- Rapping Minstrels and the Performance of Hip Hop
Rapping Minstrels and the Performance of Hip Hop
Introduction
The minstrel show, with the peculiar structure of its
performance and its socio-cultural implications, has been
identified as a particularly early form of racially complicated
entertainment. The appropriation - and distortion - of Black
cultural forms was in fact viably exploited by White performers and
directed at a White audience. As social critic W.E.B. Du Bois
argues that minstrelsy was "organized around the quite explicit
'borrowing' of black cultural materials for white dissemination…it
arose from a white obsession with black (male) bodies which
underlies white racial dread to our own day" (Du Bois 1989: 3).
Minstrelsy has therefore been identified as the first in a long,
constant line of cultural parasitism affecting Black popular forms
of entertainment - passing through the era of rock'n'roll to land
in the contemporary cultural space of hip hop. Although the
parallelism with hip hop is evident in terms of what commentator
Bakari Kitwana labels a white 'banditry' of socio-cultural means of
expression (Kitwana 2005: 156), some of the fundamental elements of
hip hop culture and performance differ substantially from the
minstrelsy and blackface performance. The paragon between a
minstrel show and a rap performance is supported by similarities
that range from structure, construction of characters and figure of
speech, to loose social implications in the rapport established
cross-culturally between the performers, the 'performed', and the
audience. However, the minstrel show is essentially rooted in and
envisioned for the entertainment of White middle-class culture,
whereas hip hop practice and performance finds its core and
celebrates Black culture at its purest form - even more some when
primarily consumed by White spectators. In this context, what are
the points of contact and the aspects of divergence between
minstrelsy and hip hop/ rap performance? How do they relate to and
feed into each other? Finally, how can the experience of the first
trace a pattern of evolution for the latter?
The aim of this research essay is to evaluate correlation
between the artistic form of the American minstrel show of the 19th
century and modern day hip hop/ rap performance, establishing a
pattern of similarities and divergences in terms of format, content
as well as socio-cultural meaning and implications. A further aim
is to illustrate the relationship between the two forms of popular
entertainment through the systematic analysis of sample
performances, contextualising the historical development of
blackface minstrelsy and hip hop. The objective of the research is
to produce a synthetic account of the cultural origins and
progressive influence of the minstrel show and the hip hop
performance, in order to envision a possible path of evolution for
Black-oriented forms of entertainment.
It is evident that the average rap performance speaks of Black
people, for Black people, to both Black and White people.
Describing the hardship of racial conditioning of the Black
American population of the hip hop era appears therefore to be a
theme opposed to the idealised interpretation en vogue in the
minstrel shows. The performance of rap has been however
complicated, in its evolution, in terms of agency and exposure.
This drastic reading of hip hop musical culture is funded in the
implications deriving from the successful emergence of 'White
rappers', who imitate the musical speech of Black performers,
appropriate it, re-define it. The success of rap music - performed
by both Black and White artists - is also marked by a
disproportioned socio-cultural composition in terms of consumption.
Once again in history, White people show fascination with a
typically Black form of entertainment - a fascination that is
eventually leading to the intentional modification of content aimed
at ensuring the attention of the most financially viable audience
(Du Bois 1989).
Conclusion
The historic experience of the minstrel show is recorded as the
first instance of a process of cultural theft that repeated itself
through the course of history and is still identifiable, in the
contemporary socio-cultural scene, within the development of hip
hop musical performance. Blackface minstrelsy and hip hop culture,
analysed in their numerous points of contact and divergence, appear
to be at the extremes of a long evolutional process rather than
being two facets of the same phenomenon. The development of the two
forms of entertainment analysed can therefore be approached to
evaluate the emerging socio-cultural patterns that characterise the
rapport between Black and White musical cultures - and envision a
hypothetical trajectory of future progress.
