racial authenticity in rap music and hip hop

© 2008 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Sociology Compass 2/6 (2008): 1783–1800, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00171.x

Racial Authenticity in Rap Music and Hip Hop

Anthony Kwame Harrison*Virginia Polytechnic and State University

AbstractThis article reviews the history of scholarship on racial authenticity within studiesof rap music and hip hop. The concept of authenticity currently enjoys a centralplace in sociological work on popular music, subcultures, and racial identity. Asa music and cultural form that straddles all three of these fields, the debatessurrounding authenticity within rap and hip hop are as contentious as any. Usingthe year 2000 as an arbitrary dividing line, this article presents the late 20thcentury foundations of research on authenticity and race within hip hop, thenmoves on to discuss more recent developments in the academic literature. Despitehip hop scholars’ increased emphases on discourses of space and place, andprocesses of culture and identity formation, the field continues to be framedthrough notions of essential blackness, and critical interrogations of white hip hoplegitimacy. After providing an overview of the state of the field, it is argued thatgreater attention to language use among hip hop enthusiasts, and a particularemphasis on hip hoppers who fall outside the black–white racial binary will provefruitful in reinvigorating these longstanding debates. Ethnographic studies of localunderground hip hop scenes within the Unites States are recommended as alogical place to begin.

Questions of racial authenticity have dominated sociological research onhip hop (and rap music particularly) since the early 1990s inception of thefield. To paraphrase a statement more often made about critics than criticalthinkers, people didn’t seemed to pay much attention to hip hop until theextent of its white audience was revealed. The base assumptions surroundinghip hop and racial authenticity have always been that black identity is, bydefault, legitimate, while white identity is either suspect or invalid. Writingat the start of the 21st century, Bakari Kitwana (2002) took little pause indefining the ‘hip hop generation’ as African Americans born between1965 and 1984. Meanwhile, many of the most volatile and well-rehearseddebates on the subject have focused on the contested acceptability ofwhite hip hoppers. Few question that white people have played an importantrole as hip hop artists who have helped to expand rap music’s market, asa dominant demographic within that market, and as key players behindthe scenes of the cultural industry machines that have fueled the popular-ization of hip hop’s music and lifestyle (George 1998; Samuels 1991;

1784 Racial Authenticity in Rap Music and Hip Hop

© 2008 The Author Sociology Compass 2/6 (2008): 1783–1800, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00171.xJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Stephens 1991; Watkins 2005). Still, the juxtaposition of whiteness andhip hop continues to pose a series of intriguing sociological questions.The attention given to recent books like Greg Tate’s Everything But theBurden: What White People are Taking from Black Culture (2003), JasonTanz’s Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America(2007), and Bakari Kitwana’s Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wangstas,Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America (2005); Holly-wood films such as Bulworth (1998), White Boys (1998), and Malibu’s MostWanted (2003); and television programs like VH1’s ‘Ego Trip’s (White)Rapper Show’ (2007), all firmly attest to this fascination (see also Aaron1999; Kleinfield 2000; Ledbetter 1992; Neate 2004; Wimsatt 1993).

Concerns over white participation in traditionally black avenues ofcultural production, or what Paul C. Taylor calls ‘the Elvis Effect’ (1997;see also Hall 1997), have fueled a good deal of the ‘authenticity work’(Peterson 2005) put forth by black people in an effort to secure hip hopas distinctly their own. As debates swirl into the 21st century, audiencesof all sorts approach questions of hip hop authenticity and whiteness witha range of different expectations, assumptions, and interests. Is white par-ticipation in hip hop optimistically championed as indicative of America’simproving race relations? Are white hip hoppers lampooned for havingthe audacity to presume to understand something they could never trulygrasp? Do commentators critically engage issues of white privilege andthe cultural and economic damage that has been done to black individualsand communities through the continuing cycle of music appropriation?Of course, each of these angles is highly contentious. And it goes withoutsaying that, for those who take these matters seriously, theorizing whatthe social significance of hip hop can tell us about race is an importantand consequential endeavor.

This article reviews how the issue of hip hop authenticity and race hasbeen treated within academic literature since hip hop studies first emergedas a viable academic field. In order to give some perimeters to a topic thatdominates so much of the popular discourse on hip hop – includingjournalism, literature, films, and Internet blogging – I am defining academicliterature as pieces appearing in peer-reviewed journals, published byuniversity or (widely recognized) academic presses, or that have beenauthored by people holding academic positions. I further narrow myscope to work, which is principally rooted in social theory.

Throughout this review, I take the position that approaching hip hop’sracial authenticity through a framework of black legitimacy and (questionable)white illegitimacy is limited in two ways. First, in juxtaposing black andwhite racial identity, much of this work ignores the tremendous range ofpeoples, neither black nor white, who also have strong attachments to hiphop. Second, when operating within such a binary, there is a tendency toreduce complex discussions of nuanced cultural processes to oversimplifiedoppositional stances. Either white hip hoppers are genuine devotees to


Racial Authenticity in Rap Music and Hip Hop 1785

‘the culture of hip hop’, or privileged interlopers whose mere presencethreatens to destroy it. The need to take and fortify one of these positions,particular against the camps of scholars who profoundly feel otherwise,has affected a good deal of the scholarship. Hip Hop, in the words ofHenry Giroux, is ‘the only popular culture that takes seriously the rela-tionship between race and democracy’ (quoted in Aaron 1999, 72). Assuch, an examination of racial authenticity within its scholarship serves asa window through which to view recent academic perspectives on processesof cultural assimilation, appropriation and diffusion, and the rigidity andmalleability of social identities within multicultural globalized contexts.

On authenticity

Authenticity is a slippery concept that has recently come into fashion inscholarship on popular music (Barker and Taylor 2007; Grazian 2004;Peterson 1997) subcultures (Thornton 1995; Williams 2006) and racial/ethnic groups ( Jackson 2005). Hip hop notably occupies the intersectionof all three fields. Assessments of authenticity, when applied to individuals,are usually based upon a fundamental congruence between how one seesoneself and how one is seen by others (Trilling 1971; see also Goffman1959). At the same time, authenticity, which is always constituted throughthe social institutions people participate within (Appiah 1994), demands thata person, performance, or object conforms to a set of socially agreed-uponauthentic standards. Authenticity is never an organic quality naturallyfound in things; it is rather ‘a claim that is made’ which is ‘either acceptedor rejected’ (Peterson 2005, 1086). In this sense, authenticity aims tostrike an agreement between the presentation of something or someone(as authentic) and the reception or acceptance of that presentation. Thus,authenticity is both constructed and contested, and therefore in a perpetualstate of flux. In situations where ‘authenticity work’, or the ‘effort [putforth] to appear authentic’ (Peterson 2005, 1086) is too transparent, thatwhich it strives to establish becomes suspect and dubious. Indeed, one ofthe ironies of authenticity is that it tends to emerge as an issue mainlyunder conditions where it is in some way threatened (McLeod 1999;Peterson 2005).

Underlying issues

Within the network of deliberations surrounding race and hip hopauthenticity, there are several important issues that underlie many of theusual discussions. Occasionally, these concerns bubble up to the fore ofdebates; however, they just as often lurk below the surface as assumptionsupon which many disagreements and misunderstandings hinge. As a pointof departure, I will briefly touch upon four of these, which will period-ically resurface over the course of my review of the scholarship.



The first concerns the extent to which understandings of hip hopauthenticity are rooted in fixed notions of ‘how it all started’, or whatImani Perry (2004) calls originalist arguments. The originalist positioncertainly forms one of the strongest claims to authenticity; however, if hiphop is to be thought of as a culture – as many people claim it should –at some point, strict originalism must succumb to the well-establishednotion that both cultures and traditions are social processes which arecontinually changing (see Clifford 1988; Handler and Linnekin 1984).Anytime someone starts speaking of the characteristics that compriseauthentic hip hop, it’s worth considering whether these qualifications arerooted in a nostalgic notion of hip hop as it was at its outset (the perim-eters of which are themselves a source of contention) or in a moredynamic understanding of what it has become over its three decades as apopular cultural form.

Second, do questions surrounding hip hop authenticity apply first andforemost to hip hop artists, or does the discussion more broadly involveanyone alleged to be a constituent of the hip hop nation? This is animportant distinction considering the fact that while the most celebratedcommercial forms of rap music continue to be dominated by blackperformers, the majority of its consumers – and here I am speakingspecifically of people twenty-something and younger who have grown upexposed to rap music their entire lives – are not African American (Samuels1991; Watkins 2005).

A third issue concerns whether the category ‘hip hop artist’ specificallyrefers to emcees/rappers or also includes practitioners of hip hop’s otheracknowledged elements, namely, deejays – and by association ‘beat makers’(Schloss 2004) – breakdancers (aka b-boys and b-girls), and graffiti writers.There is little question that the significance of black identity in hip hophas been more strongly connected with rapping than any other of itsfundamental practices.

The fourth question relates specifically to issues of racial and culturalidentity: when discussing hip hop and blackness is one speaking specifi-cally about African-American identity, or a black diasporic identity thattranscends any specific American experience? Although there are indica-tions that through processes of globalization certain commonalities ofracial subjectivity have emerged (see Basu and Lemelle 2006; Clarke andThomas 2006; Gilroy 1993), the fact remains that being black in Americais not the same as being black in England, Jamaica, or Ghana. Thus, tolump all African-descended hip hoppers into one collective authentic isto privilege race ahead of cultural difference.

Pre-millenium hip hop scholarship – The foundations

In presenting a canon of hip hop scholarship (Forman 2002), there is nobetter starting point than Tricia Rose’s 1994 book Black Noise. Although



Rose’s was not the first major work to be published on hip hop, the scopeand sophistication of her analysis announced the arrival of hip hop studiesas a legitimate academic field (see also Perkins 1996a). Black Noise issometimes upheld as a firm declaration of hip hop’s essential blackness –a reading supported by the Rose’s subtitle ‘Rap Music and Black Culturein Contemporary America’ – however, close inspection shows that Rosewas engaged in a far more complex endeavor. One of the great strengthsof the book is its second chapter which lays out the local context of hiphop’s 1970s New York City formation in tremendous detail and elaborateson how each of its principle elements (see above) forms part of a com-prehensive vocabulary of post-industrial African-American youth expression.In outlining what is perhaps the most authoritative scholarly statement onhip hop’s origins, Rose is very intentional in including the contributionsof recent Caribbean immigrants (see also Hebdige 1987) and Puerto Ricans.This places her in the somewhat delicate position of characterizing hiphop (rap music particularly) as an African-American cultural form whose‘critical force grows out of the cultural potency that racially segregatedconditions foster’ (1994, xiii) while at the same time recognizing itshybrid origins and ability to ‘resonate with people from vast and diversebackgrounds’ (1994, 19). In a telling passage, Rose states that ‘suggest[ing]that rap is a black idiom that prioritizes black culture and that articulatesthe problems of black urban life does not deny the pleasure and partici-pation of others’ (1994, 4). Although Rose firmly defines hip hop as blackcultural expression, her stance on racial authenticity is often more precariousthan steadfast. She ultimately falls back on the explanation that hip hopis shaped by ‘dynamic tensions and contradictions’ (1994, 21), which donot easily conform to fixed definitions of what it is and is not.

In contrast to Rose, a handful of scholars have been much more resolutein denying the authenticity of any hip hop (or rap music) that is notdirectly connected to black experience. Errol Henderson, in a statementthat contradicts much of the prevailing history, describes the original hiphop community as ‘exclusively Black’ (1996, 316), and goes on to explainthe appearance of Mexican and Caribbean American artists and ‘sucker-ducktricktypewannabe’ white artists as resulting from processes of corporateconsolidation in which small independent black record companies werebought up or bought out by major labels (1996, 320–1). In a similarlycurious article entitled ‘It’s a Black Thing: Hearing How Whites Can’t’,Ewan Allinson, a white writer, argues that ‘hip-hop lives and breathes asa Black thing in ways simply not open to white experience, white thought’(1994, 438). Although Allinson is willing to concede that a large whitehip hop audience does exist, like Henderson he views white-controlledproduction of culture (Peterson 1976) mechanisms as inhibiting genuinedialogue between hip hop’s ‘eavesdropping’ white audience and the true(black) hip hop community. Although adopting a similar outlook, ToddBoyd sees the relationship between hip hop’s fundamental blackness and



the cultural industries very differently when he argues that it’s hip hop’sability to maintain its ‘unadulterated Black cultural product’ (1997, 64) inthe face of mainstream success which separates rap music from earlierblack cultural forms (see also Garofalo 1994).

In an important article supporting this exclusively black stance, Kem-brew McLeod (1999) suggests that an increased emphasis on blackness asa key tenet of hip hop authenticity – along with other attributes like being‘underground,’ ‘from the street,’ and ‘staying true to yourself ’ (1999, 139)– occurred in an effort to preserve hip hop’s identity in the face ofmainstream assimilation (see also Decker 1994). Two noteworthy aspectsof McLeod’s contribution are (1) his recognition of the discursive natureof all authenticity claims – rather than arguing for an authoritative Truthabout what hip hop is, McLeod bases his analysis on how hip hop is talkedabout by artists, fans, and the press; and (2) his binary framework whichpits black realness against white fakeness. Not surprisingly, this straightfor-ward dichotomy has lent well to future analyses (see, for instance,Armstrong 2004; Hess 2005; Kahf 2007).

Before discussing the canonical texts that adopt a more racially inclusiveunderstanding of hip hop, I want to briefly touch upon a series ofpublications that specifically sought to redress the ‘omission’ of PuertoRicans and other Latinos from accounts of hip hop’s formation. Duringthe mid-1990s, Latino scholars like Juan Flores (1994, 1996) and Mandalitdel Barco (1996) – and later Rachel Rivera (2001, 2003) – highlighted thelong history of interaction between New York City’s African-Americanand Puerto Rican communities to show that ‘Puerto Ricans have beeninvolved in hip hop since the beginning’ (Flores 1994, 90). One commonthread through much of this work involved blaming such historical amnesiaon the commercial music industry (see also De Genova 1995; Negus 1999)– an argument that can take either of two forms. The first focuses on thetraditional division of labor which has Puerto Ricans playing a greater rolein break(dance)ing and graffiti than in hip hop’s musical practices. Sincemusic was the only aspect of hip hop that translated into a viable com-modity, by the late 1980s, the elements of hip hop traditionally dominatedby Latinos were largely invisible. The second position emphasizes main-stream America’s longstanding fascination with black cultural forms andinability to grasp the nuances of interethnic fluidity as the principal reasonwhy hip hop has been marketed exclusively as black American music.

At the nexus of these two phenomena, there is an early precedent forwhat I am calling hip hop’s selective alignment with blackness. It wouldappear that as hip hop’s non-musical forms faded from the popular culturalradar, so did any particular interest in securing their exclusive associationwith black identities. In fact, breaking, graffiti, and later deejaying, havelong been sustained as underground (less commercially visible) formsthrough multiracial communities of practitioners (see, e.g., the documen-taries The Freshest Kids [2002], Style Wars [1983], and Scratch [2001]).



In opposition to an exclusively black (or even black and Latino)perspective, several early contributors to the field took an interest in hiphop’s ability to cross social boarders and engage a range of racial/ethnicsubjects. One of the first articles to praise hip hop for initiating an interracialdialogue was Gregory Stephens’ ‘Rap Music’s Double-Voiced Discourse:A Crossroads for Interracial Communication’ (1991), which used Jean-Claude Deschamps and Willem Doise’s notion of ‘cross identities’ (1978)to argue that rap acts as a ‘interracial bridge’ (1991, 72). Katina Stapletontook a similar position in suggesting that ‘rap music has served to form acohesive bond among urban youth’ (1998, 231) and has become the‘cultural and political voice of an entire generation’ (1998, 219). AlthoughStapleton acknowledged that hip hop’s concerns were foremost with issuesfacing black youth, she firmly believed that socio-geographic identity andoppositional politics had come to be prioritized ahead of race.

The very nature of hip-hop culture has been one that accommodated manytypes of people, many subject matter, and many types of music. The underlyingquestion, then, is whether or not hip hop can accommodate varying interestswhile still retaining its distinctive urban identity. (Stapleton 1998, 227 [emphasisadded])

Brian Cross, in his tremendous history of Los Angeles hip hop (see alsoKelley 1996), echoed these sentiments when he asserted that ‘hip hoplearns and borrows from not only different musics but different lifestyles’(1993, 63; see also Delgado 1998; Kelly 1993; Martinez 1997; Perkins1996b; and Quinn 1996).

Hip hop’s polyvocality and cross-cultural appeal have also beenexplained through highlighting its diasporic origins. Some of the mostformidable work falling within this category draws on Paul Gilroy’s (1993)notion of the Back Atlantic as a transcontinental flow of materials,customs, beliefs, and people that has been instrumental in shaping con-temporary black subjectivity. One of the most frequently cited applicationsof the Black Atlantic approach was provided by George Lipsitz, who usedthe example of hip hop pioneering DJ Afrika Baabbaataa’s to suggest a‘diasporic intimacy’ within the Black Altantic world (1994a, 27; see alsoKeyes 1996). Lipsitz specifically details how colonially mediated Africanimagery (i.e. Bambaataa’s ‘the Zulu Nation’), Hollywood film scores, andEuropean electronic music (i.e. the German band Kraftwerk) combinedin the creation of Bambaataa’s aptly titled 1982 hit ‘Planet Rock’. Forhim, the Black Atlantic model allows for a reading of hip hop as part ofan international dialogue:

To be sure, African and Caribbean elements appear prominently in U.S. hiphop ... but these claims place value on origins that distort the nature of BlackAtlantic culture. The flow of information and ideas among diasporic peoplehas not been solely from Africa outward to Europe and the Americas, butrather has been a reciprocal self-renewing dialogue in communities characterized



by upheaval and change. The story of the African diaspora is more than anaftershock of the slave trade, it is an ongoing dynamic creation. (Lipsitz 1994a,39; see also Negus 1997)

Whereas Gilroy’s model was principally concerned with contemporaryblack subjectivity, his theories have been used to legitimize hip hop’s roleas a form of post-colonial resistance among people of various racial back-grounds (Hesmondhalgh and Melville 2001; Kelley 1997; Negus 1997;Prévos 2001). Lipsitz sees hip hop as facilitating pan-ethnic coalitionsrooted in culture and politics rather than color (1994b; see also Irving1993). Additionally, Russell Potter, who cites Gilroy at length, adds that‘[t]he race ... of the listener is not the determining factor; it’s attitude thatseparates “crackers” from “niggaz’ ’ ’ (1995, 153 [emphasis original]).

Not surprisingly, several early academic works focused specifically onthe question of white hip hop participation. In a piece entitled ‘Who Wantsto See Ten Niggers Play Basketball?’, Armond White surveys a variety ofwhite hip hop acts, arguing that the most legitimate ‘must be able toborrow without losing sight of themselves as borrowers’ (1996, 194). LikePotter, White sees ‘attitude’ as the key factor in determining non–African-American hip hop legitimacy. In a more comprehensive treatment, DavidRoediger, through his essay ‘What to Make of Wiggers: A Work inProgress’ (1998), shows the diversity of white hip hop fans and considerswhat makes them different from earlier ‘White Negroes’ (Mailer 1957).Roediger reaches no definitive conclusions, instead conceding that these‘complex and contradictory’ wiggers are simultaneously part ‘of a terriblepast and ... what is bound to be a long struggle to transcend it’ (1998, 359).

Many of the foundational works I have cited already are rooted in theunderstanding that hip hop authenticity involves a dialogic constructionof identity (see, e.g., Irving 1993, Kelley 1997, Quinn 1996, Roediger1998, and Stapleton 1998). Two pieces that particularly foreground theseprocesses are Christopher Holmes Smith’s ‘Method in the Madness’(1997) and Andy Bennett’s ‘Rappin’ on the Tyne’ (1999). Smith’s article– which begins with the powerful statement that ‘[i]dentity constructionand the vigorous enactment of identity remains the most fertile source ofartistic creativity within hip hop’ (1997, 345) – focuses on the ways inwhich (black) hip hop artists seek to ‘represent’ the struggles of contem-porary ghetto life in their efforts to ‘keep it real.’ In a revealing sectionon racial authenticity, Smith explains that within ‘rap’s dominant marketingparadigm, blackness has become contingent, while the ghetto has becomenecessary’ (1997, 346). More than a statement on hip hop legitimacy inany absolute sense, Smith’s comment emphasizes how hip hop’s constructionof authenticity has shifted over time.

Bennett’s article distinguishes itself as one of the first pieces to approachhip hop through the lens of ethnography. Like Roediger and White (seeabove), his focus is on the authenticity of white hip hoppers (in NortheastEngland). The richness of Bennett’s ethnographic data lead him to



identify two distinct approaches to claiming authenticity: one which defineship hop as black music and seeks affinities with the black experiencethrough styles of dress, knowledge of music, and local experiences withprejudice; and a second which views hip hop as a versatile culturalmedium that can be legitimately engaged through local participation.

Throughout the first decade of scholarship on hip hop, the receptionof white hip hoppers remained central to understanding racial authenticity.At the same time, the connection between hip hop and blacknessprevailed. In fact, key tensions within these discussions have typicallyrevolved around questions of whether hip hop should be seen as a blackmusic/culture or as a cultural form that can be legitimately accessed bymultiple subjects. This debate was perhaps best encapsulated in an August1999 edition of the Sunday New York Times where two opposing pieces,both falling under the heading ‘The Hip Hop Nation: Whose Is It?’,asserted their charges. The author’s competing positions are clear enoughfrom their titles: Neil Strauss’s ‘A land with Rhythm and Beats for All’(1999) and Touré’s ‘In the End, Black Men Must Lead’ (1999).

Twenty-first century scholarship – The state of the field

Much recent work on hip hop, race, and authenticity is lodged in familiarparadigms of understanding and dispute. The intensity of longstandingdebates, and the perception of what’s at stake – in failing to acknowledgeblack American contributions to national and global culture, in celebratingmulticulturalism with a blind eye to power relations, or in insisting onessentialist understandings of race and culture – compel many hip hopscholars to align themselves with one of the pre-existing camps (if nothingelse simply as a means of navigating the peer review process). Recentdevelopments in the field include: an increased focus on spatial dynamicsand locality as an alternative to racial authenticity; an elaboration on socialprocesses of culture and identity formation; and a recognition of the valueof ethnographic methods (particularly in the growing number of studiesthat look at hip hop outside the United States).

The most important 21st century work to be published on theconstruction of space and place within hip hop is Murray Forman’s The‘Hood Comes First (2002). In this extensive and largely theoretical work,Forman builds on the foundations originally laid down by Rose (1994)by exploring the centrality of discourses of race, space, and locality in hiphop’s emergence and proliferation (see also Quinn 2005). Forman identifies‘a highly detailed and consciously defined spatial awareness’ (2002, 3) asone of the key factors that distinguishes hip hop from other youth culturalforms. Paralleling what Robin D. G. Kelley (1996) has described as rapmusic’s shift away from Afrocentricity towards ghettocentricity (see alsoSmith 1997), Forman presents a framework of hip hop authenticityconstructed principally through sociogeography by describing its salience



as most profoundly felt within ‘high-density urban localities inhabitedpredominantly by black, Latino, and multiethnic immigrant working andnonworking populations’ (2002, 41; see also Kelley 1997).

Adam Krims (2000) similarly emphasizes the geographic distribution of‘authenticity regimes’ in his work on rap’s musical poetics, ultimatelyarguing that ‘urban locality and ethnic and/or class marginality’ (2000,198) are most critical to hip hop legitimacy. In doing this however, Krimsis careful not to isolate local inflections of hip hop authenticity from thetransnational orientations that spawned them. Such attention to the nexusof local and global resonance has dominated recent work on hip hopoutside the United States. Tony Mitchell uses Roland Robertson’s conceptof glocalization (1995) – that is, the mutually implicated processes ofhomogenization and heterogenization through which, in an increasinglyinterconnected world, local identities take on new salience – as anoverarching framework for his edited volume Global Noise (2001a), as doDipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemmelle in The Vinyl Ain’t Final (2006).In this global context, the emergence of different national scenes hasintroduced various counter narratives of (local) originalist authenticity(Condry 2006, Durand 2002, Fernandes 2006, Mitchell 2001b, Pennay2001, Prévos 1998; Solomon 2005; Wood 1998). Yet, as Krims remindsus (see above), such claims are in regular dialogue with the authenticsymbolism of earlier black American hip hop forms (see for instanceCornyetz 1994; Nayak 2003; Weiss 2002).

Some scholars see a danger in focusing too exclusively on sociogeo-graphic dimensions of hip hop authenticity. Perry particularly fears thathip hop’s connection to blackness has become minimized. In fact, shededicates a chapter of her book Prophets of the Hood (2004) specifically tore-establishing hip hop as black American music (see also Cobb 2007;Bynoe 2002). Given the current popularity of highlighting hip hop’smulticultural origins and global manifestations, Perry sees her position asquite ‘radical’ (2004, 10). She bases her argument on four characteristicsof hip hop: (1) its linguistic rootedness in African-American VernacularEnglish; (2) its opposition politics which are distinctly modeled after blackAmerican culture and aesthetics; (3) its continuing a trajectory of African-American orature; and (4) its following from a long line of black Americanmusical traditions. Perry spends some time critiquing the prevailing viewof hip hop originalism – specifically how the perceived roles of blackAmerican, black Caribbean, and Puerto Rican youth during hip hop’sformative period contribute to its image as a multicultural (and not anAfrican American) expressive form. She reminds us that the relationshipbetween these different groups – crammed into the boiler room of 1970spost-industrial New York – was not always as congenial as ‘romanticAfro-Atlanticism’ (Perry 2004, 17) portrays it. She goes on to state that‘what really makes hip hop music black American is America’s love-haterelationship with it’ (Perry 2004, 27).



Perry sees no contradiction in applying such a strict African-Americancharacterization to what has obviously become a nationally popular andinternationally prolific music form. In a statement that sounds strikinglysimilar to Black Noise, she explains ‘to describe rap or hip hop as blackAmerican is not inconsistent with an understanding of its hybridity’(Perry 2004, 10). While much of what Perry argues with regards to hiphop and race is compelling, it is a sad irony that ten years after thepublication of Black Noise, Prophets of the Hood’s greatest contribution tothe discourse on racial authenticity and hip hop might be to provide newavenues leading us back to where Rose got us started.

In one of the better works to critically consider the notion of hip hopas culture, African-American philosopher Paul C. Taylor constructs anentire essay around the question ‘why would anyone think that I’m a morepromising potential citizen of the hip-hop community than, say, a Chinese-American who’s spent his whole life living in Brooklyn, listening to rapmusic, and breakdancing?’ (2005, 89). Taylor’s point is to interrogate therelationship between cultural processes, classic racialism, and what he callscritical racialism – or the idea that ‘races are socially defined groups ...that we create when we assign meaning to appearance and ancestry’(2005, 86). Taylor believes that a good deal of the discussion equating hiphop and blackness is based on conservative and dangerously outdatedmodes of understanding race (see Lusane 1993). This seems straightfor-ward enough. Yet, to me, Taylor is every bit as radical as Perry in forcingpeople to confront the unpopular truth that he, an African American –and member of Kitwana’s ‘hip hop generation’ (see above) – never feltparticularly close to hip hop. In his rich discussion, Taylor is critical ofnarratives of cultural authenticity, arguing that they obscure more thanthey reveal and ultimately present a false picture of stability. He concludesthat ‘once we start to attend to the complexities of history, to the detailsof cultural borrowings and cross-fertilizations, it becomes hard to saywhen a culture really belongs to any single group’ (Taylor 2005, 91).

In the dialogue between Perry and Taylor, we can see that hip hopscholarship is no closer to resolving its racial authenticity debates than itwas 10 years ago. One recent book that I feel contributes considerably tothe discussion is John L. Jackson’s Real Black (2005) – an ethnography ofracial sincerity written principally in the interest of furthering currentunderstandings of racial authenticity. Starting from Lionel Trilling’sdefinition of sincerity as the idea ‘that we actually are what we want ourcommunity to know we are’ ( Jackson 2005, 14; see also Trilling 1971,10–11), Jackson’s ruminations become considerably more diagnostic whenhe explains that whereas authenticity ‘presupposed a relationship betweenan independent, thinking subject and a dependent unthinking thing’(2005, 14), sincerity ‘presumes a liaison between subjects’ (2005, 15 [emphasisoriginal]). Sincerity, then, becomes a way of ‘resisting,’ ‘policing,’ ‘subverting,’and ‘redrafting’ authenticity’s hegemony (Jackson 2005, 175). In his chapter



on hip hop, Jackson explains that its realness involves a ‘contradictory andinternally conflictual’ dance between the mandates of authenticity and theinsistencies of sincerity (2005, 178). While Jackson uses these concepts tospecifically address the connections between blackness and hip hop, histheories help to clarify positions that have been taken when discussing hiphop in more racially inclusive ways.

Ian Maxwell (2003) in his intriguing ethnographic study of Australianhip hop uses the concepts of truthfulness and respect similarly to Jackson’suse of sincerity. Maxwell’s book Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes, strikes a fascin-ating comparison with Real Black in that it focuses on a predominantlywhite hip hop scene in Sidney. For Maxwell’s Australian hip hoppers,truthfulness is exhibited through rapping in an Aussie accent in much thesame way that some of Bennett’s white English hip hoppers placed apremium on ‘home grown rap’ in the local Geordie accent (Bennett1999, 19–20). Reminiscent of Trilling, Maxwell explains that for the hiphoppers he does research among, authenticity is ‘derived not from coloror race, but from truthfulness to oneself ... [thus] it is okay to be whiteand into Hip Hop as long as you don’t misrepresent who you are’ (2003,161 [emphasis original]).

One of the more striking aspects of Maxwell’s discussion is the greatlength he goes to in insisting that white hip hop in Australia is notmisguided or inauthentic, but should be viewed as genuine and legitimate.At one point in his text, while making this qualification for what seemslike the umpteenth time, Maxwell even adds the parenthetical note ‘(Icannot state this often enough)’ (2003, 47). Such scholarly neurosis seemsto me to be an obvious reaction to what Gilroy calls the ‘highly chargedand bitterly contested issue’ of authenticity within black music (1993, 96).There is perhaps no greater testament to the continuing vitality of theracial authenticity debate in hip hop than the fact that Maxwell –although taking a completely different stance from Perry – feels that heneeds to go to such effort to justify his own radical position.

White hip hoppers continue to garner a great deal of attention instudies of hip hop within the United States. In Hip Hop Matters, athoughtful and illuminating book on hip hop’s political economy andsocial significance, S. Craig Watkins dedicates a chapter to examining ‘thesteady growing impact of whites in the movement’ (2005, 88). Much ofhis time is spent discussing the identity maneuverings of Eminem – whois described as a master of masking his own whiteness, thus making it anon-issue (2005, 107). Watkins also covers the familiar territory of theearly 1990s popularization of gangsta rap among white middle class teens.He concludes that ‘in their own way, white youth, largely as consumers,have become just as important to hip hop as black and Latino youth’(2005, 109).

Edward Armstrong (2004) and Mickey Hess (2005) also examineEminem’s construction of the authenticity. Armstrong combines many



previously mentioned authenticity threads by presenting it as ‘being trueto oneself ’ [à la Jackson’s racial sincerity], ‘prioritizing local allegiancesand territorial identities [à la Forman] and having ‘proximity to an originalsource of rap’ [a first person derivative of Perry’s originalism] (2004, 7–8). Hess builds on Armstrong’s approach but does so in a more expansivetreatment of white artists in rap music history. Hess also briefly touchesupon the large numbers of white artists that are currently operating withinthe less-commercial underground hip hop world – an arena of subculturalactivity that remains vastly understudied.

Jason Rodriquez (2006) is one of very few scholars to examine issuesof race within underground hip hop – a subgenre oriented towards ‘con-scious rap’ acts like Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, and Blackalicious (see alsoHarkness 2008). In conducting ethnographic research among whiteunderground hip hop fans in Northampton, MA, Rodriquez illustrateshow adopting a colorblind ideology (Bonilla-Silva 2001), helps to rationalizeand justify white fans engagement with an ‘an unmistakably African-American art form’ (2006, 648). Such findings are important in that theysupport the concerns of scholars like Perry (2004) and Allinson (1994)regarding the power of white privilege to circumvent hip hop’s opposi-tional politics. In a moment of classic privileged denial, one of Rodiquez’sinterviewees explains, ‘it’s all just people and no matter what the color ofyour skin it doesn’t matter’ (2006, 661).

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar’s recent book Hip Hop Revolution (2007), breaksnew ground in both its comprehensive discussion of hip hop authenticityamong black, Latino, Asian, and white emcees, and its deft awareness ofunderground artists like Dilated Peoples, the Perceptionists, and LittleBrother. Through examining the lyrics of a vast range of acts, Ogbardemonstrates the considerable variability with which hip hop authenticityhas been constructed through time and space. Ogbar is highly critical offixed assumptions about what constitutes authentic hip hop. His intent israther to show how hip hop artists have continually ‘contrived, repack-aged, and embellished their images to locate themselves at the center ofwhat it means to be legitimate in hip hop’ (2007, 68). Ogbar’s workcompares favorably with Harrison’s (forthcoming) ethnographic researchon the dynamics of racial authenticity within multiracial underground hiphop settings.

In the examples of Rodriquez and Ogbar, we see immense promise forthe future of scholarship on hip hop, authenticity, and race. At theconferences I attend, I am continually impressed with the directions inwhich graduate students and recent PhD’s are taking the field. Newapproaches are sorely needed if we are to reinvigorate these well-wornnotions of essential black belonging expressed through scrutiny of whiteparticipation. More ethnographic studies within the United States areneeded. Given the importance of local accent use to issues of authenticityin both Bennett’s and Maxwell’s studies (see above), I feel further analyses



of language and code-switching (Morgan 2001) – along the lines of theresearch done by Cecelia Cutler (2002, 2007) and new work beingpublished by Geoff Harkness (2008), and H. Samy Alim, Awad Ibrahahim,and Alastair Pennycook (2008) – will be tremendously valuable. Therealso needs to be more of an emphasis on populations and individuals thatfall outside America’s black–white racial binary (see for example de Leon2004; Maira 2000, 2002; Wang 2007). The most logical place to beginthis is within the multiracial arenas of underground hip hop. Lastly, if weare going to continue to talk about hip hop as a culture a more rigorousinterrogation of cultural process along the lines of that initiated by Taylor(2005) is absolutely necessary. Such research may not resolve the greatdebates that have dominated hip hop studies for nearly 20 years now, butthey certainly will inject new life into the discussions.

Short Biography

Anthony Kwame Harrison is an assistant professor of Sociology andAfricana Studies at Virginia Polytechnic and State University. An anthro-pologist by training, Dr. Harrison teaches classes on popular music andhas lectured throughout the country about issues regarding hip hop andracial identity. His forthcoming book entitled Hip Hop Underground: TheIntegrity and Ethics of Racial Identification (Temple University Press) exploresthe contours of racial identity within the multiracial San Francisco BayArea underground hip hop scene.

Note

* Correspondence address: 560 McBryde Hall (0137), Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA. Email:[email protected].

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