Popular Public Resistance
Hip-Hop Culture’s Instrumental Role in Challenging Neoliberal Hegemony and Globalization
Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Kent State University Symposium on Democracy
You know . . . hip-hop is a reality that transcends the boundaries of the world of music and exists as itself on this planet. It is a culture, a movement, a nation. Where we smoke ’till we’re numb and kill niggas for recreation. We the dick-grabbers, the all about the money no sellout paradox perpetrators who put the high in high fashion and keep our street clothes matchin’. Hip-hop: the ones who take the weight and address the black youth in their current mind state. Mind you . . . Find you, findin’ us no more misogynistic and violent than the society we are born into. Hip-hop is the quality of a feeling at a particular time. It’s a frame of mind. It’s a mood: the prevailing emotional tone of black youth today. Mood music: a lush arrangement of popular sounds to induce a mood of relaxation. See to me hearin’ emcees rock over beats that shit is soothin’. The current state of hip-hop is stagnant and not movin’. So stop it mothafuckas! There’s more to life than companies deciding what’s the latest topic you suckas. We’re killing each other and we’re poisoning the seeds before they grow. Destroy my seed and you’ve gotta go. I’m Talib Kweli and we livin’ this shit, changin’ the mood of the entire industry.1 (emphasis mine)
Introduction: Hegemony and Hip-Hop
The opening quote exemplifies four critical characteristics of hip-hop culture, they are: (1) its transcendental cultural space, “nation”; (2) its inherent contradictions, “paradox perpetrators”; (3) its representation of the marginalized, “black youth”; and (4) its resistance to mainstream, “industry” representations of the culture. Each of these characteristics is a derivative of the neoliberal hegemonic function. Free-market capitalism has “commodified”2 and “co-opted”3 hip-hop culture (although not completely as we shall see later) and this creates fragmentation of thought and contradiction in action. However, in dialectical reaction there are organic countermovements that are resistant and “antithetical” to the hegemonies that oppress them.4 The process of globalization has stretched and deepened hip-hop’s predominance, allowing its cultural influence to transcend the boundaries of race, class, gender, religion, and region. In doing so, voice is often given to the voiceless. Therefore, hip-hop culture could serve as a conduit for electric and eclectic resistance from below, a key factor in challenging globalization from above.
To fully explore all the nuances of hip-hop as resistance, this paper will first discuss three theories of resistance: countermovements, counterhegemony, and infrapolitics.5 Countermovements explain why and what people resist (with some how, as well) and counterhegemony and infrapolitics explain how people resist. These three theories account for the ideal type outputs of the resistance matrix, whose inputs are: undeclared or declared, singular or collective, unorganized or organized, and reformist or revolutionary. The various outputs of the resistance matrix are resisting neoliberal ideological domination because it produces a system of norms, values, meanings, and identities that promote non-egalitarian economic, political, and social interests. Hip-hop culture, because of its historic and organic antithetical nature, indirect critiques of neoliberal globalization, supranational coherence, diverse body of agents, and deep and wide range of engaged resistance strategies, is a critical contributor to resistance from below to top-heavy neoliberal globalization.
By photographing hip-hop culture through the theoretical lenses of the Polanyi-Gramsci-Scott triad and contrasting their negatives to the ideological pictures of neoliberal globalization, hip-hop’s counterhegemonic image is brought to the forefront. Hip-hop culture performs an instrumental role in challenging the hegemony of neoliberal ideology, and thus globalization, through a variety of forms of resistance that carve dissident cultural enclaves. These hidden enclaves of resistance are a viable forum for the formulation, elaboration, and dissemination of a counterhegemonic consciousness and culture, which is a prerequisite for any solidified and sustained form of resistance (countermovements, wars of position, and wars of movement).
The Theoretical Trio: Polanyi, Gramsci, and Scott
Three theorists of resistance, Karl Polanyi, Antonio Gramsci, and James C. Scott,6 each examined resistance from a different level of analysis, which consequentially bestows each theory with unique insight into various components of the inner mechanisms of resistance. Polanyi, a socialist with an institutional perspective, focuses his analysis on the resistance to the material effects of free market ideology at the international level. His assessment of the gold standard leads him to the conclusion that deepening the embeddedness of the self-regulating market will automatically cause society to spawn institutions that place social control over the market. Gramsci, a devout Marxist with a constructivist twist, focuses on resistance at the national level. He felt that the inherent contradictions of capitalism, both moral and material, would give rise to bottom-up movements led by “organic intellectuals” that would take control of the state in the interests of the subaltern. Scott, a neo-Marxist who believes in the primacy of historical materialism, focuses his attention on the individual level and undeclared forms of resistance. Scott’s analysis suggests that “everyday forms of resistance” are an essential form of resistance because they create “a culture, a movement, a nation” of resistance that allows the subordinates to remain active revolutionaries asserting control over their material reality when there is no mass revolution.
To provide a further idea of from where each of these three theorists is coming, table 1 outlines the major differences between each of their respected notions of resistance. Each has a different focus and means of resistance, which enhances their ability to act as a holistic framework.
|
Table 1: Three Analyses of Resistance* |
||
|
Theorist |
Main Target |
Mode of Resistance |
|
Karl Polanyi |
Market forces (and their legitimation) |
Countermovements aimed at self-protection
|
|
Antonio Gramsci |
State apparatuses (understood as an instrument of education) |
Wars of movement and position |
|
James C. Scott |
Ideologies (public transcripts) |
Counterdiscourses |
*This table is a
superficial alteration of James H. Mittlelan, The Globalization Syndrome:
Transformation and Resistance (
Karl Polanyi’s Theory of Countermovements
Karl Polanyi’s concept of the double movement explains people’s reactions to the expansion of the self-regulating market and offers a conception of a declared, collective, organized, and reformist form of resistance. A double movement can be “personified as the action of two organizing principles in society, each of them setting itself specific institutional aims, having the support of definite social forces and using its own distinct methods.”7 Furthermore, countermovements uphold “the principle of social protection aiming at conservation of man and nature as well as productive organization, relying on varying support for those most immediately affected by the deleterious action of the market—primarily, but not exclusively, the working and landed class—and using protective legislation, restrictive associations, and other instruments of intervention as its methods.”8
Consequentially, countermovements produce alternative values and lifestyles.9 In the present historical context, the initial movement is global market liberalization led by the U.S.-dominated institutions of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization and the countermovement is for social control over the market, which can be seen in the international increase of right-wing nationalist and protectionist voice and the worldwide protest movement, whose main platforms are labor and the environment, against the aforementioned institutions.
Writing in the 1930s, Polanyi experienced economic, political, social, and environmental dynamics that parallel today’s great transformations. His institutional assessment of the strain caused by the “engulfed space and time” created by the self-regulating market, led him to believe that there were unsustainable disequilibriums in the relationships of market-and-man and market-and-nature.10 Hence, countermovements sought to move these relationships back to equilibrium. Theoretically framing this argument, Polanyi writes,
Our thesis is that the idea of the self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness. Inevitably, society took measures to protect itself, but whatever measures it took impaired the self-regulation of the market, disorganized industrial life, and thus endangered society in yet another way. It was this dilemma which forced the development of the market system into a definite groove and finally disrupted the social organization based upon it.11 (emphasis mine)
To illustrate this, Polanyi used the case of the socio-politico-economic reactions to the embedding of the gold standard, which was theoretically in accordance with the ideals of the self-regulating market.
The gold standard was a double-edged sword for nation states. On one side of it, they had the choice of being cut by international market forces, which would lead to economic fluctuations in exchange rates, inflation, and balance of payments that would cause political strain, which emanated from unstable prices, wages, and employment. On the other side, they had the choice of being cut by social forces, which would lead to protectionism and loss of the benefits that were accrued through international trade (such as investment, new markets, and benevolent interdependence). To get the best of both worlds, nation states began erecting trade barriers while building colonial empires. As a result, there were World War I and, eventually, World War II, which were also caused by the persistence of free-market ideology and the consequential international conditions. The conundrum of the conflicting interests of market forces and social forces spawned fascism. Fascism, for Polanyi, was a protective social construct because it sheltered society from the market by limiting human rights. The parallels between eras make Polanyi’s insights of great relevance and importance to today’s world.
Strictly adhering to the words of Polanyi, this form of resistance is an organized, declared, and collective action that attempts to reform existing structures. However, Polanyi’s framework has been expanded to incorporate “submerged networks,” which have no organizational structure. With regards to the function of these networks, Mittelman writes,
Participants in submerged networks live their everyday lives mostly without engaging in openly declared contestations: “They question definition of codes, nomination of reality. They don’t ask, they offer. They offer by their own existence other ways of defining meaning of individual and collective action. They act as new media: they enlighten what the system doesn’t say of itself, the amounts of silence, violence, irrationality which is always hidden in dominant codes.” 12
Like their more defined counterparts, submerged networks produce new values and lifestyles.
As stated earlier, all these forms of resistance are reacting to the effects of an increasingly unchecked market, but in different ways. Countermovements are declared, collective, organized, and reformist reactions to the free-market (note that submerged networks are all these things, but only at times and in varying combinations). Counterhegemony is declared, collective, organized, and revolutionary resistance to unfettered capitalism. Infrapolitics are undeclared, singular or collective, unorganized or organized, and reformist or revolutionary forms of resistance to the invisible hand of greed. Thus, the common theme throughout these three theories of resistance is the double movement. Thereby, the theories of Gramsci and Scott can be seen as two alternative strategies of the countermovement.
Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Counterhegemony
The concept of hegemony of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci is based on the primacy of ideology as a form of culture and the dynamic relationship between the state and civil society. The historically prestigious, because of its structural position, dominant group in a given time and space molds an ideology (a manufactured system of norms, values, meanings, and identities that create a simplified, yet coherent conception of what constitutes “reality”) that reflects its interests. This is then disseminated to the masses through the institutions of state (such as law, military, and education) and civil society (such as the church, media, and nongovernmental organizations). If this force is convincing enough, it will create “spontaneous consent.”13 This allows for the easy and peaceful perpetuation of a given dominant-subordinate relationship. Integral to this lived process is the noninvolved involvement of the subordinate group. This noninvolved involvement or spontaneous consent is a derivative of “common sense.” Gramsci writes,
The philosophy of common sense, which is the “philosophy of non-philosophers,” or in other words the conception of the world which is uncritically absorbed by the various social and cultural environments in which moral individuality of the average man is developed. Common sense is not a single unique conception, identical in time and space. It is the “folklore” of philosophy, and, like folklore it takes countless different forms. Its most fundamental characteristic is that it is a conception which, even in the brain of one individual, is fragmentary, incoherent and inconsequential, in conformity with the social and cultural position of those masses whose philosophy it is.14
Thus, common sense acts dynamically in the realm of morality, and ideology creates contradiction between a member of the subaltern’s structural position and “habitus.”15 In other words, the individual’s identity is fragmented, meaning he or she belongs “simultaneously to a multiplicity of mass human groups.”16 A more important consequence is that “consciousness and insight are confounded” causing members of the subaltern to unknowingly act in ways that perpetuated their subordinate position.17 Gramsci saw the continued development of the “theoretical syndicalism” of “economism,” “laissez-faire liberalism [as] a political programme,” as leading to further ontological fragmentation.18 Also working on the side of hegemony is the force of “transformismo,” or co-option.19 This process “was used by Gramsci to refer to the convergence of alternative programmes until there ceased to be any substantive difference between them.”20 In “moments of crisis of command and direction when spontaneous consent has failed,” the state can employ forms of open coercion.21
Through the use of the above tactics, a sustained hegemony creates a “historical bloc,” which is a longstanding “unity between nature and spirit (structure and superstructure), unity of opposites and of distincts.”22 Thereby, under a historical bloc there are long periods of time in which there is no perceived contradiction between the means and relations of production by the philosophers of common sense. Hegemonic historical blocs are, therefore, multiple linked identities that form a homogenous mass because of common sense.23 Once a historical bloc is formed, it is very difficult to counter its “self-sustaining momentum” and inherent inertia.24 Despite the strength of this moral force its ethical domination is never complete. Absolute hegemony is impossible because the inherent contradictions of capitalism foster many states of being.
To understand how hegemony was countered Gramsci developed the concept of the “organic intellectual.”25 Organic intellectuals could potentially be anyone. They are individuals who critically understand the hegemony of their situation and are willing to take a leadership role in bringing this understanding to the masses by encouraging “people to think in self-reflexive and critical ways . . . in which critique is the first step in the movement toward social change.”26 This would entail constructing a coherent counterhegemonic theory and then applying it in accordance with the “philosophy of praxis.”27 The philosophy of praxis is “consciously chosen, transformative activity grounded in and reflective of a particular worldview. Praxis implies a dynamic unity of theory with practice.”28 This ensures resistance will not have to “rely on any traditional or alien philosophy.”29 Thus, the goal of organic intellectuals is to take control of the state first morally and then materially.
For Gramsci, mass materialization of praxis can happen in two ways. The first is through “wars of position,” which can be interpreted as nonviolent actions that hinder the state (such as boycotts, protests, and demonstrations). The second is through “wars of movement,” which can be interpreted as frontal assaults on the state (such as strikes, “underground warfare,” and military action).30 Both forms of war are openly declared mass actions that embody a collective counterhegemonic consciousness whose imperative is to seize control of the state.31
Clearly Gramsci’s conception of resistance is declared, collective, organized, and revolutionary action, which focuses on how counterhegemonic consciousness is formed, the process and function of organic scholarship. This form of resistance is necessary if there is to be meaningful and lasting egalitarian change. However, theoretically it does not sufficiently account for the ways in which a counterhegemonic consciousness becomes a full-blown culture. The theory of infrapolitics fills this abyss of understanding through the study of public and hidden transcripts.
James C. Scott’s Theory of Infrapolitics
James C. Scott developed the idea of infrapolitics, or everyday forms of resistance, over the course of several books, culminating in his 1990 text, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Seeking to understand what “peasantry does ‘between revolts’ to defend its interests as best it can,” Scott examined “ordinary weapons of relatively powerless groups: foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage, and so forth.”32 These actions can be singular or collective, but they fall short of open defiance. The advantage of these subtle subversive activities is that they “require little or no coordination or planning.”33 In addition, the subordinate are able to avoid “rapid and ferocious response” (relative to open defiance) from the dominant because their actions “rarely accord any social significance.”34 However, “[m]ultiplied many thousandfold, such petty acts of resistance . . . may in the end make utter shambles of the policies dreamed up by their would-be superiors.”35 Studying the dynamic relationship between dominant and subordinate groups enlightens the intricacies of infrapolitics.
To navigate this tumultuous terrain Scott developed the concepts of “hidden transcripts” and “public transcripts.” Public transcripts are, “to put it crudely, the self-portrait of dominant elites as they would have themselves seen” as well as how they would have the subaltern seen.36 They are also the record of the dominant group’s actions. Hidden transcripts are the actions the subordinate group undertakes beyond the observation of the public transcript. The dynamics of these two transcripts enlightens “the internal politics of subaltern groups.”37
Internal politics explain “how domination shapes the form and content of what is hidden, and how the hidden transcript occasionally insinuates itself-disguised-into the public transcript.”38 This quote illustrates two crucial aspects of Scott’s work, they are: (1) that the perception of public transcripts profoundly influences the subordinate’s strategies of resistance; and (2) that hidden transcripts can be simultaneously public and private. The former concept is known as “ontological narratives,”39 which refers to the process of creating self-identity, the “messy reality of multiple identities.”40 This creates perceptions of the public and hidden transcripts that influence the “beliefs about the probability and severity of retaliation,” which in turn can either facilitate or mitigate resistance activities.41 The latter concept is what Scott referred to as the “manufacture of consent,” which means hidden transcripts are encoded and only those who share the same or similar body of organic knowledge can decipher them.42 Thereby, resistance is present, but not in the eyes of the dominant. This illusion of consent “provides a convenient cover for subordinate groups to create a space for resistance and the development of alternative world views.”43 In other words, because marginalized groups are afflicted with the same structural diseases, they share a similar sense of being, which creates a members-only database of organic knowledge that in conjunction with infrapolitical activity bonds and insulates the group. This social cohesion allows for the formation of alternative subcultures and cultures that have their own distinct ways of knowing and being. Thus, these small subtle acts continuously and cumulatively promote, in the long run, significant movement toward meaningful manifestations of change.
One example that Scott uses, which has clear parallels to hip-hop is “rituals of reversal.”44 Enlightening the infrapolitics at carnival, Scott writes,
For our purpose, what is most interesting about carnival is the way it allows certain things to be said, certain forms of social power to be exercised that are muted or suppressed outside this ritual sphere. The anonymity of the setting, for example, allows the social sanctions of the small community normally exercised through gossip to assume a more full-throated voice. Among other things, carnival is “the people’s informal courtroom” in which biting songs and scolding verses can be sung directly to the disrespected and malefactors. The young can scold the old, women can ridicule men, cuckholded or henpecked husbands may be openly mocked, the bad-tempered and stingy can be satirized, muted personal vendettas and factional strife can be expressed. Disapproval that would be dangerous or socially costly to vent at other times is sanctioned during carnival. It is the time and place to settle, verbally at least, personal and social scores.45
This goes against the popular conception that “carnival emphasizes the spirit of physical abandon, its celebration of the body through dance, gluttony, open sexuality, and general immodesty.”46 Clearly, the hidden transcripts of resistance in cultural expressions are several layers behind that of surface appearance.
Three as One: A Theoretical Framework
Taken as a holistic collage these three theories account for all the ideal type outputs of the resistance matrix. Inputting any variable into this theoretical equation will accurately calculate the resistance weight of that variable relative to hegemony. In other words, the potential for something to effectively challenge hegemony is assessed. The more combinations of resistance an entity engages in, the better its chances for contesting hegemony. Solid foundations of infrapolitical activity allow for the building of a stable and secure counterhegemonic structure in which an organic double movement finally has sufficient room to grow into maturity (its roots, trunk, branches, and leaves permeate and interact with the world’s soil, its source of growth. With this resistance framework constructed, the next point of inquiry will conceptualize the current hegemonic project.
Resistance to What? Globalization versus Globalism
Although there is a debate about whether “globalization” is historically unique or even exists, it is accepted by many scholars and people that there is a force compressing time and space and stretching and deepening global interconnections. For Steger, this force is the hegemonic neoliberal ideology; and “globalism” is the term he uses to describe the neoliberal variant of globalization.47 Ideology is a manufactured system of shared norms, values, meanings, and identities that create a coherent conception of what constitutes “reality.” It creates the common sense and spontaneous consent that are necessary for the easy and peaceful perpetuation of the neoliberal modes of production. However, globalization, the process, could potentially take a variety of different forms.
Steger applies a rhetorical analysis to a survey of predominantly current literature to contend that globalism has five essential ideological presuppositions (“claims”). The first is that, “globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of markets.”48 This is the central claim from which the remaining four claims are derived. Its basic premise is that the market should be free and uninhibited by the inefficiencies caused by government intervention. The acceptance of this claim by the population creates the conception that globalism is the best and, possibly, only form of globalization. The second claim is that “globalization is inevitable and irreversible.”49 This claim strips people of their human agency and lulls them into complacence, even if they see problems. The third claim is that “nobody is in charge of globalization.”50 Thus, even if a person sees there are problems and wants to effect change there is no one that can be held responsible. The fourth claim is that “globalization benefits everyone.”51 This claim causes people to feel that even if there are some problems, globalism is mostly beneficial; thus, it does not need to be critically examined or changed. Finally, the fifth claim is that, “globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world.”52 This claim, once again, puts an unfounded positive spin on globalism allowing for its continued expansion. Steger uses a variety of contemporary authors, including Milton Friedman, Francis Fukuyama, Bill Clinton, and Thomas Friedman, to illustrate these claims; however, it is important to show that this ideology constitutes a hegemonic historical bloc.
The grandfather of liberal thought and a well-to-do scholar, Adam Smith was what Gramsci would have called a “traditional intellectual” because he promoted the theoretical syndicalism of economism.53 Smith’s historic text, The Wealth of Nations (1776), embodies ideological claims similar to those noted by Steger for globalism. For Smith, the division of labor facilitates efficiency, which is beneficial for society as a whole (claim 4).54 This igneous specialization of labor and its benefits are only limited by “the extent of the market” (claim 1).55 The spontaneous materialization of markets arises from people’s natural “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange” (claim 2).56 Once a market is formed goods and services are efficiently allocated “by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention” (claim 3).57 In addition to objectively and efficiently allocating resources, markets are also conducive to the spread of “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty” (claim 5).58 Given the historical and contemporary prominence of globalism’s ideological presuppositions it can be seen that liberal tradition constitutes a hegemonic historical bloc that produces a specific common sense, which serves the interests of “those groups in society who benefit the most from the liberalization of the economy, the privatization of ownership, a minimal regulatory role for government, efficient returns on capital, and the devolution of power to the private sector.”59
Neoliberal hegemony is intimately intertwined with the spontaneous consent these ideological constructs create. Thus, any ideological challenger must combat these claims. Having established a theoretical framework for resistance and identified what needs to be resisted, the argument will be made that hip-hop culture is organically cultivating resistance to globalism.
Can Hip-Hop Be Resistance? Characteristics of Hip-Hop’s Resistance
One of Mittelman’s conclusions is that “resistance movements shape and are constitutive of cultural processes.”60 Assuming this is valid, the question then becomes, what culture or subculture has the predominance to combat globalism? Hip-hop as the most local and global subculture in the world has sufficient breadth and depth to be counterhegemonic. It is the most local in that it is adapted by a variety of cultures. It not only incorporates the sounds of a given culture (in the form of samples), but also it assimilates the culture itself. As Rakaa Iriscience from Dilated Peoples puts it, “I’ve seen many lands and tasted the best crop, I’ve witnessed many cultures expressed through hip-hop.”61 Hip-hop is the most global subculture in that various representations of the culture have manifested themselves on every corner of the earth.62
The history of hip-hop can be
traced back to
Slaves in America continued this tradition in the form of spirituals, which were a form of resistance.66 Blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, and funk can all be linked to hip-hop as well.67 Thus, similar forms of culture and resistance have a meaningful and rich historical context. This compounded by the contemporary context described in the previous paragraph increases the effectiveness of hip-hop culture’s counterhegemonic project.
Most observers see hip-hop as a reactionary force because it glorifies materialism, violence, misogyny, and drug use; and it is true that these are aspects of the culture. However, hegemony is always at work and many fail to see what is behind these commodified and co-opted images and stereotypes. Part of the hegemonic process is assimilating parts of the subordinate group for the purpose of spontaneous consent. Simultaneously, the subordinate group adapts parts of the dominant group, thus their history and identity is “fragmented and episodic.”68 It should be noted that levels of both commodification and co-option vary from case to case. This would explain the appearance of agents in hip-hop culture that (seemingly) personify popular conceptions as well as antithetical agents. Our attention here is on the former of these two agents.
Much of hip-hop’s discourse directly correlates the conditions of dominant being with the conditions of subordinate being. A well-known and early example—a classic, if you will—of such text would be Grandmaster Flash’s song “The Message” (1982); a more contemporary example would be Nas’s track “Life’s a Bitch” (1994), which features AZ. These messages and their countless counterparts portray grim portraits of “reality” that depict “the confrontation of a world without illusions with the wretched illusions of the ‘heart,’ it is the confrontation of the real world with the melodramatic world, the dramatic access to the consciousness that destroys the myths of the melodrama.”69 What he is saying is that oppressed people are products of dominant culture and they adapt the worst aspects of the dominant culture. In doing so hip-hop artists are implicitly blaming the hip-hop community’s current condition on American society, which is controlled by a specific group of people, the “industry,” who have self-serving interests. America has with little doubt committed many human rights violations in “the violent process of state consolidation” and expansion including, but certainly not limited to, the use of brute coercive power and the oppression of women.70 These are things that the hegemonic project downplays or distorts to maintain a feeling of acquiescence, although they are, in varying degrees, perceived. Knowing, consciously or unconsciously, that these things are part of the dominant culture makes the subalterns adopt it into their lifestyles. This strange combination of acceptance and rejection can be read as resistance because the actors are exposing flaws in the hegemonic order by dramatically acting them out and then saying it is not our fault we are this way, it is your fault because you created and perpetuated asymmetrical power structures that nurture such states of being. Thus, they are explicitly challenging claims three through five and are implicitly contesting claims one and two. This is a common, although varying, feature of both co-opted and non-co-opted agents of hip-hop. In addition to this subtle resistance, there are other wars of position being waged in, a highly commodified and co-opted representation of the hip-hop culture, gangsta rap.
As Robin D. G. Kelley notes, “In some ways, the descriptive narratives [gangsta rap], under the guise of ‘objective street journalism,’ are no less polemical (hence political) than nineteenth century slave narratives in defense of abolition.”71 After making a case for how the subtle resistance discussed in the previous paragraph manifests itself in gangsta rap, she illustrates a more tangible example of lyrical resistance. She writes, “Oppression of this kind of marking [appearance-based profiling], which in effect is a battle for the right to free expression and unfettered mobility in public spaces, has been a central subtheme in gangsta rap’s discursive wars of position against police repression.”72 This discussion vividly illustrates that there is more to hip-hop than meets the eyes. Thus, an essential characteristic of hip-hop culture is that even when it is commodified and co-opted it is never absolute, an inherent characteristic of hegemony itself.
In a dialectical reaction to commercial rap there is a countermovement of submerged independent networks. The participants of these networks embody and move beyond the struggle of gangsta rap. However, at this juncture, it is sufficient to note that they exist, for the main purpose of this section was to show the layered nature of hip-hop as resistance. The reasons for hip-hop’s resistance are rooted in the idea of the free market and its material consequences.
Why Are They Resisting? Forms and Sources of Hip-Hop’s Resistance
The forms of oppression affecting the hip-hop community are varied, but the essential problem is the lack of structural power (economic, political, and social). This can be seen in the interrelation of the problems associated with liberalization, hypercompetition, urbanization (in some cases sub- or de-), migration, social inequality, and poverty. Kelley illustrates hip-hop’s connection to the deleterious side effects of neoliberal globalization when she writes,
We
cannot ignore the ties of West Coast gangsta rap to the streets of
On the East Coast a similar case can be seen in Manhattan’s lower east side.74 Stories of uneven top-down development are echoed throughout urban America as well as the world (the stage changed, but the actors and play remained the same). If the three controversial and new economic theories of endogenous growth, new economic geography, and strategic trade theory, which “emphasize the importance of oligopolistic competition, economies of scale, and technological innovation, and . . . incorporate historical processes, institutions, and special relations,” presented by Robert Gilpin are accurate descriptors of the international economic order and if America is willing to play the appropriate (as defined by Gilpin, a state-centric realist) hegemonic role, it is highly probable that such asymmetrical trends will be persistent.75 This illustrates how globalization has intensified and may continue to intensify old problems. The actors still want just access to structural power, which they feel should promote equity before growth. As such, they adopt strategies that are both “inward” (asserting local control) and “outward” (attacking external control).76 The applications of these general strategies take form in a diverse spectrum of sites.
Where Are They Resisting? Sites of Hip-Hop’s Resistance
Many hip-hop agents cite 1974 as the year it all began. Despite being a relatively new culture, hip-hop has found homes all around the globe.77 Often, it resides in urban ghettos or other marginalized communities. This can be seen in the case of French hip-hop (France is the second largest consumer and producer of hip-hop). In France, “hip-hop has emerged as the voice of France’s impoverished African and Arab minorities, expressing the rage and alienation of life in housing projects in an era of welfare retrenchment and rising anti-immigrant sentiment.”78 French artists confront and challenge many of the same things as U.S. artists (such as racism, police repression, lack of structural power, and poverty). However, it is interesting to note that the French hip-hop community seems to have more international awareness than their American counterparts. This can be explained by the fact that these actors occupy a different space, but the same time; the formation of the European Union makes international issues more predominant in their lives. Thus, their organic scholarship has a slightly different emphasis. IAM (Imperial Asiatic Men), a prominent and often overtly political French hip-hop group, in their songs directly correlate the prosperity of the North to the disparity and dependency of the South, which they see as a legacy of colonial socio-politico-economic relationships.79 Once again, globalism’s third, fourth, and fifth claims are explicitly challenged and claims one and two are being implicitly contested. Thus, hip-hop’s resistance potential can be found both nationally and internationally. There are a variety of sites where these cultural expressions manifest form.
At an individual level there is infrapolitical resistance that takes place in marginalized communities and at concerts, clubs, and bars. National venues for wars of position and networking include commercial audio and audiovisual recordings, television, radio, summits, competitions, seminars, and nongovernmental organizations. Internationally there is the Internet. There, of course, is dynamic overlap among all three of these levels. The globalization of Western culture and economy is spreading the influence of hip-hop at a tremendous rate, thereby disseminating, at the very least, organic human agency, the potential catalysis for the mass promotion of self-reflexive thought. In doing so, globalism is sowing the ideological seeds of its own restructuring.
Who Is Resisting? The Agents of Hip-Hop’s Resistance
Hip-hop culture is composed of four main elements: disc jockeying, break-dancing, graffiti writing, and emceeing. In a strict sense, the agents of hip-hop are those who participate in one or more of these elements. However, the hip-hop community is also comprised of fans. In the United States “whites purchase roughly 60% of hip-hop records” and many of these consumers live in middle-class suburbia.80 Hip-hop culture transcends the boundaries of race, class, gender, religion, and region. Thereby, the base of hip-hop agents is very diverse. There are organic intellectuals of varying degrees in the hip-hop community, who are at the very least exposing people to the subtle forms of resistance and wars of position discussed in the fourth section of this essay. The significance of this can be seen when Gramsci writes,
Critical
understanding of the self takes place therefore through a struggle of political
“hegemonies” and of opposing directions, first in the ethical and then in the
political proper, in order to arrive at the working out at a higher level of
one’s conception of reality. Consciousness of being part of a hegemonic force
(that is to say political consciousness) is the first stage towards progressive
self-consciousness in which theory and practice will finally be one. Thus the
unity of theory and practice is not just a matter of mechanical fact, but part
of a historical process, whose elementary and primitive phase is to be found in
the sense of being “different” and “apart,” in an instinctive feeling of
independence, and which progresses to the level of real possession of a single
and coherent conception of the world.81
Whether or not the agents of hip-hop intend to be role models, their influence is very prominent in youth culture.82 More significantly, they are prominent antithetical role models who encourage the understanding of organic theory and the philosophy of praxis. Implicit in this is the promotion of progressive self-consciousness, which, as Gramsci acknowledged, is the critical first step toward countering the forces of hegemony. Exhibiting a clear conception of hegemony, Chuck D., front man for Public Enemy, writes,
Hollywood’s dishonesty, distortions, myths, and misconceptions about black people as nothing but watermelon stealin’, chicken eatin’, knee knockin’, eye poppin’, lazy, crazy, dancin’, submissive, “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks,” ever since D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915), all the way up to the 1950s—which is a forty-year period of straight up lies, propaganda, derogatory images, and bullshit—have been spread across not only the United States, but the entire world. That has had a major effect, not only on how society looks at us, but how we look at ourselves. A lot of Blacks in Hollywood right now are controlled by certain foolish stereotypes that they feel they must perpetuate in order to be accepted and keep steady work.83
He later notes that “without a knowledge of the past, not just the slave past, people around the world will continue to hold a warped and negative view of Black people in any country.”84 Such conscious arousing organic messages are also disseminated when Chuck emcees (he has been one of hip-hop’s more predominant agents since the 1980s).
Although dominated by males, women have also found critical voice though hip-hip and have been able to coherently convey a variety of radical feminist critiques to their audience. Furthermore, as Cheryl L. Keyes insightfully points out,
Female rappers have attained a sense of distinction through revising and reclaiming Black women’s history and perceived destiny. They use their performances as platforms to refute, deconstruct, and reconstruct alternative visions of their identity. With this platform, rap music becomes a vehicle by which Black female rappers seek empowerment, make choices, and create spaces for themselves and other sistas.85
Some contemporary examples would include Mystic, Bahamadia, and Jean Grae.
Thus, hip-hop’s resistance acts on all levels—individual, national, and international. Once the abduction (a flash of moral insight or consciousness, a realization bringing previously out of phase realities in to coherence) of critical self-understanding occurs, a variety of strategies of resistance can be engaged in by the agents of hip-hop.
How Are They Resisting? Hip-Hop’s Strategies of Resistance
The examination of strategies of resistance will begin by discussing the most open and aggressive forms of resistance and then progressively move down the intensity scale (which is inversely correlated to the significance scale). Although hip-hop does not autonomously conduct wars of movement, it does contribute to them. Recall the lengthy conversation three sections back about postindustrial Los Angeles and its connection to gangsta rap, which is resistance. With that in mind, now think about the condition in Los Angeles that followed the April 29, 1992, acquittal of the police officers who “restrained” (beat) Rodney King. This “riot” (a hegemonic rhetorical conception) was not a series of random acts of violence caused by a single event; it was a rebellion with historical awareness that was triggered by the blatant sanctioning of state coercive power. The long-standing oppositional relationship between the hip-hop community and the police is very evident. NWA’s album, Straight Outta Compton, which contained the widely publicized song “Fuck tha Police,” was released in 1988.86 These discursive wars of position against police repression are not only coming from the people who live in the environment where the rebellion happened but also reflecting sentiments of and disseminating sentiments to the mass population. It is in this dynamic that hip-hop has manifested itself as wars of movement.
Most hip-hop albums contain subtle wars of position, but benefit concerts and albums are examples of blatant wars of position. Recently, there have been two notable benefit actions. The first was a compilation album for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, The Unbound Project Volume 1.87 This album was released by A Realized Music Production, which is a label that was founded by an antithetical white male. The label’s sole purpose is to produce socially conscious hip-hop in the form of benefit albums, with hopes of expanding into other actions (that is, concerts). The second was a compilation album and tour both titled No More Prisons. This action was designed by the Prison Moratorium Project “to recruit and train prison activists.”88 There are also numerous subtly political independent compilations that run contrary to their commercial counterparts (with symbolic titles like Defenders of the Underworld, Below the Surface, Declaration of an Independent, Music for the Advancement of Hip Hop, and Stray from the Pack). Wars of position for access to public space and structural power are also played out in dissident dress, dance, and sound. Dressing in hip-hop attire (Timberland boots, sagged and baggy Fubu jeans, Pele-Pele shirts, and so forth), dancing in an associated fashion (break-dancing, popping, sexually suggestive, and so forth), or listening to a particular arrangement of sounds and words (loud, bass heavy, explicit, and so forth) arouse negative common sense connotations for many people, including police officers. Dress, attitude, and nature of music are all part of discrimination by the general population and police profiling. The continued usage of these styles suggests such agents are willing to take a stand against or, at least, not back down to hegemonic power structures and state-sanctioned coercion.
Like the example of No More Prisons, there are networks forming between activist groups and artists. The sole purpose of the Refuse and Resist Artists Network, a subsection of a national organization, is to coordinate politics and art. In the Los Angeles area, where they are headquartered, there have been numerous benefit concerts by acts like Rage Against the Machine, Living Legends, Ozomatli, Jurassic 5, Aceyalone, Abstract Rude, and DJ Drez, to name but a few. Other forums for the formation and elaboration of submerged networks would be DJ competitions, emcee battles, b-boy summits, and trade conventions.
Another strategy of resistance in hip-hop culture is the formation of submerged networks and submerged independent networks. These networks are instrumental in the production, promotion, and distribution of products, especially for those outside of the of the commercial music industry. The mobilizing capacity of these networks can be found in “the strength of weak ties,” which can be mapped, in a methodologically sound fashion, by analyzing the featured artists on a given artist’s album.89 Strong ties would be indicated by the featured artists themselves and weak ties would be indicated by cultural intermediaries affiliated with the featured artists, but not directly linked to the given artist (a detailed mapping will not be conducted because it is beyond the scope of this paper). A dense submerged network is evidence by, Wu-Tang Clan member, RZA’s album The World According to RZA.90 With regards to this endeavor, the official web-site of the Wu-Tang Clan states,
The World According To RZA was recorded in Milan, Italy and London. The album will feature top European artists like IAM and Saian Supacrew from France, Dido from the United Kingdom, Petter from Sweden, Xavier Nadoo from Germany as well as U.S. hip hop and R&B greats like Method Man, Nas, Lauryn Hill among others.
RZA wants to show what European artist are saying musically and lyrically with this album. Overall he wants to show the unity in Hip Hop worldwide.91
An example of a submerged independent network is well illustrated by Cincinnati artist Main Flow’s symbolically titled album Hip-Hopulation.92 The album features Planet Asia (member of Skhool Yard, Los Angeles), Black Thought (member of the Roots and Fifth Dynasty Crew, Philadelphia), Talib Kweli (member of Black Star and Reflection Eternal, New York), Defari (member of the Likwit Crew, Los Angeles), Mikah 9 (member of the Freestyle Fellowship and Project Blowed, Los Angeles), 7L and Esoteric (members of the Army of the Pharaohs, Boston), Mystro (U.K.), SoulStice (Chicago), Donte (member of Mood and Wanna Battle, Cincinnati), and Killah Priest (Wu-Tang Clan affiliate, New York). These examples also show the interconnection of submerged networks and submerged independent networks. The two networks are connected through the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA is a clan member and Killah Priest is a close affiliate. Thus, assuming no direct connections, Main Flow all the featured artists on his album and RZA and all the featured artists on his album are linked via weak ties via Killah Priest’s strong ties to RZA and Main Flow; thereby, the social capital (the quotient of “field” and “space” sensitive perceptions of a given program’s coherence of theory and praxis and absence or presence of moral and material contradictions, material weighted heavier, that yields authenticity and legitimacy) of each of the artists can be efficiently allocated in these networked markets in the process of cultural production.93 Furthermore, such a fiber-optic fabric facilitates the fluid flow of mind. Although only roughly sketched, the dynamic density of the multi-plainer webs woven in these examples is illustrative of the mobilization capacities of hip-hop networks.
In the face of general discrimination and police repression, it is no wonder that the agents of hip-hop often engage in disguised forms of resistance. The hidden transcripts of hip-hop tune us into the roles played by gossip, slander, graffiti, and the formation of dissident subcultures. The dislike for or distrust of police and politicians permeates the hip-hop community, and there is no doubt that gossip and slander circulate about political corruption and the resulting economic and social injustices and how this perpetuates their marginalized condition (e.g., the use of encoded terms like “pig,” “the man,” “ghetto Gestapo,” “the beast,” “Babylon,” “the system,” or “the illuminati” to refer to police or the powers that be). The most pronounced infrapolitical activity undertaken by the hip-hop culture is graffiti. This action directly defies the state, forces the state to allocate resources, and is sometimes overtly political. Susan A. Phillips enlightens some of the intricacies of graffiti’s infrapolitics when she writes,
Communities that produce graffiti . . . may target cryptic messages toward their own closed community, producing a seemingly confusing and unreadable product. . . . This type of graffiti is geared toward people who already understand the messages and may act to enhance group solidarity. . . . If a community’s ideological focus is geared toward the larger society or the politics of the larger state, graffiti messages usually lack cryptic symbolism, make use of the national language, and retain a more straightforward aesthetic style.
. . . [Political graffiti] may represent the work of unrecognized or underground political groups, radical student movements, or simply dissatisfied individuals. . . . [It] may also arise from sudden emergency situations (for example, riots) or in response to concurrent political legislation and party politics . . . the groups that produce this type of graffiti generally comprise some “subcultural” elements and may make wide use of symbols to further internally relevant quests for power and solidarity.94
Two examples from Seattle are throw-ups (hastily done two-color outline and fill) that read “Kill Your TV” and “Viva La Revolucion.” There are others that depict civil and human rights leaders, communist leaders, revolutionary musicians, and the general distress of oppressed and marginalized life.95 The effectiveness of graffiti in spreading messages and impairing state functions is well documented.96 Like other infrapolitical activities, the safety of the participants is based on their “anonymity,” although they do use noms de plume that police graffiti squads record and track.97
To explain the formation of dissident subcultures, Scott talks about “communities of fate.” These are groups of people who share similar current conditions and that will, because of their structural position, share future progression or digression. On this subject Scott writes, “Communities of fate create ‘distinctive and unified subculture. They develop their own codes, myths, heroes, and social standards.’ The social site at which they develop a hidden transcript is itself uniform, cohesive, and bound by powerful mutual connections that hold competing discourses at arms length.”98
The shared organic base creates a space for the articulation of counterhegemonic ideologies and the formation of alternative culture with new codes, myths, heroes, and social standards; this can be seen in the abidance to the code of the streets (“don’t be a rat, canary, snitch,” and so forth), gangster and drug-dealer myths and heroes, and the dynamics of rhetorical connotation and grammar (evolutionary slang). Broadly framing these characteristics of hip-hop culture, Michael Shapiro writes,
The knowledge-implicated “structure of feeling” articulated in African-American musical forms is not contained within the U.S. The trajectory of African-American music—from blues through jazz to contemporary hip-hop—is understood by some as the music of a different nation. African-American music is associated not only with a domestic, U.S. diaspora but also with a geographically extensive movement of black bodies (and consequentially musical idioms) through the Atlantic Region. Despite the diaspora, however, there remains a coherent supranational dispersion of structures of feeling, constituting, what Paul Gilroy calls a “black Atlantic” with cultural forms that are “stereophonic, bilingual,” and “bifocal.”99 (emphasis mine)
Thus, hip-hop takes many resistance forms that hold great sway in large sections of society thereby making it a viable force for resisting globalism.
Summation of the Hip-Hop Supranation: The Overarching Message
Because of hip-hop culture’s inherent antithetical nature, critiques of the side effects of globalism, supranational coherence, diverse body of agents, and deep and wide resistance strategies, it is mounting significant resistance to globalism. From all this it is clear that hip-hop culture rejects the claims of globalism. Globalization should be about promoting egalitarian values not free-market ideals that exacerbate inequality (claims 1, 4, and 5). The current path of globalization can be altered because those who are in charge of it (stereotypically conceived as “rich white males”) can be changed or done away with (claims 2 and 3). The forces of globalism are stretching and deepening hip-hop culture’s influence and, thus, robust and dense ideological subtext thereby perpetuating what will ultimately contribute to its restructuring.
Conclusion: Tendencies and Possibilities of Hip-Hop’s Resistance
The above essay has shown that hip-hop can be resistance to globalism, its most significant contributions being its ability to promote progressive self-consciousness and carve dissident cultural enclaves, both of which are prerequisites for solidified forms of resistance that have the power to enact egalitarian structural change. The intrusion of antithetical agents into mainstream representations of hip-hop is increasing (some increasingly prominent artists would include Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Jurassic 5, Swollen Members, Blackalicious, Dead Prez, Ras Kass, Mystic, Eminen, Xzibit, the Roots, and Dilated Peoples) and there is constant growth in submerged independent networks, which would include the likes of Living Legends, Likwit Crew, Boot Camp Click, O.B.S., Anticon, 1200 Hobos, Rhyme Sayers Entertainment, Wanna Battle, Definitive Jux, Fat Beats, Project Blowed, and People’s Army. These trends indicate that hip-hop culture will continue to be predominant and that its nature is increasingly antithetical and autonomous. Given time, hip-hop culture in conjunction with other social forces could cultivate a fully formed program of praxis to counter neoliberal hegemony.
Having elaborated the resistance capacity, activity, and potentiality of hip-hop, what type of program of change is likely to come from it? Bakari Kitwana identifies the hip-hop generation’s political agenda as consisting of the issues of education, employment and workers’ rights, reparations, economic infrastructure for urban communities, poverty and disease, and anti-youth policy.101 These domestic issues are fairly obvious and could be easily abstracted by the reader. However, since globalism is global, what might be hip-hop’s international agenda? The issues of education, employment and workers’ rights, economic infrastructure, poverty, and disease are essentially the same domestically as they are globally, but they would have to be altered from below to fit each individual economic, political, and social situation. Hip-hop, as the most local and global culture, can facilitate these numerous adaptations. The issue of reparations fluidly extends to debt restructuring or cancellation and the issue of anti-youth policy can be extended to incorporate counterdependent sustainable development policies. We hope hip-hop culture will live up to its full potential and critically contribute to the hegemonic quest of a new more bottom-up ideology and approach to human development. So the next time you encounter a negative interpretation of hip-hop culture, remember the words of Boots from the Coup, “they ain’t scared of rap music, they scared of us.”102
The main title of this paper, “Popular Public Resistance,” was consciously conceived. Popular public resisters have two unique characteristics: (1) they command the respect of a powerful section of society; and (2) they are highly visible figures. The former characteristic allows the agent to effectively communicate counterhegemonic ideas to a receptive audience. The latter characteristic not only lends credence but also gives the agents more leeway in their available strategies because they are a harder target to, in the language of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterintelligence Program, “neutralize.” Hip-hop represents this force from below. Academia can act similarly from above. The work of people like Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West personify scholarship’s popular public resistance. There are instances where the two come together. Cornel West’s spoken word contribution to the No More Prisons album; Chuck D.’s use of his hip-hop predominance to do more scholarly activities like organizing movements, writing books, and lecturing; Project Blowed, an open-mic workshop in Los Angeles, was facilitated for some time by a local professor; Mumia Abu-Jamal is a respected organic scholar in the hip-hop community; and Mos Def and Talib Kweli have bought a progressive bookstore in their community, Brooklyn, New York, saving it from closure. These actions from above and below attacking globalism are building a climate of resistance, which is ideal for the organic cultivation of counterhegemonic entities. In closing, in the words of emcee MURS, “What is it called when the earth goes round? What is it called when consciousness is found? Revolution.”103
Notes
1. Mood, “Peddlers of Doom,” Doom (New York: Blunt Records, 1997), compact sound disc. Talib Kweli, recorded comments at the conclusion of the track.
2. Martin Mowforth and Ian Munt, Tourism and Sustainability: New Tourism in the Third World (New York: Routledge, 1998), 64–69.
3. Adam David Morton, “Mexico, Neoliberal Restructuring and the EZLN: A Neo-Gramscian Analysis,” in Globalization and the Politics of Resistance, ed. Barry K. Gills (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), 258.
4. Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, rev. ed. (New York: Vintage, 1981), 157–61.
5. Special thanks to Professor Michael Veseth and my father, Don Hibbard, and, of course, to a less direct degree, relevant University of Puget Sound faculty, friends, and family for their guidance, support, critique, and editing. Also please note that I transcribed all the lyrics in this paper, with the exceptions of Ras Kass, Mystic, and IAM. I have attempted to be as accurate as possible and to punctuate them in a manner that maintains their “artistic integrity”; however, there may be errors in or other interpretations of them.
6. This theoretical framework is based on James H. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and Resistance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 2000), 165–78.
7. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon, 2001), 138.
8. Ibid., 138–39.
9. Alberto Melucci, “The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Social Movements,” Social Research 52 (1985): 789–816. Qtd. in Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome, 171.
10. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 136.
11. Ibid., 3–4.
12. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome, 171.
13. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), 12.
14. Ibid., 419.
15. Mowforth and Munt, Tourism and Sustainability, 129–32.
16. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 324.
17. Dennis K. Mumby, “The Problem of Hegemony: Rereading Gramsci for Organizational Communications Studies,” Western Journal of Communication 61 (1997): 351.
18. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 158–68.
19. Ibid., 58.
20. Morton, “Mexico, Neoliberal Restructuring, and the EZLN,” 258.
21. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 12.
22. Ibid., 137.
23. Joseph P. Zompetti, “Toward a Gramscian Critical Rhetoric,” Western Journal of Communication 61 (1997): 73.
24. David Schweitzer, “Marxist Theories of Alienation and Reification: The Response to Capitalism, State Socialism and the Advent of Postmodernity,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 11 (1991). Available online at http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=309&VInst=PROD&VName=PQD&Type=PQD&Fmt=3&did=000000001123508&client Id=42799.
25. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 6.
26. Mumby, “Problem of Hegemony,” 346.
27. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 405.
28. Joel Kovel, “Dialect as Praxis,” Science and Society 62 (1998): 475.
29.Wolfgang Fritz Haug, “Rethinking Gramsci’s Philosophy of Praxis from One Century to the Next,” Boundary 2, no. 26 (1999): 106.
30. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 229.
31. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome, 167.
32. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1985), 29.
33. Ibid., 29.
34. Ibid., 33, 35.
35. Ibid., 35–36.
36. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1990), 18.
37. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome, 174.
38. Jerome M. Levi, “Hidden Transcripts among the Raramuri: Culture, Resistance, and Interethnic Relations in Northern Mexico,” American Ethnologist 26 (1999): 94.
39. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome, 173.
40. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 43.
41. Ibid., 35.
42. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 19.
43. Mumby, “Problem of Hegemony,” 363.
44. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 172.
45. Ibid., 173.
46. Ibid.
47. This section draws heavily from Manfred B. Steger, Globalism: The New Market Ideology (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 43–80.
48. Ibid., 47.
49. Ibid., 54.
50. Ibid., 61.
51. Ibid, 66.
52. Ibid., 79.
53. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 6.
54. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: Knopf, 1991), 4–7.
55. Ibid., 15.
56. Ibid., 12.
57. Ibid., 399.
58. Ibid, 620.
59. Steger, Globalism, 45.
60. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome, 165.
61. Dilated Peoples, “Eardrum Pop,” The Platform (Los Angeles, Calif.: Capitol Records, 2000), compact sound disc.
62. Tony Mitchell, ed., Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 2002).
63. Brent Wood, “Understanding Rap as Rhetorical Folk-Poetry,” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 32 (1999): 131.
64. Freestyle Fellowship, Inner City Griots (New York: 4th & Broadway, 1993), compact sound disc.
65. “Interview: M1 of Dead Prez,” ThaFormula. Available online at www.thaformula.com/M1%20Of%20dead%20prex_int.htm (accessed Oct. 10, 2002).
66. Kerran L. Sanger, “Slave Resistance and Rhetorical Self-Definition: Spirituals as a Strategy,” Western Journal of Communication 59 (1995): 177–92.
67. Wood, “Understanding Rap as Rhetorical Folk-Poetry,” 130–33.
68. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 54–55.
69. Althusser, Louis, For Marx (London, England: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1969), 134.
70. Michael Shapiro, “Social Science, Geophilosophy and Inequality,” International Studies Review 4 (2002): 25–45, 31.
71. Robin D. G. Kelley, “Kickin’ Reality, Kickin’ Ballistics: Gangsta Rap and Postindustrial Los Angeles,” in Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple Univ. Press, 1996), 121.
72. Ibid., 133.
73. Ibid., 122.
74. Christopher Mele, Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2000).
75. Robert Gilpin, Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 2001), 103–4.
76. Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome, 187.
77. Mitchell, Global Noise.
78. Hisham Aidi, “B-Boys in ‘Les Banlieues’: Hip Hop Culture in France.” Available online at http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/index_20000130.asp (accessed Oct. 5, 2004).
79. Ibid.
80. Alan Hughes, “Hip-Hop Economy,” Black Enterprise 32 (2002): 72.
81. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 333.
82. Andy Bennett, “Hip Hop am Main: The Localization of Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture,” Media Culture and Society 21 (1999): 77–91; Andreana Clay, “Keepin’ It Real: Black Youth, Hip-Hop Culture, and Black Identity,” American Behavioral Scientist 46 (2003): 1346–58.
83. Chuck D. and Yusaf Jah, Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality (New York: Delacorte, 1997), 52.
84. Ibid., 173.
85. Cheryl L. Keyes, “Empowering Self, Making Choices, Creating Spaces: Black Female Identity via Rap Music Performance,” Journal of American Folklore 113 (2000): 265.
86. Mystic, “The Life,” Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom (Los Angeles: GoodVibe, 2001), compact sound disc.
87. N. W. A., Straight Outta Compton (Hollywood, Calif.: Ruthless, 1988), compact sound disc.
88. Various artists, The Unbound Project Volume 1 (Los Angeles, Calif.: Realized Music, 2000), compact sound disc.
89. Johnny Temple, “Hip-Hop Politics on Campus,” The Nation 270 (2000): 16.
90. Mark S. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973): 1360–80; “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited,” Sociological Theory 1 (1983): 201–33.
91. RZA, The World According to RZA (London: EMI, 2003), sound recording.
92. The Official Web-Site of the Wu-Tang Clan, “News—The World According to RZA.” Available online at http://www.wutangcorp.com/news/getarticle/article/23 (accessed Oct. 12, 2004).
93. Main Flow, Hip-Hopulation (Boston, Mass.: Brick Records, 2004), sound recording.
94. Pierre Bourdieu, Practical Reason (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998): 138.
95. Susan A. Phillips, “Graffiti Definition: The Dictionary of Art,” Art Crimes: The Writings on the Walls. Available online at http://www.graffiti.org/faq/graf.def.html (accessed mar. 9, 2003).
96. Ibid. Also, if interested, of great metaphorical meaning, especially in light of this paper see the illustrations of Uncle Same wanting you to join his prison (of the mind) at http://www.graffiti.org/la/axissam.jpg.
97. Joe Austin, Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002); Amardo Rodriguez and Robin Patric Clair, “Graffiti as Communication: Explaining the Discursive Tensions of Anonymous Texts,” Southern Communication Journal 65 (1999): 1–15.
98. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 36.
99. Clark Kerr and Abraham Siegel, “The Inter-Industry Propensity to Strike: An International Comparison,” in Industrial Conflict, ed. Arthur Kornhauser (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954), 191. Qtd. in Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 135.
100. Shapiro, “Social Science, Geophilosophy, and Inequality,” 34.
101. Bakari Kitwana, The Hip-Hop
Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture (
102. The Coup, “Pork and Beef,” Party
Music (
103. MURS, “Dire Straits,” COMURSHUL (Oakland, Calif.: Veritech, 1996), sound cassette.
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