Hip-Hop Culture, Globalization, and Black Lives Matter Protests
By: Ipek Tuzun
Tags: Subculture, Politics, BlackLivesMatter, Hip Hop, Music

No one can argue that Wynton Marsalis is one of the music geniuses in the 21st century. He is an essential model for lots of musicians worldwide as an extraordinarily talented musician. Marsalis was the first jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1997 with Blood on the Fields, a vocal and orchestral rumination on slavery. His comments on any music and the notes should be respected. However, one might argue that his critics of hip-hop music and black culture are very short-sided, incomplete, and unfortunately wrong. First of all, Marsalis considered hip-hop lyrics or video clips violent, sexual, and shallow. However, as Becky Blanchard from Stanford University argues, political and media groups have been quick to blame rap for a seeming trend in youth violence. However, though critics are quick to point out some rappers' violent lyrics, they are missing the point of rap’s message. Like other forms of music, Rap cannot be understood unless it is studied without the frame of its historical and social context. To talk about hip-hop culture, we should first understand the spirit of our time.

To talk about hip-hop music and popular black culture, one must first argue capitalism, globalization, their impact on black culture and globalization. Marsalis mentions that “several (NOT ALL) hip hop musicians have gone on record saying that the marketplace and the industry encourage them to make their material more commercial by adding violent and profanity-laced materialistic and over-the-top stereotypical images and concepts to their work.” One may agree with Christopher John Farley about hip-hop’s commodification. As he puts it, “Corporate America’s infatuation with rap has increased as the genre’s political content has withered. Ice Cube’s early songs attacked white racism; Ice-T sang a song about a cop killer; Public Enemy challenged listeners to “fight the power.” But many newer acts are focused almost entirely on pathologies within the black community. They rap about shooting other blacks, but rarely about challenging governmental authority or encouraging social activism.” However, choosing money over the protest music, protest rap was also a political expression. Those were the guys who played “the capitalist game” by its rules, and they won. In addition to that, discussion about the direct correlation between media messages and actual acts of violence distract us from getting at the real causes of mediated violence. The debate distracts us from the real causes of crime: things like child abuse, poverty, parental neglect in care, and time spent with their child. One should not blame capitalism and the music industry for what’s happening in our global society. (5)

Marsalis considers hip-hop as a primitive, simplistic genre of music and discredits hip-hop musicians. As he puts it, ‘Listen, I don’t have to attack hip-hop. Hip-hop attacks itself. It has no merit, rhythmically, musically, lyrically. What is there to discuss?” Marsalis argues that rap music is more primitive based on rhythms and lyrics. He considers simplicity as a negative aspect. Most people appreciate simplicity in design, architecture, and literature in different art fields since the production or distribution of simple goods is more comfortable. For example, Swiss design is based on clarity and simplicity and is considered a high cultural aspect. As long as the simple notes create meaning in a wide range of listeners’ minds, it should be regarded as sophisticated. “Make it simple but significant” can be the motto of the 21st century’s art scene.

Why is hip-hop so popular? The best answer would be “globalization.” For the last 50 years, with the changing economy, technology, automation, rising unemployment rates, governments losing their power on private-sector, the spread of the internet, and social media usage, a couple of things happened, and all of them served the growth of subcultures like hip-hop music. The first and foremost important one is middle class diminished rapidly. As the gap between rich and poor increased, the difference between different ethnicities, cultures decreased. Among young people, it became a point that you are either rich or poor. Young people started not seeing skin colors, ethnicities, nationalities, every other human-made story that previous generations cared about. You are defined by the places you go, sneakers you wear, cars you own to young people. Subcultures created by capitalism are now so powerful that it pushes capitalism to change, modify itself.

The problem starts where most people can’t afford a life that is good enough to share on Instagram. They eventually become outliers. They become outliers, and they feel the pressure of “being not good enough” despite their skin color. They feel injustice. They relate themselves to the black hip-hop community since black people faced white supremacy and injustice for centuries. Black people know how it feels like to be considered not good enough to sit on a bus with other people because of their skin color. They know how it feels like to be seen as not smart enough to get an education. They know how it feels like to be seen as inferior, and you can understand how they feel when you listen to hip-hop music. Even in the exaggerated versions of hip-hop with golden outfits, last dances, nudity, violence, one can tell why they have so much to show, so much to say, so much to prove, so much to feel angry. At the moment, people who face injustice see themselves as part of the black community.

With globalization and private companies owning the majority of wealth globally, we don’t have racial based supremacy anymore; now we have rich supremacy. This time it doesn’t matter if you are black or white; despite the color of your skin, you know you will never be good enough to have the life of a rich person. In addition to that, automation doesn’t help. As machines and computers are getting smarter, most young people became anxious about getting a job all around the world. If they are lucky enough to find a proper job, they realize they earn much less than their parents 20 years before. This makes these young people depressed and angry about the injustice in the current world order. This is a sad generation with happy pictures. The young people feel black people’s miseries more. They relate themselves to hip-hop culture more and more every day. One might argue that Black Lives Matters protests weren’t just about the brutal murder of George Floyd by the police. The murder was just the first push to start the domino effect. It has a global impact because people, especially young people, are fed up with economic injustice. People from refugee camps, working 15 hours a day to live in a fancy European city, all supported the movement because they felt the injustice in their lives at least one time, and hip-hop music is their common ground.

What Marsalis was missing in the hip-hop music or community was the power of masses. You can reach a thousand brain surgeons and a couple of academics with jazz, but with hip-hop, you can reach anyone in the world, and that’s powerful. Because hip-hop reached everyone globally, black people become the face/symbol of injustice for almost everyone in the world, and they have support from all people around the world. Because people think of the black community as one of the most potent minority groups in the world who faced racism and discrimination for centuries, they think, “If black people can successfully protect their rights, then there is hope for everyone.” It was fascinating to see people from all colors and religions feel related to the George Floyd protests and saw hip-hop music as the glue holding people together. For example, after George Floyd was murdered, black celebrities organized social media campaigns to invite people to use the #BlackFriday hashtag on Instagram to show support in two hours. In a couple of hours, there were more than 3 million posts from around the world. If the presidents of the most powerful countries have this type of power over the masses, it can be discussed. With social media and globalization, people understand that discrimination is not about race, economics, and hip-hop became the expression of this injustice or discrimination of our century. If a person can not see the depth of hip-hop culture, this person might be missing(or ignoring) the time's spirit.

Obama is usually being criticized because he didn’t support the black community enough. However, there is no doubt that he helped the black culture and it’s industries tremendously. During the Obama administration, black artists have publicly supported, especially hip-hop artists. Together they played the globalization game by its rules to defend their rights and show their rightfulness throughout history. The artists Obama helped today are the most influential people in the world. Every woman in the world welcomes a strong and independent woman image that is created by Beyonce. Today, Jay-Z is almost can be considered as important as Steve Jobs. Michael Eric Dyson argues that “The reality is there’s criticism for everything, but Jay-Z is one of the most remarkable artists of our time of any genre, and as a hip-hop artist, he carries the weight of that art form with such splendor and grace and genius.” The globalization of black hip-hop music made racial discrimination disappear, and economic discrimination appears worldwide.

It can be concluded that hip-hop culture made more contributions to the global world than Marsalis and other black music genres. Hip-hop is the right message at the right time, but hip-hop is beautiful and straightforward to be accepted by the masses.

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