![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
This article applies Richard Iton's concept of the “the Black Fantastic” to the Oakland, CA rap music scene from 1994–2010. I argue that the political content from this scene was part of an evolutionary colonial discourse and a reaction to the commercialization of rap music. In particular, my finding is that this local discourse was in response to hyper-militarization during the 1970s and 1980s and the co-optation of local rap's subaltern discourse elements in the 1990s and early 2000s. This produced a “black fanatic”—both the population making the music and the population participating in the shows, consumption of goods, and the subversive street activities. This finding, however, adds complexities to the conception of a “post-colonial” and “post-racial” discourse in Iton's analysis. In addition, my investigation uses deep description of the political content of the hyphy subculture to correct the existing research location of the subculture in identity formation studies and disabilities studies. Instead, I hold that the political power exhibited by hyphy rappers was the power to “act” crazy and should be considered in the same vein as Malcolm X's attempt to thwart the military draft and other cases of “liberal disillusionment” by black representatives.
Notes
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/usou.
J-Diggs, “Ghost Ride It (Featuring Mistah F.A.B. and Dem Hoodstarz).” Ghostride the Whip [Sound recording]. Thizz Ent, 2008.
Ibid.
Jesse McKinley, “Mayor Dellums of Oakland Supports Inquiry into Death of Grant,” NYTimes.com, July 9, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/us/10oakland.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 (accessed July 9, 2010).
Ryan Coogler, in Fruitvale Station [Motion picture] (The Weinstein Company, 2013; reprint, July 12, 2013).
For more information on this, see: Oakland Police Department, “Summary of Part 1 Crime Offenses, 1969–2008,” City of Oakland California, http://gismaps.oaklandnet.com/crimewatch/pdf/HistoricalData.htm (accessed July 4, 2014); FBI, “Table 8 —California, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City, 2009,” http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_08_ca.html (accessed October 4, 2012); FBI, “Table 8 —California, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City, 2010,” http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/table-8/10tbl08ca.xls (accessed October 4, 2012).
Harry Harris, “Gradually, Oakland a Less Deadly Place,” Inside Bay Area, Oakland Tribune, March 30, 2010, http://www.insidebayarea.com/oakland-homicides/ci_14786462 (accessed March 30, 2010).
Ibid.
Ibid.
McKinley, “Mayor Dellums of Oakland Supports Inquiry into Death of Grant.”
Shoshana Walter and Richard Parks, “Oakland Police Planned for Calm after Verdict,” The Bay Citizen, NYTimes.com, July 10, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/us/11bcoakland.html (accessed July 10, 2010).
Malia Wollan, “Oakland Dismisses 80 Officers,” National Briefing—West- California, NYTimes.com, July 15, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/us/15brfs-OAKLANDDISMI_BRF.html?emc=eta1 (accessed July 15, 2010).
While the national headlines drew attention to the Grant killing and the film Fruitvale Station presented the victim as a martyr, neither outlet has truly captured the significance of this event by connecting it to Oakland's past and present countercultures. Richard Gonzales, “Oakland Braces for Seeing Subway Shooting on the Big Screen,” code switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity, NPR, 2013, http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/12/201193199/oakland-braces-for-seeing-subway-shooting-on-the-big-screen (accessed July 12, 2013); Ryan Coogler, “Fruitvale Station.” In fact, a few of the negative or highly critical reviews of the film's representation of Grant were clearly written by critics who grossly misunderstood or devalued the countercultural elements at work. Kyle Smith, “‘Fruitvale Station’ Tells Some, Omits Some,” New York Post, July 12, 2013, http://nypost.com/2013/07/12/fruitvale-station-tells-some-omits-some/ (accessed July 12, 2013); Kyle Smith, “’Fruitvale Station’ Is Loose with the Facts About Oscar Grant,” Forbes.com, July 25, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmith/2013/07/25/fruitvale-station-is-loose-with-the-facts-in-an-effort-to-elicit-sympathy-for-oscar-grant/ (accessed July 25, 2013); Geoff Berkshire, “Review: ‘Fruitvale,’” Variety.com, January 20, 2013, http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/fruitvale-1117949029/ (accessed July 12, 2013). In one article, Kyle Smith characterizes Grant as a “small-time criminal” with fidelity issues and highlights his conviction for “illegal possession of a handgun.” “‘Fruitvale Station’ Is Loose with the Facts About Oscar Grant.” In another article, Smith begins by labeling Grant as a “22-year-old black drug dealer” and works to highlight that he was an “established criminal.” “‘Fruitvale Station’ Tells Some, Omits Some.” Meanwhile, Berkshire's article fails to understand that Grant is in the midst of a struggle to leave behind criminal activity. “Review: ‘Fruitvale.’”
Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: Picador, 2005); Nelson George, Hip Hop America (New York: Viking, 1998); Bakari Kitwana, The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2002); Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994).
For use of rap music in judging exposure and attitudes, see Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). For use of rap music to evaluate its many critics, see Cathy J. Cohen, Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). For implementation of public opinion sample techniques in the study of rap music, see Lester K. Spence, Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-Hop and Black Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).
See Michel Agier, “The Ghetto, the Hyperghetto and the Fragmentation of the World,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33, no. 3 (2009); J.M. Blaut, “The Ghetto as an Internal Neo-Colony,” Antipode 17, no. 2–3 (1985); William J. Chambliss, “Policing the Ghetto Underclass: The Politics of Law and Law Enforcement,” Social Problems (1994); John M. Eason, “Extending the Hyperghetto: Toward a Theory of Punishment, Race, and Rural Disadvantage,” Journal of Poverty 16, no. 3 (2012); Loic Wacquant, “Urban Outcasts: Stigma and Division in the Black American Ghetto and the French Urban Periphery,” The Urban Sociology Reader (2005); Loic Wacquant, “Ghettos and Anti-Ghettos: An Anatomy of the New Urban Poverty,” Thesis Eleven 94, no. 1 (2008); Loic Wacquant, “Urban Desolation and Symbolic Denigration in the Hyperghetto,” Social Psychology Quarterly 73, no. 3 (2010).
Paul Morris Hirsch and University of Michigan. Institute for Social Research, The Structure of the Popular Music Industry; the Filtering Process by Which Records Are Preselected for Public Consumption (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1969); Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (London: Allen Lane, 1972); M. Elizabeth Blair, “Commercialization of the Rap Music Youth Subculture,” The Journal of Popular Culture 27, no. 3 (1993).
Richard Iton, In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2008), 16, emphasis in original.
The concept of “liberal disillusionment” involves the shifting ideology of black leaders toward the end of their careers. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. is said to have shifted toward a more radical position in his later focus on class inequality and his criticism of the Vietnam War. In an opposite turn, Malcolm X is said to have shifted from a black separatist position to a human rights position after his pilgrimage to Mecca. For a more detailed definition of this concept, see Dawson, Black Visions, 273–319.
3X Krazy, “Stackin Chips.” Stackin' Chips [Sound recording]. Virgin, 1997.
George Ciccariello-Maher and Jeff St. Andrews, “Between Macks and Panthers: Hip Hop in Oakland and San Francisco,” in Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide, ed. Mickey Hess (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2009), 279.
Ibid.
Jim Zamora, “Oakland Council Rejects Brown Sideshow Plan,” SFGate, San Francisco Chronical, June 8, 2005, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/08/MNsideshow08.DTL (accessed November 11, 2007).
Ciccariello-Maher and St. Andrews, “Between Macks and Panthers,” 279.
Garance Burke, “Hip-Hop Car Stunt Leaves 2 Dead,” Associated Press, MTV News, December 29, 2006, http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8MAMLF00&show_article=1 (accessed November 12, 2010).
Zamora, “Oakland Council Rejects Brown Sideshow Plan.”
Anthony Kwame Harrison, Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), 35. Also see, Andrea L Smith, “Hyphy Intellect: The Formation of Bay Area Hip Hop Identities in the Realm of Commercial Culture” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Davis, 2011).
Harrison, Hip Hop Underground, 35.
Michael Dowdy, “Live Hip Hop, Collective Agency, and ‘Acting in Concert’,” Popular Music and Society 30, no. 1 (2007).
Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999), 108–110.
Prafeshanals + DJ Sam Soul, Live at the Retox Lounge, (628 20th Street, San Francisco, California [Live performance]: Frenchie Presents, November 14, 2008).
Andre Nickatina, “Ayo for Yayo.” Yukmouth Presents - 420 [Sound recording]. U.M.A., 2010.
Christopher M. Bell, Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions (Münster, Germany: Lit Verlag, 2011), 141–142.
Ibid., 143.
The Black Eyed Peas, “Let's Get It Started/Let's Get Retarded.” Elephunk [Sound recording]. Interscope, 2004.
The Discovery Channel, in Gangwars Oakland: Parts I and II [Television series episode] (United States: The Discovery Channel, 2009).
The Black Eyed Peas, “Let's Get It Started/Let's Get Retarded.”
J-Diggs, “Ghost Ride It (Featuring Mistah F.A.B. and Dem Hoodstarz).”
H. Lavar Pope, “Internal Colonization and Revolt: Rap as an Underground Political Discourse in Oakland, CA from 1965-2010” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2012).
Ciccariello-Maher and St. Andrews, “Between Macks and Panthers.”
Mac Dre, Young Black Brotha [Sound Recording], (Strickly Business Records, 1993).
2Pac, “I Don't Give a Fuck.” 2Pacalypse Now [Sound recording]. Jive/ Interscope/ Priority, 1991.
The description of Too $hort is from: Kermit Ernest Campbell, Gettin' Our Groove On: Rhetoric, Language, and Literacy for the Hip Hop Generation, African American Life Series (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2005).
Jesse Ashlock, “The Coup's Funky Revolution,” RES Magazine, July/August 2004, http://www.jesseashlock.com/files/200407.RES.TheCoup.pdf (accessed July 9, 2010).
Darren Keast, “Having It Both Ways,” SF Weekly, March 1, 2000, http:// www.sfweekly.com/2000-03-01/music/having-it-both-ways/ (accessed July 9, 2010). Quoted in Ciccariello-Maher and St. Andrews, “Between Macks and Panthers,” 270.
This description of the album is from Oliver Wang and Dante Ross, Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide (Toronto: Entertainment Culture Writing Press, 2003), 26.
For new global trends in digital music distribution, see Mark Anthony Neal, “Crisis in Real Time (Digitized Remastered and Mp3ed),” Journal of Popular Music Studies 14, no. 1 (2002). For use of the digital mixtape, see Bell, Blackness and Disability.
J-Diggs, “Ghost Ride It (Featuring Mistah F.A.B. and Dem Hoodstarz); E-40, My Ghetto Report Card [Sound recording] (Sic Wid It, 2006).
Mac Dre, Ronald Dregan: Dreganomics [Sound Recording], (Sumo/Thizz Entertainment, 2004); Mac Dre, Pill Clinton [Sound Recording], (Thizz Entertainment, 2007).
B-Legit, “It's in the Game.” Hempin' Ain't Easy [Sound recording]. Koch Records, 1999.
B-Legit, “Where the Gangstas At (Featuring Kurupt & Mack 10).” Hempin' Ain't Easy [Sound recording]. Koch Records, 1999.
Andre Nickatina, “Fears of a Coke Lord.” The Daiquiri Factory (Cocaine Raps Vol. 2) [Sound recording]. I-Khan Distribution, 2000.
Andre Nickatina, “Jungle.” Midnight Machine Gun Rhymes and Adlibs [Sound recording]. I-Khan Distribution, 2002.
Luniz, “Oakland Raiders (Featuring Mark Curry).” Silver & Black [Sound recording]. Rap-A-Lot Records, 2002.
The Team, “I'm on One.” The Negro League [Sound recording]. Moe Doe Entertainment, 2004.
Keak da Sneak, “T-Shirt, Blue Jeans, & Nikes (Featuring E-40).” Copium [Sound recording]. Digital Rights Agency, 2003.
Ernest R. Dickerson, in Juice [Motion picture] (United States: Island World, 1992).
Champ Bailey, “U-C-It (Featuring J Valentine).” Bailey [Sound recording]. City Boyz Muzik, 2006.
B-Legit, “It's in the Game.”
B-Legit, “Where the Gangstas At (Featuring Kurupt & Mack 10).”
Andre Nickatina, “Fears of a Coke Lord.”
Andre Nickatina, “Jungle; Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “The Message.” The Message (VLS) [Sound recording]. Sugar HIll Records, 1982.
Luniz, “Oakland Raiders (Featuring Mark Curry).”
The Team, “I'm on One.”
Keak da Sneak, “T-Shirt, Blue Jeans, & Nikes (Featuring E-40).”
Andre Nickatina & Equipto, “4 Am—Bay Bridge Music.” Gun-Mouth 4 hire Horns and Halos #2 [Sound recording]. Fillmoe Coleman Records, 2005.
Ernest R. Dickerson, “Juice [Motion Picture].”
Champ Bailey, “U-C-It (Featuring J Valentine).”
The A'z, “Yadadamean.” Yadadamean (Single) [Sound recording]. The Orchard, 2006.
Too $hort, “Blow the Whistle.” Blow the Whistle [Sound recording]. Jive, 2006.
Mac Dre, “Thizzle Dance.” Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game #2 [Sound recording]. Thizz Nation, 2005.
Federation, “Hyphy (Featuring E-40).” Federation The Album. Virgin, 2004.
Mistah F.A.B., “Super Sic Wit It (Featuring Turf Talk and E-40).” Son of a Pimp [Sound recording]. Faeva Afta, 2005.
Dem Hoodstarz, “How We Do.” Band-Aide & Scoot [Sound recording]. MB Recordings, 2006.
Zion I & Grouch, “Hit ‘Em (Featuring Mistah F.A.B.).” Heroes in the City of Dope [Sound recording]. Om Records, 2006.
The A'z, “Yadadamean.”
Too $hort, “Blow the Whistle.” Dave Chappelle, in Chappelle's Show [Television series] (MGM Television, 2003–2006).
Too $hort, “Blow the Whistle.”
Mac Dre, “Thizzle Dance.”
Federation, “Hyphy (Featuring E-40).”
Mistah F.A.B., “Super Sic Wit It (Featuring Turf Talk and E-40).”
Dem Hoodstarz, “How We Do.”
Zion I & Grouch, “Hit ‘Em (Featuring Mistah F.A.B.).”
Andre Nickatina, “Ayo for Yayo.”
Traxamillion, “Getcha Ass up (Featuring Smitty Grands).” The Slapp Addict [Sound recording]. Slapp Addict Productions LLC, 2006.
Mac Dre, “Since ‘84.” Ronald Dregan: Dreganomics [Sound recording]. Sumo/Thizz Entertainment, 2004.
E-40, “Gas, Break, Dip (Featuring the Federation).” The Best of E-40: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow [Sound recording]. Jive, 2004.
E-40, “Tell Me When to Go (Featuring Keak Da Sneak).” My Ghetto Report Card [Sound recording]. Sic Wid It, 2006.
Little Bruce, “Scraper, Scraper (Featuring Turf Talk).” Thizz Nation Vol. 4 Disc 1 [Sound recording]. Sumo/Thizz Nation, 2005.
Traxamillion, “The Sideshow (Featuring Too $hort and Mistah F.A.B.).” The Slapp Addict [Sound recording]. Slapp Addict Productions LLC, 2006.
Too $hort, “Burn Rubber Part 2.” Blow the Whistle [Sound recording]. Jive, 2006.
Traxamillion, “From the Hood (Featuring Husalah, Jacka, and San Quinn).” The Slapp Addict [Sound recording]. Slapp Addict Productions LLC, 2006.
Keak da Sneak, “Tell Me When to Stop (Featuring Haji Springer).” Hyphy Beats Vol. 2 [Sound recording]. Fairfax Music Group, 2007.
Too $hort, “This My One (Featuring E-40).” Get off the Stage [Sound recording]. Jive, 2007.
J-Diggs, “Ghost Ride It (Featuring Mistah F.A.B. and Dem Hoodstarz).”
Andre Nickatina, “Ayo for Yayo.”
Traxamillion, “Getcha Ass up (Featuring Smitty Grands).”
Mac Dre, “Since ‘84.”
E-40, “Gas, Break, Dip (Featuring the Federation).”
E-40, “Tell Me When to Go (Featuring Keak Da Sneak).”
Little Bruce, “Scraper, Scraper (Featuring Turf Talk).”
Traxamillion, “The Sideshow (Featuring Too $hort and Mistah F.A.B.).”
Too $hort, “Burn Rubber Part 2.”
Traxamillion, “From the Hood (Featuring Husalah, Jacka, and San Quinn).”
Keak da Sneak, “Tell Me When to Stop (Featuring Haji Springer).”
Too $hort, “This My One (Featuring E-40).”
J-Diggs, “Ghost Ride It (Featuring Mistah F.A.B. and Dem Hoodstarz).”
The Bee Gees, “Stayin' Alive.” Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track [Sound recroding]. RSO Records, 1977; Christopher J. Young, “When Fans Wanted to Rock, the Baseball Stopped': Sports, Promotions, and the Demolition of Disco on Chicago's South Side,” Society for American Baseball Research 38, no. 1 (Summer 2009).
Dustin Bennett, “Livin' the Life, Hyphy Style,” Synthesis.net, Synthesis Network, March 3, 2008, http://www.synthesis.net/music/interview/item-6912/2008-03-03-keak_da_sneak (accessed September 10, 2008).
E-40, “Tell Me When to Go (Featuring Keak Da Sneak); Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz, “Snap Yo Fingers (Featuring E-40 and Sean P).” Snap Yo Fingers (CDS) [Sound recording]. TVT/BME Recordings, 2006.
Tapan Munshi, “Hip-Hop to the Nth Degree: Hyphy,” National Public Radio, accessed November 12, 2007, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5323593 (accessed April 4, 2006).
Steve Jones, “Hyphy Pulls a Bay Area Breakout,” U.S.A. Today, April 13, 2006, http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-04-13-hyphy-main_x.htm (accessed April 13, 2006).
Ibid.
Steve Jones, “Flamboasting the Hyphy Nation,” U.S.A. Today, April 13, 2006, http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-04-13-hyphy-side_x.htm (accessed April 13, 2006).
Hattie Collins, “Ghostridin' the Whip,” The Guardian, October 21, 2006, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,1926601,00.html (accessed November 12, 2007).
Burke, “Hip-Hop Car Stunt Leaves 2 Dead.”
Jody Rosen, “Why Hyphy Is the Best Hip-Hop Right Now,” Slate, February 13, 2006, http://www.slate.com/id/2159745/ (accessed November 11, 2007).
Shaheem Reid, “Lil Jon Has Big Plans for E-40 and the Hyphy Movement,” MTV News, February 28, 2006, http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1525105/20060228/lil_jon_1.jhtml (accessed November 11, 2010).
E-40, “Hustle (Featuring Turf Talk and R. City).” The Ball Street Journal [Sound recording]. Reprise, 2008.
E-40, “Turn up the Music.” Revenue Retrievin'—Night Shift [Sound recording]. Heavy on the Grind Ent., 2010.
Sky Balla, “Mobbin' All Day (Featuring E-40 and San Quinn).” Tycoon Status [Sound recording]. Tycoon Status Entertainment, 2008.
J-Diggs, “Ghost Ride It (Featuring Mistah F.A.B. and Dem Hoodstarz); Beeda Weeda, “I Don't Ghostride (Featuring Shady Nate and Kaz Kyzah).” Da Thizzness [Sound recording]. SMC Recordings/Town Thizzness, 2008.
Jay Tee, “Hundred Grand.” Money in the Streets [Sound recording]. 40 Ounce Records, 2010.
E-40, “Everyday Is a Weekend (Featuring Tha Jacka).” Revenue Retrievin'—Day Shift [Sound recording]. Heavy on the Grind Ent., 2010.
E-40, “The Server.” Revenue Retrievin'—Night Shift [Sound recording]. Heavy on the Grind Ent., 2010.
Hoodstarz, “Speedin' (Featuring San Quinn and Big Seff).” The Tonight Show With the HoodStarz [Sound recording]. Fresh In the Flesh Music/Filmz, 2010.
Hoodstarz, “Thang Cocked (Featuring Yukmouth).” The Tonight Show With the HoodStarz [Sound recording]. Fresh In the Flesh Music/Filmz, 2010.
Yukmouth, “My Turf.” Million Dollar Mouthpiece [Sound recording]. Rap-A-Lot, 2010.
Yukmouth, “Welcome to the Bay.” United Ghettos of America [Sound recording]. Rap-A-Lot, 2010.
E-40, “Hustle (Featuring Turf Talk and R. City).”
E-40, “Turn up the Music.”
Sky Balla, “Mobbin' All Day (Featuring E-40 and San Quinn).”
Ibid.
J-Diggs, “Ghost Ride It (Featuring Mistah F.A.B. and Dem Hoodstarz); Beeda Weeda, “I Don't Ghostride (Featuring Shady Nate and Kaz Kyzah).”
Beeda Weeda, “I Don't Ghostride (Featuring Shady Nate and Kaz Kyzah).”
Jay Tee, “Hundred Grand.”
E-40, “Everyday Is a Weekend (Featuring Tha Jacka).”
E-40, “The Server.”
Hoodstarz, “Speedin' (Featuring San Quinn and Big Seff).”
Hoodstarz, “Thang Cocked (Featuring Yukmouth).”
Yukmouth, “My Turf.”
Yukmouth, “Welcome to the Bay.”
Beeda Weeda, “I Don't Ghostride (Featuring Shady Nate and Kaz Kyzah).”
Iton, In Search of the Black Fantastic, 16.
Robert O. Self, “To Plan Our Liberation,” Journal of Urban History 26, no. 6 (2000): 768.
Bobby Seale, Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton (New York: Random House, 1970); V. P. Franklin, “Jackanapes: Reflections on the Legacy of The Black Panther Party for the Hip Hop Generation,” Journal of African American History 92, no. 4 (2007): 553.