Du Boise and the Sorrow Songs - Essay Example

Du Boise and the sorrow songs A consciousness that demands openness to spiritual truth permeates all collective and individual growth processes. In this respect, it is vital to understand that black Americans remain deeply pained. Centuries of abuse have left this racial group with an inevitable inferiority complex, which has been well documented by black artists such as Tupac Shakur and, in 1903 W.E.B Du Bois. Although the Civil Rights Act freed blacks in the 1960s from legalized segregation, once freed, blacks met a new intellectual and cultural climate (Du Bois, 1994). Rap music is one avenue of explaining this new cultural climate, today.There is something deeply spiritual about rap lyrics that is reminiscent of "the blues.", and also the Old sorrow songs that Du Bois used to write about. This spiritual aspect embodies the emotional transformation within a person – and ultimately within a group of likeminded people. For instance, the obvious patterns in African American blues imply an underlying understanding that their purpose is not to wallow in grief but to transcend from sadness to triumph, and ultimately to joy. Thus, the emotional content of rap lyrics can flow from negative to positive. Tupac, Wallace and Menaj’s lyrics and poetry retain a hallmark of these sentiments, as did the writings of Du Bois one hundred years ago. For example in Tupac’s Po Nigga Blues rap song, he goes from lamenting his difficult life, and goes on to extol his resistance and determination. The following verse from Tupac’s Po Nigga Blues demonstrates the flow from negative to positive: Sometimes I think Im getting tested And if I dont say, "Yes" a nigga quick to get arrested Thats the reason I stay zestin I keep a vest on my chest incase the cops is getting restless Walkin round ready to light shit up And since my life is fucked, some say Im slightly nuts Buck, buck is the sound as I move up Other niggas pay attention when a fool bust (Tupac, Po Nigga Blues). Wallace also starts out quite negative in his rap song What is Beef? However, he ends the song on a positive note. Beef is described as violence as follows: Whats beef? (Whats beef?) Beef is when you need two gats to go to sleep (Dont sleep) Beef is when your moms aint safe up in the streets (aint safe) Beef is when I see you Guaranteed to be an ICU, one more time (I see you) (Wallace, What is Beef?). Minaj’s Fly starts out in a very depressing way. She begins by wishing it would rain just so that the pain she feels after being abandoned would ‘go away’ (Minaj, Fly). However by the end of the song, she is suddenly looking up and sings: I came to win, to fight, to conquer, to thrive I came to win, to survive, to prosper, to rise To fly To fly (Minaj, Fly). According to Du Bois, Negro folksongs – in his words, the rhythmic cries of the slaves – stand today not simply as the sole American music, but as “the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side of the seas… it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the Negro people” (Du Bois, 1994, p. 162). Clearly, Du Bois saw these “sorrow songs” as a way for black people to reflect on their experiences. These songs also showed some spurts of emotional release, a functional form of the resilience necessary for their survival as an oppressed people. Wallace for example, rapped about the crime in the inner city in Gimme the Loot. In this rap song, Wallace raps about a friend who resorted to robbery and violence as means of making a living. His friend turned himself in and before doing so, explained to Wallace that he had to do it because he needed the money to which Wallace replied: Nigga, you aint got to explain shit Ive been robbing motherfuckers since the slave ships with the same clip and the same four-five Two point-blank, a motherfuckers sure to die Thats my word, nigga even try to bogart have his mother singing "Its so hard..." (Wallace, Gimme the Loot). Tupac rapped about his mother’s struggles with drugs, but at the same time expressed his admiration and love for her in Dear Mama: Even though you was a crack fiend mama, you always was a Black queen mama (Tupac, Dear Mama). Menaj also sang about a woman struggling with drug addiction, but gave emotions to the woman in the following excerpt from Pills and Potion: Pills and potions We’re overdosing I’m angry but I still love you Pills and potions We’re overdosing Can’t stand it, but I still love you (Minaj, Pills and Potion). While the modern rap songs of artists ,Shakur, Wallace and Menaj, shock black individuals into an awareness of the struggles of their ancestors and of their own current struggles, in the same tradition Du Bois takes us down memory lane to the quiet but real part of history that illuminates the lives of southern oppressed black people, and shows how some of these lives transformed over time. Du Bois described the true meaning of the harsh realities that people of a different culture had to endure over time (Du Bois, 1994). In modern times, Tupac and Wallace spoke of violence albeit in stronger language. Their rap music, often coarse and violent in content, described the same harsh realities that black people endure on the streets of America. Wallace’s Things Done Changed is a good example of the rapper’s expression of the harsh realities black people confront on the streets: Eating 5 cent gums, not knowing where your meal’s coming from Kids younger than me, they got the Sky brand pagers Going out of town, blowing up Six months later, all the dead bodies showing up It make me wanna grab the 9 and the shotty But I gotta go identify the body (Wallace, Things Gone Change). Tupac likewise captures the struggles of the black male on the streets in America in his rap song Change: My stomach hurts so Im lookin for a purse to snatch Cops give a damn about a negro Pull the trigger kill a nigga hes a hero Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares One less hungry mouth under welfare First ship em dope & let em deal the brothers Give em guns step back watch em kill each other (Tupac, Change). Furthermore, Du Bois (1994) stated that in the 1930s the melody of these slave songs stirred the nation, but that the songs were soon half forgotten because the world listened only half credulously. “What are these songs, and what do they mean? I know little of music and can say nothing in technical phrase, but I know something of men, and knowing them, I know that these songs are the articulate message of the slave to the world” (p. 157). Like Tupac’s violent rap, such songs are the music of an unhappy people, “the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways” (p. 157). Through these sorrow songs, the slaves of the south spoke of the world they knew, and although the messages were often distorted and hidden, their meanings were unmistakably clear – they were the voice of pain. The violence that has afflicted black people in America must become a part of their expression, perhaps as a way of healing through vocalizing the wound trapped within. Like those sorrow songs, rap music contains hope and faith in the ultimate justice for oppressed people all over the world. Perhaps, the pondering question of the sorrow songs remains quietly in our conscience: “Will there ever be a time when men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins. Is such a hope justified?” (p. 162). Rap music is thus a way that young urban black communities can respond to systemic oppression and marginalization. The lyrics of rap songs are often based on real-life experiences. The deliberate social resistance and spiritual liberation within them can be seen in their content. For example, Tupac’s Life Goes On laments the harsh lives of Black men and the rate of death and imprisonment resulting from violence on the streets. Tupac commemorates the death of another black man but promises that: “next time you see your niggas your gonna be on top nigga their gonna be like, Goddamn, them niggas came up”. Similarly, Wallace raps about his difficult life. In particular he raps about hunger as a child and his reputation as a criminal and a bad boy. He resolves “I swear to God I want to just slit my wrists and end this bullshit, Throw the Magnum to my head, threaten to pull shit” (Wallace, Suicidal Thoughts). Rap songs attempt to redefine oppressive conditions by blending them into alternative visions of reality. However, rap music also embodies the rhythmic beat that is consistent in black culture. Contrary to popular belief that rap music lacks spirituality, it is actually a spiritual manifestation of black culture. This may explain why today rap is a global phenomenon that successfully speaks to and is in fact endorsed by people from various backgrounds. Rap music transcends race, experiences, beliefs, values, and cultural norms. Further, rap music, Du Bois would likely say connects the black experience to all intimate human relationships. This spiritual connection soars outside of the visible to tap and retain a tangible, religious, and eternal realm. Rap music transcends class, status, and all societal conventions. The frenzy (acts of shouting and shaking)—characterized by slave religion is also the state of spirit possession that shows the level of transcendence that blacks in any performance context might seek to reach (Baraka, 1987, p. 270). Additionally, the use of percussion instruments and the overall percussive approach to performance employed by African Americans is interesting and significant. Since the drum was prohibited in most parts of America during the era of African enslavement, the use of drums by blacks did not begin to play a major role until jazz developed in New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century. At the same time, we learn that the entire family of drums from the smallest to the largest was the foundation for communication and traced reverie in Africa. Rap music is about rhythm, and through this rhythm the spiritual transformation that leads to transcendence occurs. Spencer (1987) calls rhythm "the essential African remnant of black religion” (p. 67). In African American speaking, singing, and rapping, urgency is conveyed through deliberate, accentuated percussive attacks on words, stylized grammatical structures, and repetition, as well as through metaphors and elaborate descriptions (Spencer, 1987). These same element can be found in the rap songs of Shakur, Wallace, and Menaj. One example of repetitious descriptions and metaphors is Wallace’s Hypnotize. The following chorus shows up twice after every verse and emphasizes Biggie (the rapper’s stage name) as a metaphor for the success Wallace enjoyed as a rapper. Biggie Biggie Biggie (uh-huh) cant you see (huh) Sometimes your words just hypnotize me (hip to) And I just love your flashy ways (uh-huh) Guess thats why they broke, and youre so paid (uh) (Wallace, Hypnotize). Tupac’s Until the End of Time also uses repetition and metaphors. Tupac repeatedly raps about death and his life on the ‘dark side’. Although he raps that if he should die, his songs will live on, death is a metaphor for his returning to the dark side and even then, his music made his reputation for him: If an angel comes down And takes me away The memories of me And my songs Will always stay Till they can find (Until The End of Time) Until the end of time Till the end of time (Tupac, Until the End of Time). Minaj repeatedly uses the word ‘ride’ as a metaphor for sex in her rap song Whip it. For example the rap song opens with: Hey, you, jump in this ride Its real nice, and slippery inside Rise, guy, come get this pie Ri ri ri ride it in style (Minaj, Whip It). Zanfagna, an ethnomusicologist, explored themes of spirituality and commercialism in holy hip-hop music and culture. According to Zanfagna, music has always been a spiritual art form, from its sacred roots in the spirituals and gospel and extending to the blues, jazz, soul, and finally hip-hop. She further claimed that mainstream hip-hop percolates with various multifaceted religious inclinations. While many rap listeners experience a sense of spiritual ecstasy through its words and music, the sacred code messages within rap music remains elusive to the outsider (Zanfagna, 2004). The soulful involvement of black performers in their creative moments of rhythm making encourages their audiences to become emotionally involved in the event of music-making. To put my point in the language of rappers themselves, black artists who use synthesized sounds and that have a unique virtuosity have, as rappers Whodini say, the "funky beat" in their souls. In other words, their beats are like a torch that leads people out of darkness and confusion because those beats carry a “divine and salvific knowledge” (Costello and Wallace, 1990, p. 119). Read More