronger relationships with other people in the community by promoting social justice together. By doing so, they create power to share with other Blacks in and out of their communities. This power then assists to diminish the hopelessness that Dyson (1991)

122 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 speaks of and strengthens the Black culture, especially when dealing with racism and oppression.

Prior scholars like Kitwana (2008) and Richardson and Pough (2016) have noted the importance of hip-hop culture and how it actually is the foundation in which Black culture thrives. A lot of Black culture is about overcoming struggles and injustices and hip-hop uses its platform to explain, promote, or sometimes refute Black struggles. Indeed, there is beauty in the struggle of Blacks, simply because once they overcome racism and oppression, that will be the most beautiful story to tell. Hip-hop is needed in Black communities to help with issues such as racism and oppression in order to aid with social justice. All four themes from the observations and interviews found in this study help to promote social justice and work towards progress in Black advancement as far as Black people attempting to create change. These themes also suggest that Blacks have an opportunity to use hip-hop culture as a device to explain to critics how impactful hip-hop is to African American culture. This outcome is contrary to that of Alvarenga (2005), and Patton, Eschmann, and Butler (2013), who found that hip-hop promotes violence and misogynistic behavior. As noted in chapter two of this dissertation, hip-hop criticism, usually from Whites who are anti-Black, is common, especially for people who do not even view hip-hop as an entire culture, and only focuses on the music. Even with the constant criticism about how negative hip- hop is for Black culture, as told by White people, hip-hop is a cultural force for African Americans that provides them with optimism and happiness, sometimes even making them feel like “superman [or superwoman]” (Participant 7).

One unanticipated finding was that some of the older participants, like participants 2, 3, and 4, age ranges 39-41, admitted that they prefer the old school hip- hop and felt like they learned more from them, compared to the newer generation of hip-hop artist. These participants did state that some of today’s hip-hop music is so fast that they cannot understand some of the words that the artists are spittin’, or sometimes the artists yell in their music. They also stated that they missed block parties, more people break dancing, and of course they missed the old school hip-hop fashion. These responses could be attributed to “being stuck in their ways” liking the 123 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 beginning of hip-hop culture that they grew up in and not wanting it to change because they were comfortable and knew hip-hop more, back then. Nowadays, with some of the rhyming schemes and cadences that appeal to the younger generations, they reminisce about old school hip-hop and some of the messages that it provided. Hip- hop in their generation was more about partying, and being together, which they hope the newer generation can one day bring back. Partying and being together was a good thing because the interaction was much more than just partying. It kept Blacks out of trouble for example, instead of being in the streets, they would be at parties.

Participant 2 told a story about his mom encouraging him to party with his friends, instead of robbing houses like many other adolescents were doing at that time. Bringing more Black people together for fellowship and fun provides more chances for discussion of topics like race and racism, oppression, social justice, and Black progression. The more that Blacks can expand their conversations with other African Americans, transferring energy about the importance and promotion of education, advocacy and self-actualization, the better off the culture will be. The older participants sharing of all of the themes that were found in this study is important because these are the people who were around when hip-hop first began so they know about the struggle that the culture has seen and want to preserve and continue to see hip-hop flourish.

Conclusion The results of this study suggest that hip-hop is inspiring and empowering in relation to fighting system racism and oppression. Hip-hop assists by transferring energy, promoting education, advocacy, and self-actualization, and through these themes, African Americans add to the history of their culture and are encouraged to build upon their education and knowledge about Black culture and systemic racism, to be able to overcome racism. All of the participants who were a part of this study were willing to share their narratives to a complete stranger who had a few things in common with them. Through the interview process, I am sure they learned something about themselves and more than likely thought about ways to promote their knowledge and involvement with educating, advocating, and self-actualization within 124 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 the Black community. The next chapter will address implications, discuss limitations, and review potential designs for future research.

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CHAPTER V:

THE OFFSEASON: CONCLUSION The goal of this chapter is to reiterate the importance and findings of the study while providing implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research. The aim of the present research was to examine how hip-hop changes African American subcultures, in order for the field of rhetoric to gain knowledge concerning African Americans’ feelings regarding their learning through hip-hop, in reference to oppression and systemic racism. This dissertation will also assist the discipline of rhetoric in its discussion of the political and social attitudes, ideologies, and activities of African Americans as they relate to systemic racism and oppression. After using a critical race methodology while conducting quasi-ethnographic observations at hip- hop shows throughout Wilmington and Raleigh, North Carolina, and holding interview sessions with audience members who attended the hip-hop shows, I was able to answer the following research questions:

• (RQ1) How does hip-hop actively promote social justice and create awareness in African American communities? • (RQ2) How does hip-hop music help African Americans address and fight against systems of oppression? • (RQ3) In which ways does hip-hop construct African Americans’ ways of thinking, feeling, and reactions to certain injustices and oppression? Answering these research questions confirmed that hip-hop plays a huge role in African American lives by transferring positive or negative energy that promotes social justice through education, advocacy, and self-actualization. Transferring energy works rhetorically by allowing audience members to accept both knowledge shared through lyrics, and feelings and emotions shared through the performance itself. Both of these concepts, transference of knowledge and emotions, provide positive or negative energy to apply the information and feelings that Blacks have gained through hip-hop culture, to a situation or problem concerning systemic racism and oppression. My theory of energy transference remixes a “direct application of knowledge” (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999, p. 92) with emotions and reactions to the knowledge obtained from the six hip-hop shows that were a part of this study to the audience

126 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 members in attendance. This remix is important because the transfer helps African Americans to establish preparation for future use of the energy to help in situations of social justice. Since the Black audience members were interacting in familiar environment that has been prominent in African American culture, it allowed them the opportunity to “bump up against the[ir] world” (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999, p. 93), permitting the transfer of energy to take place. Rhetorical scholar Laura Micciche (2005) states, “Emotion is crucial to how people form judgments about what constitutes appropriate action or inaction in a given situation… emotion is central to rhetorical action” (p. 169). Emotions affect audience members by persuading them to act on social justice efforts.

Transferring energy helps Blacks to create action towards fighting against systemic racism and oppression. The audience members’ experiences were based off of the energy that was received and were revealed through the observations and interviews. At most of the shows, most of the audience members appeared to be energetically involved with the environment. This connection to hip-hop often caused them to inadvertently participate in my study, not knowing that I was watching them more closely than other audience members. The audience members whom I ignored were people who seemed to be extremely intoxicated or not really paying attention to the show, for example, some audience members were constantly on their phones. Participants associated the foundations of hip-hop with social justice through real life experiences and situations that dealt with injustices.

As seen in the literature review in chapter two, hip-hop provides African Americans with information about systemic racism and oppression. This type of information includes making African Americans aware of certain injustices that have been brought to light, but through this study, I have learned that hip-hop does much more than just inform. This study has shown that hip-hop is a constructive way that African Americans learn about systemic racism and oppression but also how Black people utilize the culture to contest such injustices. The results contribute to the understanding of African American subculture and also adds to the rapidly expanding field of hip-hop studies and rhetoric by allowing scholars to better understand the 127 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 ways that hip-hop assists African Americans in fighting systemic racism and oppression. Recent calls and presentations at professional conferences such as the Popular Culture Association National Conference ("Black Performance Arts Area,” n.d.), as well as journals (“JHHS Aims and Scope,” n.d.) serve as evidence of an increased interest in hip-hop and African American communities. Research that examines the role of hip-hop within African American cultures will help scholars bridge a gap between African Americans’ feelings and thoughts towards systemic racism and oppression with a dominant feature (hip-hop) that is already heavily incorporated in African American subculture. It is imperative that African Americans are taught the history of their culture and are encouraged to build upon their education and knowledge about Black culture and oppression, to be able to overcome systemic racism, while being able to “handle themselves” in conversations about oppression. Hip-hop articulates these imperatives by making African Americans revisit social injustices and by providing motivation for addressing oppression and being a better model for their community. In this chapter, I first provide implications for the findings. Next, I provide research limitations and lastly, I suggest recommendations for future research.

Implications This research study affects the African American community because it allowed these particular nine participants to use their voices, shared through their stories, to help add to rhetorical studies concerning African American culture and hip- hop. Rhetoricians now have a better understanding of how African Americans use hip- hop as a cultural tool to assist with fighting systemic racism and oppression. This study also teaches rhetoricians about the importance of transferring energy from performers to audience members giving them the spark needed to promote social justice, advocacy, and self-actualization. Another way that this study contributes to rhetorical studies is by the results optimistically persuading rhetoricians and American society as a whole, to live up to the ideals about equality through promoting and advocating for social justice. Throughout this study, all of the African American performers used strategic language that was incorporated through the rhetorical art

128 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 form of hip-hop. This use of strategic language suggests that Woodyard’s (2003) nine rhetorical behaviors continue to be central to the language used by African Americans to inform and affect feelings about systemic racism and oppression. Through this study, hip-hop has been a way that Blacks use rhetoric to partake in Black communicative practices and persuasive strategies, rooted in African Americans’ struggles, such as systemic racism and oppression, to help Blacks transfer energy between each other. Hip-hop music acted as a rhetorical tool that brought African Americans together to have fun, educate, and advocate for one another, promoting Black advancement, addressing Blacks’ struggles.

Besides keepin’ it real with rhetorical studies, this study also speaks game to African American studies, directly affecting the Black community. Since the interviews were conducted, I have stayed in contact with the participants, reaching out to them for follow up questions, and surprisingly, they have been reaching back out to me asking if there is any other way they could help and simply asking how is the dissertation going. They want to know about the results and what I plan to do with the work, once I complete the project. This type of relationship goes beyond this study showing that the Black community supports one another. Hip-hop culture introduced me to these different participants whom have stated that this project made them want to learn more about Black culture and ways that they can become more involved. Although I received a lot of in-depth and useful information from the interviews, I believe the greatest find came from observing the hip-hop shows. Learning how hip- hop allows energy to be transferred from musical artists and DJs to audience members and vice versa truly showed me that being a part of the culture changes Black people. By change I mean it elevates feelings and emotions, in the moment, and prompts interactions between strangers. The people in the Black community, specifically the participants a part of this study, care about this project even though they do not know me, simply because they see another Black person just trying to become even more educated and attempting to bring other African Americans along in the educational journey. This is what hip-hop does for African Americans; it speaks rhythm, style, sound, call and response, improvisation, mythoforms, lyrics, repetition, and indirection

129 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 into African Americans very existence. Hip-hop is life for many African Americans, especially when sometimes life is hard to live.

Another implication that this study addresses is the fact that these findings suggest that in general, for the African Americans who are a part of hip-hop culture, this study may help to make hip-hop critics aware of what hip-hop does for African Americans. Throughout the interviews, the participants and I discussed forms of racism and how it affects all Black people. We discussed topics such as race and section eight housing, food stamps, and other government assistance programs and how the White media portrays Black people as being the main receivers of government funds. We also discussed how White people continuously discredit the entire hip-hop community and sees it as a disapproved method of communication because it was created by Blacks and currently being used by Blacks. If some of the White hip-hop critics could focus on the effects of hip-hop and what the culture does for African Americans, just as this study did, they would be able to better understand why hip-hop is needed and used. Showing critics, a journey map such as Figure 5.1 will help to explain how hip-hop affects African Americans. Although it will more than likely not change a racist’s mind, it could create a stronger, more visual argument for the effects of hip-hop in Black communities.

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Jamar, an African American male gets stopped by a White police officer.

Jamar stands up for Jamar recalls listening to himself, asking why was the hip-hop song he pulled over because "Claimin I’m A he did not disobey any Criminal" and remembers to remain laws. silent.

Jamar is arressted under the failure to identify Jamar gets unlawfully beaten and arrested by Jamar gets killed by the law, which was later White police officer. dropped in court being the White police officer. that the police officer had no probable cause.

Figure 5.1 Journey map that explains how hip-hop music can affect Blacks. This figure demonstrates a journey map that displays an example of an African American that used what he learned from hip-hop verses what could have happened if he did not. This figure tells the story of Participant 2 being stopped and arrested by a police officer. The name “Jamar” is a fictional name used only for the purposes of this example. The left side of Figure 5.1 explains what could have happened if Participant 2 did not listen to “Claimin I’m A Criminal.” Since he would not have any knowledge of what to do when getting stopped by a police officer, he could have been unlawfully beaten or killed for asking a simple question about being pulled over. The right side of Figure 5.1 explains a real-life situation that Participant 2 was faced with. He got pulled over by a police officer, but instead of asking questions, he remembered listening to the song “Claimin I’m A Criminal.” Because he listened to “Claimin I’m A Criminal,” he did not verbally respond at all to the officer but did comply with some physical commands like “put your hands on your head.” The song specifically states,

And if I try to fight back, well then I'm dead, black I got the right to an attorney and to stay silent They got the right to try to burn me if I play violent

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I know the game so I just roll with the procedure. (Nubian, 1994, track 11) These lyrics tell Black people that if they fight back with police officers they will be killed because they are Black. The best thing to do is to remain silent, and try to endure the unequal treatment, until they can speak to a lawyer. Participant 2 did just that. Since he did not want to reach in his center console for his wallet because he felt like reaching would have been a reason for the police officer to shoot him, he did not provide the officer with identification. He got arrested for failure to identify himself, but later, he had all charges dropped due to the lack of probable cause. This example is important because it shows how this particular participants’ life depended on what he learned through being a part of hip-hop culture. Although we do not know what would have happened if he truly did talk back to the police officer, like the left side of Figure 5.1 explains, being beaten or killed are two real possibilities, as seen from the numerous causes of police brutality on African Americans. Although some White people could see this map as being a situation that could never happen, because it is not a master narrative that was created by a White person, I believe that it depicts the reality of the impact of what hip-hop culture means to African Americans.

From this study, rhetoricians learn how hip-hop affects African American subculture and how hip-hop music is used as a communication tool throughout Black communities. This study also provides contributions to rhetorical studies by suggesting that African American performers and DJs transfer energy in the form of the necessary knowledge and determination need to help Blacks address and fight systems of oppression and racism, provide advocacy, and self-actualization. This transference of energy gives African Americans a sense of optimism to initiate or continue work towards social justice, including economic and political Black advancement.

Limitations There are a few limitations that must be acknowledged to ensure that this study is presented with the most accurate context of this project. Being limited to participants being ages 18 and older, this study lacks perspectives of younger Black

132 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 people who possibly see racism and oppression a little differently. I believe that Black teenagers have experienced racism and oppression at a young age, but their accounts of the situations dealing with oppression could be completely different, simply because of their age. Also, younger African Americans, ages 21 and younger, want to have more politics in hip-hop music (Cohen, 2010, p. 73). This suggest that younger African Americans want to learn more about racism and oppression through hip-hop music. Social activist, political scientist, and Black feminist Cathy Cohen (2010), was the chief investigator on the Black Youth Project, where Cohen nationally researched how politics affected and influenced the behaviors and decision-making factors in African Americans ages 15-25 (p. 17). Even though White and Latino youth listened to hip-hop music just as much as Blacks did, White and Latino youth were uninterested in hip-hop music being more political and were satisfied with the “stereotypical images and messages found in commercial rap music” (Cohen, 2010, p. 72). Black youth were very interested in having hip-hop music increase conversations surrounding power distribution in American society and issues of racism and oppression (Cohen, 2010, p. 72).

This understanding makes me want to learn about the experiences of younger Blacks in relation to racism and oppression specially, being that their views or injustices may differ from older participants like the ones that participated in this study. This is not to say that their experiences could not add to the scope of the project when speaking about the Black community as a whole because I think that the voices of all Black people, regardless of age, should be heard and they should share their experiences with racism. It is possible that a clearer relationship between all of the themes might have been established had I focused more on African Americans of all ages.

Another limitation of this study is that the small number of participants did not allow for a large-scale study. Out of over 2,000 collective audience members who attended all six of the hip-hop shows that I attended, I was only able to recruit nine participants, which compared to how many people were present, is relatively small. Having more people to interview would have provided me with more information to 133 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 use and more stories to share. Most of the results from the interviews were direct quotes from the participants which showed their experiences with hip-hop, systemic racism, oppression, and social justice. If I was able to get more participants’ stories, my findings could have been represented more abundantly and possibily, more outcomes could have been established. There also could have been more codes and themes created. The small number of participants limited me to only share a few stories and if I had more participants, I could have identified even more significant relationships between African Americans, hip-hop culture, and oppression and systemic racism.

The last limitation of this study is the location and type of show I attended. Because I did not want to travel too far from Wilmington, NC, in effort to conserve gas and money by not having to stay the night in a hotel after attending the show, I was only willing to travel two hours outside of Wilmington, NC. This is a limitation because the feel and vibe is going to be different depending on the different areas that the show is going to be held. For example, there is a difference between West Coast and East Coast hip-hop and because I visited shows on the East Coast, specifically shows only located in North Carolina, I only gathered a little piece of hip-hop culture. Rappers are going to approach the crowds differently, depending on what state they are in. A prime example is Common performing one of his older songs “A Song for Assata.” In another state, such as Colorado, Common maybe would not have performed that particular song because Shakur did not have such a significant impact on Colorado, as she did in North Carolina. For this study, I chose to only visit shows where conscious rappers were performing because I felt that their music would speak more to racism and systemic oppression.

Attending the shows that were a part of this study shaped this study by focusing on rappers who are considered to be conscious, which affected the type of audience members that were present at the show. That is not to say that a conscious audience member only attends shows of conscious hip-hop artists or that someone who only listens to trap music does not understand or deal with systemic racism. I felt that I would get more participants who would be willing to talk about their 134 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 experiences with systemic racism and oppression if the rappers at the shows were used to talking about racism through their music. If I would have chosen any hip-hop show to attend, for example, a show that headlined rapper Lil Uzi Vert, my results would have differed because he is more of a trap/punk rapper.

Recommendations for Future Research This study only begins to reveal the potential that hip-hop has in transferring energy while promoting advocacy, education, and self-actualization in the lives of African Americans. As mentioned above in the limitations section, I think that more research should be conducted with more participants. If I was able to visit more hip- hop shows, or maybe was more aggressive with approaching audience members, I could have recruited more participants, making the study as a whole larger scaled. Also, opening up the age range to younger people could help provide different perspectives from various age groups. If younger people become a part of the targeted population, sites for observations could be conducted at after school programs, community art centers, or at schools.

Other than these three limitations, a future study could assess the long-term effects of hip-hop, for example, a study over the span of a year where certain participants are kept in constant contact with the researcher to see if they recently faced oppression and if so, how did they address or combat it. This is something that I have thought about since many of the participants for this current study were so willing to provide assistance whenever I had follow up questions, and sometimes they reached out on their own. They are excited about the work and the stories that they shared, and they could be willing to be even more open if a longer ethnographic study was piloted. More work will need to be done to determine such long-term effects as hip-hop continues to evolve and politics continue to worsen. Although there have been numerous studies on the globalization of hip-hop and hip-hop in academia, there is no literature on specifically on African Americans, oppression, and hip-hop in an ethnographic setting where the researcher is with the participants for an extended period of time. Because of this lack of literature, I suggest a full ethnography. I believe

135 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 that this type of work could open new avenues for qualitative research concerning African Americans, hip-hop, and systemic inequality’s progression and regressions.

Conclusion Originally, when I first began the dissertation process, I was not exactly sure what I wanted my topic to be about, but I knew I wanted to focus on African Americans, oppression, and hip-hop culture. I did not know that I wanted to use a critical race methodology or even use ethnographic observations and interviews. I did not know that I would end with four major themes—hip-hop combats racism and oppression by transferring energy, promoting education, advocacy, and self- actualization through a social justice lens—as the findings for this project. From these particular themes that were developed, I realized that three important implications from this study include: (1) hip-hop acting as a rhetorical art form that help rhetoricians understand how African Americans use hip-hop to fight against systemic racism and oppression, (2) hip-hop affecting and changing Black people by means of transferring energy between hip-hop performers and audience members, and (3) the possibility of this study helping White critics understand the effects of hip-hop on the Black population. Aspects of the study that could improve the results include gathering more participants to observe and interview. Another limitation was the age of the participants since including younger Black people could provide a different prospective. For future research, both of these limitations could be corrected and implemented, along with partaking in the culture for more than just a 3-month time period.

Through this entire project, I have learned a new meaning for social justice through hip-hop. Social justice is continuing to rap when the Whites in power say it’s disruptive and negative; it’s dancing to hip-hop music even when the White elites say it’s misogynic and degrading to Black women; it’s kneeling when they say stand; and speaking when they say remain silent. These participants spoke up for hip-hop culture to show its impact on the lives of African Americans as it relates to systematic racism and oppression. This is important because it truly attests to the fact that there can be no

136 Texas Tech University, Kourtney Moore, August 2020 social justice without opposition and Blacks live through the challenges of oppression every day.

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APPENDIX INFORMATION SHEET INFORMATION SHEET Hip-hop Concerning Oppression and Systemic Racism Through Quasi- Ethnographic Observations and Interviews

Primary Investigator: Michael Faris Researcher: Kourtney Moore

The purpose of this study, titled “Hip-hop Concerning Oppression and Systemic Racism Through Quasi-Ethnographic Observations and Interviews,” is to better understand and examine how hip-hop assists African Americans in fighting systemic racism and oppression. The short, informal interview will focus specifically on this hip-hop show and your experiences with hip-hop culture. The longer, formal interview will focus specifically on oppression and systemic racism and interpretations of some hip-hop songs

This study asks participants to participate in two different interviews: • A brief, 5-10 minute, interview about their experiences hip-hop culture and this particular hip-hop show • A brief 30-45 minute, interview about their experiences with particular hip-hop songs as it refers to oppression and systemic racism.

Your participation in this research is voluntary, and you may choose to withdraw and cease participating in the research at any time. You may refuse to answer any questions you feel uncomfortable answering. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to review documents produced from this study before those documents are circulated.

Risks & Benefits: The risk for this study is not beyond that of daily life. Benefits include the opportunity to contribute to the development of knowledge about hip-hop culture and how it addresses and responds to oppression and systemic racism.

Confidentiality: The shorter interview will be conducted in person while the longer interview will be conducted via phone/video (the choice is yours). Both of the interviews will be audio recorded and transcribed. All data will be de-identified for the purposes of analysis, and you will be invited to review all data before it is entered into the confidential data pool. Although we cannot ensure anonymity because of the nature of our research, all steps will be taken to ensure the confidentiality of the participants.

Identifiers might be removed from the identifiable private information and that, after such removal, the information could be used for future research studies or distributed to another investigator for future research studies without additional informed consent from the subject or the legally authorized representative.

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For questions or concerns regarding this study, you may contact Kourtney Moore at (email address) or (personal cell phone number) or Michael Faris at (email address).

Texas Tech University also has a Board that protects the rights of people who participate in research. You can ask them questions at 806-742-2064. You can also mail your questions to the Human Research Protection Program, Office of the Vice President for Research, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409 or email them to [email protected].

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