The Zen of Young Money: Being Present to the Genius of Black Youth

The Zen of Young Money: Being Present to the Genius of Black Youth
by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

I fly with the stars in the skies,
I am no longer trying to survive,
I believe that life is a prize,
But to live doesn’t mean you’re alive.

what am I doing? what am I doing?
oh yeah, that’s right, I’m doing me, I’m doing me
I’m living life right now
and this what I’m a do til its over
til it’s over, but it’s far from over

First:
I am a member of a criminalized generation of black geniuses.

My twenty-something age-mates and the teenagers behind us are often dismissed as materialistic, crass, empty-headed, impulse addicts. Elders mourn our distance from the forms of social movement participation they would have imagined and mass media relates to us as a market to be bought, exploited and sold back to ourselves, ever cheaper.

As a particularly nerdy member of the so-called thoughtless generation, I resent the implication. And I wonder sometimes what it will take to make the forms of social interaction, critique and that young black people are engaged in every moment of our high-tech or low-tech days legible to the baby boomers (since we all know that legibility to baby boomers is what makes something real in the United States).

So this rare piece (on my part) of contemporary hip hop commentary is an attempt to provide a specific example for an undercredited belief that is at the basis of my queer intergenerational politic of black love:

As young black people we are experts of our own experiences, we think about the meanings of our lives, the limits of our options and more often than not we choose not to conform, not to consent to an upright and respectable meaning of life. Even in our most nihilistic moments we are tortured artists and mad scientists, living a critique of a dominant society that cannot contain us and does not deserve us. This doesn’t mean that we are always doing the right thing (Spike Lee), but it does mean that any effective transformative politic that is accountable to us, young black people with a variety of intellectual and cultural attractions and modes will respect us as genius participants in a culture in transition (singularity) instead of incorrectly assuming that we are mindless consumers.

Now:

I take, the example of two songs by two of the most visible young black artists around, members of a hip hop crew/entertainment company that has capitalized on glamourizing a sexualized, hyper-capitalist version of youth energy, chosen family, excess and fun: Nicki Minaj, Drake from the Lil Wayne fronted Young Money Crew.

I happen to have been listening to mainstream radio one day in the car during the week that I was reading Angel Kyodo Williams book Being Black, on the value of Zen principles for black people in the United States and, inexplicably free of the usual defenses and judgments I hold against the most highly marketed versions of hip-pop (no typo) and the self-protection against misogyny and hyper-exploitation that generally causes me to hold back my listening, I actually paid attention to they lyrics.

Of course it was incredibly likely that I would hear songs by Nicki Minaj and Drake since they are routinely rotated. It seems like 2 out of 2 songs that are currently played on the radio star or feature one of these artists. But this time, opened up by Williams’ insights about the value of releasing judgment I began to wonder whether beyond payola and the corporatization and uniformity of radio the mass appeal of these two artists might actually not only be the attraction of black youth, and young people in general to…(young) money and the alcohol baptized sexually olympic lifestyle advertised to come with young people’s access to money, but also a very different basic need in the lives of young black people, and a central need in my life: accessible technologies for being present to our own lives.

Read the Full Essay @ The Feminist Wire

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Alexis Pauline Gumbs has a PhD in English, Africana Studies and Women’s Studies from Duke University. Alexis is the founder of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind and the co-creator of the Queer Black MobileHomecoming Project.

The Drizzy Phenomenon

special to NewBlackMan

The Drizzy Phenomenon
by Wilfredo Gomez

Lookin down from the top and it’s crowded below/my fifteen minutes started an hour ago--Drake “Fireworks”

On Wednesday, September 29 I made my way to New York City from the City of brotherly and sister love. I had readily anticipated this date for months on end and it had finally arrived. The occasion: Drake! The place: New York City, mecca for superstardom and hip-hop history. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere…right? I had gone to New York City to see the phenomenon for myself. While my colleague Marc Lamont Hill has expressed his dislike for Drake with his heavily circulated “I Hate Drake. There, I Said It,” I can speak for myself in stating matter of fact that I am a Drake fan and have been since he’d been doing his thing on the mixtape circuit with the release of his critically acclaimed So Far Gone.

At a minimum I had to go to New York to see one of my new favorites, along with Beyond Belief, STS, PacDiv, and others later on in the same night. But on the other hand, I had gone to New York with the curiosity of a serious hip-hop head. I wanted to know: so what exactly is this Drake phenomenon? How serious is it? Does he put on a good show? Is he the real deal live? All of these questions, and I patiently waiting.

Even before the show, the energy and excitement, was real, very real. A brief introduction and words shared with Toure, let me know that the event was something not to be missed as FUSE would be recording the show and airing at a later date. Once I got to my seat, the anxiety of those around me was palpable. Questions and statements came in constant barrages: “What’s the first song gonna be?” “Do you think Jay-Z is gonna come out?” “I heard he ends the show with “Over.” “I wonder who the special guests are going to be.” All of this, and the show hadn’t started. The audience was consistently tinkering on the edge of falling out of their seats waiting for the show to begin.

Drake opened the show with “9Am in Dallas” a song, Drake himself wishes would have served as the introduction to his debut album Thank Me Later. From the outset, several things are clearly evident. Drake is the rebirth of the slick, so to speak, a digable planet digested and palatable because we, the viewing public, and presumably fans feel what Drake is feeling at that moment. Drake is not invested in the contested politics of transcendence. By this I mean to suggest that unlike Rick Ross he does not think himself as organized crime bosses Big Meech or Larry Hoover. Neither does he take the lead of hip-hop luminaries Jay-Z and Nas, who have at one point in their respective careers refashioned themselves as Jay Hova and God’s Son, Drake is the epitome of a hustler’s ambition turned hustler’s emotional rollercoaster. In a calculated move towards the mainstream, Drake embraces a racial sincerity and performative identity that moves towards the call for humanity as the man nicknamed “Drizzy” (famously dubbed such by mentor Lil Wayne) becomes the Aubrey Graham who some of us followed during his days on television on Degrassi.

Drake is transforming the way we understand emcees, an artist whose credibility is rooted in the musical mélange of emotional vulnerability and braggadocio. His foray into audiobiography, are less rooted in the cultural scripts on industry insiderism, a sodeparture from the hypermasculine black male identity that seems to plague all emcee’s regardless of what their class and racial backgrounds are. His attention to emotional interiority undermines traditional notions of masculinity in hip-hop by affording the artist a sense of transparency. This particular brand of artistic transparency is sorely lacking when thinking about the commercial viability of the next great thing to come out of hip-hop culture at large. Perhaps, it is possible to read into his upcoming project, a R&B mixtape and first single appropriately titled Its Never Enough and “I Get Lonely too,” as offering further insights into this matter.

In the cultural imagination and historical memory that is hip-hop, modern debates of style over substance tend to be featured prominently on your airwaves and TV screens. As evidenced from his frequent facial expressions, mood swings, and propensity for kneeling, Drake comes across as an artist whose anxiety and human frailty manifests itself in a simultaneous call towards audience approval and audience forgiveness. This duality not only finds a perfect match in the rapper, who doubles as an R&B crooner, it seems to superficially, albeit momentarily resolve the dilemma raised in Bryon Hurt’s celebrated Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by finding a substantive balance between Drake, the performer, and Aubrey Graham, the man who pens his lyrics. It is within this capacity that Drake represents a new trope within hip-hop, an antithesis of sorts, a creative corpus that counters Lil Wayne’s sentiments about not being a human being! Through Drake’s presence in the mainstream, we have found a way to wax poetic on the gauntlet of human emotions that render us, vulnerable, overwhelmed, humbled, arrogant, and at times something other than our “true” selves. The cultural and generational amnesia that consumes us is present and packaged in the emo-rapper, a paradigm of the imaginative possible impossibilities of [brown male] life.

Nowhere is this more evident than when reflecting on the “Left of Black” episode, featuring Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal and spoken word poet and soon to be Princeton doctoral student Joshua Bennett. At a minimum, Drake, his music, stage presence, and ability to clearly move the crowd effectively deconstructs the politics of cool, suggesting that there is a space from which one can contest notions of the street hustler turned hustler of scrabble and video games.

Joined by the likes of Trey Songz, Swizz Beats, Birdman, Jay-Z, it is evident that Drake doesn’t lack credibility in the hip-hop game. His commitment to his craft, regardless of his infamous “Blackberry freestyle,” his ability to move the crowd, his ability to evoke a range of emotions from audience members while also having his own self-reflexive moments speaks volumes. By explicitly invoking the memories of Marvin Gaye, Ol’ Dirty Bastard(Wu-Tang), and Aaliyah, Drake has a sense of history and his place in the pop culture pantheon of those greats and those who never got the chance to rock the mic. To be clear, there is no miseducation of Drake from which to speak of. Dare we say, that he does R&B and hip-hop like no artist since Lauryn Hill? That has yet to be proven, as Drake’s fifteen minutes of fame started an hour ago. But if this claim turns out to be truthful, please be sure to Thank Me Later!

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Wilfredo Gomez is a Doctoral Student in Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Shrinking of the Black American Dream

We Just Wanna Be Successful:
The Shrinking of the Black American Dream
by Kim Pearson

Consider two songs from two generations. One, Drake’s ”Successful, ” was one of the most popular songs of 2009, making an international rap star out of the unsigned Canadian former child actor. The other, “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now,” was a signature hit for the songwriting producing duo of McFadden and Whitehead. Both employ narratives of aspiration and determination in the face of obstacles. But Drake’s song, produced in collaboration with singer Trey Songz is fraught with ambivalence and alienation, while McFadden and Whitehead’s anthem brims with optimism.

The Grio’s Hillary Crosley aptly called “Successful”, a “melancholy plea for international acclaim and financial achievement.”

A close reading of the lyrics invites all sorts of questions and commentary. The refrain is “I just wanna be successful,” but is that measured by the traditional success markers of the music industry – “money, clothes and hos” [sic]? “Yeah, I suppose,” his collaborator Trey Songz sings in the hook. Drake’s rap tells a story of a young man who is confident of his talent and destiny but thwarted in his personal relationships. As “the young spitter that everybody in rap fear” [sic], he navigates a competitive minefield. He is on the verge of breaking his girlfriend; his mother “tried to run away from home.” He knows fame and fortune are coming, but he is not sure he’ll live long enough to see it. “Inside, I’m treading waters, steady trying to swim to shore.”

Although written in 2006, “Successful” dropped in the middle of a bewildering economic crisis that’s been called the worst since the great Depression. Yet the narrator of the song expresses faith in his ability to overcome economic obstacles. The lyrics suggest the need for a larger sense of purpose and meaning – marriage, family, community.

If the 22-year-old Drake’s “Successful,” can be seen as a reflection of the zeitgeist of a “post-racial” generation of African American hip-hop enthusiasts, it stands in stark contrast to the anthem that their parents danced to -1979’s “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now, ” by Gene McFadden and John Whitehead.

Read the Full Essay @ KimPearson.net

Hip-Hop's Shifting Masculinity?

President Drake: Hip-Hop's Shifting Masculinity

by Regina Barnett

Jimmy raps?!

Aubrey “Drake” Graham’s been around for a minute. He’s not some cat who just magically appeared and became a celebrity overnight. I remember my cousin harassing me on MySpace to check him out. I liked what I heard. But I really didn’t take him seriously. He was Jimmy. From Degrassi.

He’s being taken seriously now. One of the headliners of Weezy’s Young Money Clique, Drake is changing and has changed the game. His flow is nice. Aside from lyrical performance, is it possible that he is changing the branding of manhood in the rap game?

The folks over at Makin’ It Magazine struck up an intriguing conversation of Drake as rap’s Barack Obama. It’s not the first time President Obama has entered the Hip Hop realm. Byron Hurt created a fabulous dichotomy of President Obama and 50 Cent titled Barack and Curtis. I don’t know if the president has rhymes, but it is a fascinating topic to present the Barack/Drake masculinity dichotomy. In other words, can Drake be the Barack Obama of Hip Hop?

Read the Full Essay @ Red Clay Scholar