PROTEST, MISOGYNY, and HARDNESS in the MUSIC of NWA by Rebekah Alexis Hutten Thesis Submitted
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“MUSIC WAS OUR ONLY WEAPON”: PROTEST, MISOGYNY, AND HARDNESS IN THE MUSIC OF NWA by Rebekah Alexis Hutten Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Music with Honours Acadia University March, 2016 © Copyright by Rebekah Alexis Hutten, 2016 i This thesis by Rebekah Alexis Hutten is accepted in its present form by the Department of Music as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Music with Honours Approved by the Thesis Supervisor _____________________________ __________________________ Dr. Michelle Boyd Date Approved by the Head of the Department _____________________________ __________________________ Dr. Christianne Rushton Date Approved by the Honours Committee _____________________________ __________________________ Dr. Anna Redden Date ii I, Rebekah Alexis Hutten, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis. ____________________________________ Signature of Author _________________________________ Date iii Acknowledgements First I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Dr. Michelle Boyd for her unwavering patience, dedication, and humour. Your Women in Western Art Music class helped me cultivate a previously unimaginable passion for learning about women’s participation and place in music. I am forever grateful for your enthusiasm, meticulous attention to detail, and passion for research. Thank you to all of my professors at Acadia, particularly those in the departments of Music and Women and Gender Studies. You have permanently altered my perception of the roles music can play in our world. To my friends, particularly my boyfriend Brydone, who in their own beautiful ways illuminate my life with their love and support. Thank you for helping me to see beyond my predispositions. Thank you to my parents: Dad, for prompting and helping to sustain my initial passion for music and intellectual thought, and to Mom, for setting an example of joy and excitement for life in general. Finally, to my Grammy who dedicates her life to words, family, and flowers: thank you for writing down my childhood stories. iv Table of Contents Title Page i Approval Page ii Permission and Duplication iii Acknowledgments iv Table of Contents v Abstract vi Introduction: “The Strength Of Street Knowledge”: NWA and Black Women’s Place in South Central Los Angeles 1 Chapter One- “No Justice, No Peace”: Protest Through NWA’s “Fuck Tha’ Police” 14 Chapter Two- Multidimensional Oppression: Intersectional Feminism, Controlling Images of Black American Women, and Black Masculinity 28 Chapter Three- Despicable Females: Controlling Images of Black American Women in NWA’s Music 56 Chapter Four- The Sound of Protest: Musical Hardness and Black Male Survival in NWA’s Music 71 Conclusion: Continuum of Protest: The Perpetual Relevancy of NWA 90 Lyric Index 96 Bibliography 113 v Abstract This thesis examines the ways in which reality rap group NWA’s (Niggaz Wit’ Attitudes) music functioned as protest in Los Angeles, United States, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. They did so primarily by providing social commentary on police brutality and racism, asserting control over Black American women through misogynistic lyric content and through the sound of musical “hardness,” a quality in their music which bolstered a masculinity they adopted in order to survive. An intersectional feminist methodology is applied to develop how misogyny in NWA’s music directly affects Black American women. This thesis draws from a wide range of Black feminist scholarship and hip-hop and rap studies. For NWA, music was a means of creating power in a social, political, and cultural climate in which they were otherwise powerless. While their lyrics regarding Black women are blatantly derogatory, misogynistic, and sexually violent, it is not simply because the members of NWA were inherently sexist: historically-ingrained controlling images and stereotypes of Black American women permeate American society so deeply that it is quite likely NWA did not realize they were reproducing these controlling images and stereotypes through their music. It is ironic that they protested against police brutality towards Black men while simultaneously oppressing Black women through their lyrics; however, by oppressing Black women, in part, NWA facilitated their rise to power, fame, and success. vi Introduction “THE STRENGTH OF STREET KNOWLEDGE” NWA and Black Women’s Place in South Central Los Angeles My experience as a musician impels me to ask the question: why is music that degrades Black women accepted and normalized? Music has the simultaneous power to heal and to hurt. Reality rap imbues this unique quality. It has the potential to heal its performers and its audiences, to instill social activism and change in generations of people. NWA (Niggaz Wit’ Attitudes) had the potential to do so, and in many ways they did embody characteristics of activists. Yet, despite this potential healing power, NWA’s music undoubtedly hurts Black women by holding Black women in the place of the oppressed in order for NWA to assert control over their lives in a society that did everything it could to control them. Music’s ability to function as a lens through which to analyze culture and gender relationships is evident across all genres; however, it is particularly poignant in an analysis of reality rap. Reality rap, referred to in popular media as gangsta rap, is a derivative of hip-hop—a genre that was born through resistance to oppression and racism. NWA was a seminal rap group in Los Angeles during the late 1980s and early 1990s that simultaneously inhabited both the potentially negative and positive aspects of the reality rap genre. Reality rap can be understood as existing in two spheres: first, social activism, and second, the perpetuation of discrimination. It is often ironic, hypocritical, and contradictory within itself; however, these contradictions stem from one site: a reaction to and often a protest against institutionalized oppression. Reality rap was a means through which Black American rappers, specifically NWA, could protest their own oppression when faced with violent white masculinity— 1 however, in order to protest and oppose this dominant culture, they relied on using racist and sexist stereotypes of Black American women in many of their song lyrics to enact power and dominance. Additionally, NWA embodied a constructed masculinity in the aural quality of their music, evoking a musical “hardness” which, when working in tandem with the violent lyric content, allowed them to access a sense of both constructed and very real power. NWA’s roots are in South Central Los Angeles, specifically Compton and Watts.1 LA in the 1980s saw the birth and resounding popularity of reality rap into mainstream media; the music functioned as protest during a time of rampant police brutality and unadulterated racism towards Black American peoples and communities. Reality rap originated in Watts and later in Compton, two neighbourhoods in South Central LA particularly affected by discriminatory housing, police brutality, widespread drug usage, gang violence, and overarching racist practices imposed on Black communities by dominant white groups. South Central was violent and dangerous throughout the 1960s and up until the 1980s and 1990s. This was not due only to inner-city gangs like the Bloods and the Crips, but due to police brutality directed primarily towards young Black men. Many of these young Black men realized that they could take an art form indigenous to their specific region and employ it to function as protestation against discriminatory housing practices, lack of city and government support, poverty, violence within their community, and police brutality. Because there was so much dysfunction, self-produced songs disseminated by cassette tape became wildly popular on the streets of South Central. This 1 For a comprehensive history of reality rap, see Jeff Chang’s novel Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop (New York: Picador, 2005) and Brian Cross’ It’s Not About a Salary: Rap, Race and 2 historical, cultural, and social context provided a space for NWA to create music and pioneer the genre of reality rap. Eazy-E, Ice Cube (who left NWA in 1989), Dr. Dre, MC Ren, DJ Yella, and Arabian Prince (who left NWA in 1988) were active from 1986-1991. Eazy-E founded NWA in 1986, joined initially by Dr. Dre and later by Arabian Prince and Ice Cube. MC Ren joined in 1988. They originally produced their own songs and disseminated them in the streets on cassette tapes. Due to a record deal with Bryan Turner of Priority Records, NWA were given the opportunity to begin producing music in a recording studio. Priority Records signed NWA as Priority’s first act in 1981. When recording their first album, NWA member Dr. Dre commented that he wanted “to go all the way left. Everybody trying to do this Black power and shit, so I was like, let’s give ‘em an alternative. Nigger niggerniggerniggernigger fuck this fuck that bitch bitch bitch bitch suck my dick, all this kind of shit, you know what I’m saying?” 2 Though Dr. Dre isn’t particularly descriptive in this passage, he was alluding to NWA’s desire to produce songs that were shocking to the public, a departure from the less- outrageous social-commentary-style of the influential rap group The Watts Prophets. Jeff Chang, an American journalist, author and music critic, interpreted Dr. Dre’s statement as such: If the thing was protest, they would toss the ideology and go straight to the riot. If the thing was sex, they would chuck the seduction and go straight to the fuck. Forget knowledge or self or empowering the race. This was about, as Eazy would put it, the strength of street knowledge.3 2 Brian Cross, It’s Not About a Salary: Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles (New York: Verso, 1993), 180-181.