As reported by the Blaze in early March, Angel Aduwo, an editor at Oberlin College’s weekly Review, published a piece on Feb. 25 alleging that debates concerning the legitimacy of Rap as a musical genre were based on Racism and nothing more.
Rap is “accessible to just about anyone, anywhere in the world,” she declares proudly. It endorses “free-form creativity and individuality” without imposing any particular “rigid set of rules one must subscribe to.” Bias against it amongst White critics, she insists, is “rooted in racism and a distaste for black American expression, rather than any real discourse on the music itself.”
Ironically, her comments identified the very aspects of Rap which generally render it decadent if not pernicious. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I have been subjected over the years, through circumstances beyond my control, to hundreds of rap rants that in no way satisfied the basic requirements of music, that were utterly devoid of any creative ingenuity, indeed that were often morally offensive [i.e., racist, misogynistic, etc.]. Of course if there are no rules governing artistic expression, if venting one’s “individuality” unrestricted by formal criteria is what art is all about, if being “accessible” is the objective of all creative efforts, then Rap is perhaps worthy of our admiration.
Post Modernism is responsible for our current cultural climate. Decades ago Carl Andre defended the banality of his works with the proud declaration that their “form is equally accessible to all men.” In the same way Roland Barthes lamented that European culture “has never been vertical, never reached the depths of the masses.” Given such criteria, The Real Housewives of New Jersey would appear to be of greater artistic value than the plays of Shakespeare or the novels of Dostoevsky.
This is clearly absurd, as is Aduwo’s defense of Rap which literally abandons all meaningful criteria by which Art of any kind is judged. The Humanism which emerged from Ancient Greece and was reaffirmed by the philosophers of the Enlightenment, saw Man’s Mind as his fundamental redemptive faculty enabling him to get beyond the often irrational and destructive impulses of the Self to seek out the Truth with integrity, while at the same time, in the realm of the Arts, submitting his creative imagination to the conventions of his chosen genre. To the Formalist critics who were still prominent in my university years, the seamless fusion of Form with Substance was an inherent aspect of the creative process, a process which involved not just the mindless spewing of some emotion or insight but submission to the discipline of the genre in question.
Of course our cultural criteria have changed in the last two Centuries, what is considered acceptable in every realm of the Arts having radically evolved. Van Gogh might wonder what the hell Jackson Pollack was thinking. The restrictive rules of the sonnet have given way to free verse. Yet even as they defy conventions that may have seemed sacred 200 years ago, serious artists remain committed to the truth, however defined, as well as to the aesthetic impact of their work. Neither of these goals, it would seem, is of much interest to most Rap “artists.”
Aduwo’s celebration of “individuality” validates self-serving, self-indulgent drivel as worthy of artistic expression. If it is true for you, it must be worth saying. Is it my White Western bias or simply my nature as an Intelligent Being that leaves me utterly unimpressed? Is universal “accessibility” a measure of a work’s merit or of it’s failure to aspire to anything beyond the banal? Is Rap’s disdain for “rigid” rules a vehicle to some higher form of expression or merely a product of its creators’ refusal to submit to any form of discipline?
Throughout the Nineties, Black social activist C. DeLores Tucker railed against the self-indulgence and immorality implicit in much Rap, outraged by its impact on young Black Americans. Before his murder, ironically as a result of his “gangsta” connections, Tupac Shakur expressed his disdain for her and her White moral platitudes, writing: DeLores Tucker you’s a mother f…er. Lovely!
As Tucker found the content of much Rap morally despicable, so Wynton Marsalis finds it musically wanting. This is, after all, a mode of expression not particularly concerned with melody, a feature which many consider intrinsic to the very definition of music. Of course such definitions may vary from culture to culture, some perhaps finding the braying of a mule eminently melodic. But while I would argue that Aduwo is perfectly entitled to her “musical” tastes, her claim that White resistance to Rap is rooted in racism is not only absurd, it is itself a racially motivated attempt to terminate “any real discourse” on the subject of music inasmuch as it must inevitably reveal Rap to be both aesthetically and morally degenerate.
Sadly, the tactic of choice on the contemporary Left today is to denounce as Racist any criticism of any aspect of a “minority” culture. It is a way of avoiding discussions of actual substance, discussions which must inevitably reveal the moral/intellectual bankruptcy of the mainstream mind-set and its Gospel of Inclusion. “Liberal” toleration of Rap is an apt reflection of that mind-set. Fortunately there are millions of people of color who value their integrity ahead of their melanin and, as in the case of Wynton Marsalis and C. DeLores Tucker, have contributed mightily to our cultural heritage.
The glory of Western Humanism is that it celebrates Man’s capacity as an Intelligent/Moral Being. It celebrates human achievement. The absurdity of the contemporary Left is that it simplistically equates achievement with oppression, indeed vilifies those who revere Man at his very best as mere heartless Elitists.
Yes, I’d rather listen to Mozart than Tupac, so I’m just a White, Elitist jerk!