Strategic Visuals in Hip-Hop Life Writing

Abstract

Autobiographies as well as rap lyrics have been misconstrued by authenticity-oriented reading practices that disregard the fact that they are aesthetic constructs. Much hip-hop life writing published since the 1990s modifies elements prominent in American autobiographical traditions, thus embedding itself within the mainstream while simultaneously adjusting dominant rags-to-riches or triumph-over-odds trajectories to the socioeconomic predicaments associated with hip hop. They include visuals, but the verbal text nevertheless dominates most monographs. The recent New York Times bestsellers by Jay-Z and Eminem, however, revolutionize hip-hop life writing by devising strategic nexuses between visual and verbal discourse in order to raise awareness of the repercussions inherent in authenticity-focused perceptions of rap and rappers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^[1] In 2013, JAY Z changed the spelling of his nom de plume. As he uses Jay-Z in his monograph, I will follow the older spelling.

^[2]Dyson does not corroborate ghetto experience as a prerequisite for interpreting hip hop; scholars rather need empathy for studying a culture (Jones 794; also see Heath).

^[3] See Shank; Chang (Can't Stop Won't Stop 396–99); Ice-T and Century 141–49.

^[4]Meili contextualizes hip hop within African-American genres (185, 189) but uncritically assumes that rap lyrics directly report a rapper's experience (194) and trigger listener identification (208). Pough discusses autobiographical features in rap as social criticism (104) without considering representational methods in concept albums (106) or life writing (110). Hess's article, one of the very few texts that deal with hip-hop autobiography as a subgenre of life writing, is similarly problematic.

^[5] See Smith and Watson regarding sensitivity to new autobiographical practices (“Introduction” xviii). For an exemplary essay linking rap lyrics, authenticity, and autobiography, see Lee.

^[6] See Stein's point regarding “visual modes of self-performance” (17). Adler provides an overview of hip-hop photography, while Adams, Rollins, and Jenkins contemplate hip-hop design. None of these publications discusses photographs or design elements in hip-hop life writing.

^[7] Based on Gilmore, Stein argues that jazz singer and trumpeter Louis Armstrong's multi-decade output of autobiographical material in multiple media “reveal[s] the self as a communicative subject always in flux” (13). Studying autobiographical materials produced over a long time period would be useful for discussing artists like Ice-T (also see his Something from Nothing). Regarding memory and performance, see Striff (Introduction 10).

^[8] Although he denounces (auto)biography as excessively self-indulgent (The Ice Opinion vii), Ice-T nevertheless describes multiple experiences in this volume and subsequently retells them in his 2012 memoir.

^[9] For example, Denton; Grandmaster Flash; Queen Latifah; Sanchez and Cedeño; West and Hunter.

^[10] Regarding linkages between this trend and American studies, see Balestrini.

^[11] Prodigy describes his spiritual awakening toward self-reform; Queen Latifah recounts finding faith in God; DMX believes in “a higher calling” and in “wanting souls” rather than “sales” (291). Denton (Pepa), whose narrative fits into women's trauma narratives about sexual abuse (Henke xvi), credits life writing with restoring her agency (chs 1, 23); also see Grandmaster Flash (epigraph, n. pag.).

^[12]Jacobs explains that slavery forces slave women to compromise their moral convictions. She entered an extramarital relationship to prevent her slave master from keeping her as his concubine (931). Analogously, hip-hop autobiographers depict hustling as unacceptable but (temporarily) necessary for survival (Sanchez and Cedeño 61, 63, 67, 130). Family values (57), serving others (148), and contributing to social improvement (163–65) grant them moral authority as “elder statesmen…[,] historian[s], educator[s], and caretaker[s]” (164; also see 167).

^[13] See Queen Latifah, “Latifah's Laws” (111–73); Sister Souljah, “Listen Up! (Straighten It Out)” (349–60); Ice-T and Century, “Iceberg Family Values” (177–206) and “Daily Game (of Life)” (245–51).

^[14] See Prodigy (34).

^[15] See DMX (129–30); Grandmaster Flash (53, 78–79, 81); Ice-T and Century (89–91, 94–95, 99, 113–14, 161, 215).

^[16] See flyers and posters in DMX (140, 145, 165, 188, 189, 199); Prodigy (n. pag.); Eminem and Jenkins (19).

^[17] Compare to Grandmaster Flash (239–41).

^[18] Wheatley (766).

^[19] Although Sister Souljah verbalizes black women's physical beauty, the only visual is her close-up portrait on the cover. Her serious facial expression precludes voyeurism. Not providing a photo insert supports her “[a]utoethnograph[ic]” trajectory of integrating personal experiences into the historical narrative of “her people” (Lionnet 125). It would be worth discussing how her “totalizing conception of black culture” (Gilroy 150) and Queen Latifah's remarks on African women (142, 169) function within the writers’ attitudes towards African-American history.

^[20] Donda West compares her son's widely telecast statement “President Bush doesn't care for black people” to Christ's seven last words on the cross (201) and praises Kanye's behind-the-scenes charity work for African-American victims of Hurricane Katrina.

^[21] Cf. Baker's argument in 1993 that the masculine black inner-city experience is necessarily privileged in hip-hop culture, whereas Forman's 2002 monograph names place before race in the discussion of authenticity.

^[22] See White on black masculinity in rap as related to racialized and gendered traditions of visual representations. According to Touré, “in hip hop, you are selling personas” (qtd in Walsh 778).

^[23]The Way I Am acknowledges the centrality of graphic design: “Designed by Headcase Design” follows the authors’ names on the title page.

^[24] See the penultimate page with verbal text of Eminem's homage that opens The Way I Am.

^[25] In Tupac Shakur's partially autobiographical, posthumously published poems, handwritten originals are printed next to typeset transcriptions. The last poem appears only in longhand, and the volume ends with a photograph, possibly meant to imply Tupac's afterlife through his art. The handwritten poems visually support the paratexts’ claims regarding his achievements as a lyricist.

^[26] I borrow the term sacralization from Levine, who uses it to describe how 19th-century popular culture was transformed, in public perception and practice, into highbrow culture.

^[27] In contrast to this depiction of his own creative process, Eminem admiringly claims that “Jay-Z doesn't write stuff down, he just goes into the booth and spits” (194). He seems unaware of the cultural baggage attached to spontaneous art production and performance, particularly for African-American musicians and for singers in general who have been marketed as “natural” talents, be it for ethnic reasons or for the sake of making their art form more amenable to the general population. Even if Eminem's claim about Jay-Z were correct, Jay-Z stresses that his complex lyrics require much forethought and crafting.

^[28] Early in the book, Eminem addresses the crisis of rap (37). The final chapter drives home his desire to reverse negative trends in hip-hop culture.

^[29] These two monographs differ from the concept/tour-focused and image-driven volumes by Kanye West (Glow in the Dark, supplemented with audio material on a CD) and Ke$ha (My Crazy Beautiful Life) in which photographs primarily provide insight into personal and career details without being embedded in a more philosophical and abstract strategy.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nassim Balestrini

Nassim Winnie Balestrini is Full Professor of American Studies and Intermediality at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria. She has held positions at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, at the University of California, Davis, and at the universities of Paderborn and of Regensburg, Germany. Her publications consider American literature and culture (predominantly of the 19th through the 21st centuries), Vladimir Nabokov's Russian and English works, and adaptation and intermedial relations (as in her monograph From Fiction to Libretto: Irving, Hawthorne, and James as Opera, 2005, and in the edited volume Adaptation and American Studies, 2011). Her current research interests include hip-hop artists’ life writing across media, intersections between socially oriented art and interactive websites, Asian-American poetry, African-American theater and performance, and the poet laureate traditions in the United States and in Canada.