Rap’s Role in Fighting Racism and Police Brutality
Written by Mina Sarafim, Christina Solis, Aaron.Y
We choose to discuss the issue of racism and police brutality in our podcast today because it has been a long-standing tradition in hip hop to address issues of discrimination and prejudice in a way that connects and resonates with people of all races. However, despite all the efforts throughout the last decade by artists to raise awareness about the issue of violence against people of color, terrible tragedies have happened that incited a response from rap artists similar to responses of groups Public Enemy we have seen in the past. This highlights the importance of discussing this issue more frequently and provides an interesting avenue to explore in comparing the responses by these artists and how they affect society now versus then.
To explore the stands of artists from previous eras, we will examine groups like N.W.A. and Public Enemy for their notorious reputation of speaking freely about issues like violence and prejudice that affected the African American community at the time. We will also explore elements of their songs that resonated with people of all races and that the African American Youth in particular really related to, and the reactions of the listeners to some of their most impactful songs. Next, we will compare these artists and the issues they discussed with two of the most influential rappers of our modern era: Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole. It will be interesting to analyze the similarities and differences between the songs, issues, and reactions of listeners to these modern rappers compared to rappers of the last decade. So join us in the conversation as we dissect specific songs by each artist like “Neighbors” by J. Cole, and “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar to discover how these songs became political statements adopted by people in a similar manner to “Fight the Power: by Public Enemy, and “Fuck the Police” By NWA as well as how hip hop music has been an important part of social justice education that can be used to resist things like white supremacy and neoliberalism.
“Fuck tha Police” By N.W.A:
“Fuck the Police” is a song that was released with N.W.A’s first studio album “Straight out of Compton”. The album narrative was sort of a “reality check” as to how living in the hood was like, and this song helps express the theme of the album as well as the theme of our post. The song “Fuck tha Police” was the 2nd song of the album, the first being “Straight outta Compton”, which set the tone of the album, talking about where they’re from, and the music video having the rappers Ice Cube and MC Ren being arrested while singing their verses. “Fuck Tha Police” was initially not to be released due to Dr. Dre having to spend weekends in prison, but later done when the sentence was finished.
“Fuck Tha Police” was a song that discussed police brutality and the racial profiling that was done by them. The music video has the rappers being the prosecutors of the members of the LAPD, and Dr. Dre being the judge. In the lyrics, they pull up two examples of racial profiling, explained by Ice Cube and MC Ren, which continues the “story” they created in the music video for “Straight out of Compton”. The origin of this song is discussed in this article by Kory Grow, where Dre got the idea for the song after he and Eazy E were confronted by the police because they were shooting paintballs at people waiting for a bus, thinking it was dumb, they made the song. Here’s an example of the racial profiling that happens within the song:
Pull your goddamn ass over right now!
Aw shit, now what the fuck you pullin’ me over for?
’Cause I feel like it!
Just sit your ass on the curb and shut the fuck up!
Man, fuck this shit
Alright, smart-ass, I’m taking your black ass to jail!
This portion of the song represents an example of the type of racial profiling that could happen during that time and the absurdity of it. The fact that just being black could get you in trouble with an officer is not exaggerated and shows the racial profiling within the police. When your skin color can get you in trouble with the police, you know that the department is messed up.
“Neighbors” By J. Cole:
“Neighbors’’ was released as part of J. Cole’s 2016 album titled “4 You Eyez Only”. Although the song was a single that did not really fit the album’s narrative, it is important to highlight the album’s story as it fits directly into our theme. The album was written by Cole to describe the life of his friend James McMillan Jr., which was murdered, and asked Cole to tell his story to his daughter when she grows up. J. Cole reveals this in the final song on the album. As he tells the story of his late friend, J. Cole highlights issues that relate to many other young men of color who are victims of systematic racism. For example, in the song “Immortal” from the same album. Cole speaks from the perspective of a young man (presumably his friend) that sells drugs to escape poverty. Then, the second half of the album shows the severity of the problem as McMillan is inspired to turn his life around because of the birth of his daughter but is unable to leave his past behind as he is murdered.
However, “Neighbors” tells a different but related story. In this song, Cole is inspired by true events that took place at a residence he owns in an affluent suburb in the state of North Carolina. The story was later told by one of Cole’s in-house producers in an interview with Complex and is summarized well in this article on the issue written by Myah Taylor. The story begins as Cole decided to buy a house in a calm suburb and established a studio for him and members of his record in the basement of the house. Cole’s fellow rappers would regularly come to the house to use the studio and would occasionally smoke marijuana on the porch. Then, a neighbor called the police and informed them that he witnessed marijuana being grown and sold in the house without any sufficient proof. The producer that tells the story recalls arriving at the house to a full SWAT team, guns are drawn, and ready to invade the home. They eventually entered the house only to find records and recording equipment. Here’s a video with some footage from the incident:
The song is inspired by these events but it does not only show the prejudice and police brutality involved in this situation. These lyrics by Cole attracted attention to a different perspective on the issue:
“Some things you can’t escape
Death, taxes, NRA
It’s this society that make
Every n — — feel like a candidate
For a Trayvon kinda fate
Even when your crib sit on a lake
Even when your plaques hang on a wall
Even when the president jam your tape”
Here, J. Cole explains that contrary to popular belief, African Americans cannot escape racism and prejudice by simply moving up the socioeconomic ladder and that even wealthy people of color are victims of the same racist incidents we often see by police officers. Overall, the song “Neighbors” and the album as a whole show a more modern perspective of the issue of racism as some people try to deny that racism still exists in modern times.
“Start the Revolution”: Hip-Hop Music and Social Justice Education by Kamau Rashid
This journal made by Kamau Rashid talks about Hip-Hop’s legacy of being an expressive medium for African-American communities for use of activism. The political effect of Hip-Hop was huge, part of this was due to “Hip Hop’s voice of opposition was effectively commoditized for the mass consumer” (Rashid, 344) Which meant that most people were able to see the voice of opposition due to the capitalist nature of the media. Not only is this exposure good, but it serves the purpose of allowing Hip-Hop to communicate messages to the masses and to be shown as a form of social criticism.
Hip-Hop can also be used as education towards the topic of social justice. As Rashid talks about in the article, “Hip Hop lyrics can complement social studies texts in a way that illuminates the omissions and distortions of American History.” as well as “bolstering their capacity to critically evaluate society via the symbolism and messages embedded (encoded) in Rap music.” (Rashid, 347). Through this, Hip-Hop can be used as a way to learn about the history that isn’t written in textbooks and allow students to be able to view society in a different light, and therefore allows them to understand the concept of social justice through rap.
Rap as an advocate for social justice in regards to Police Brutality
Two artists Public Enemy and Kendrick Lamar are good examples of how their music became a political statement and raised awareness of police brutality. For instance, the artist Public enemy and the song “Fuck the Police” became a protest song for injustices such as the Murder of Micheal Griffin in 1986.
The song amplified and acknowledged the Americans who were protesting on the streets to reshape the criminal justice system. The lyrics:
“Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
We’ve got to fight the powers that be
As the rhythm designed to bounce
What counts is that the rhymes
Designed to fill your mind
Now that you’ve realized the pride’s arrived
We got to pump the stuff to make us tough”
are a powerful message that has even been updated and was performed at the 2020 BET Awards as the issues remain relevant even to this day.
Furthermore, this can also be compared to artists Kendrick Lamar’s rap and music are used as a form of protest against police brutality(Limbing, 2019 ). Kendrick Lamar’s song Alright was used as a chant against police brutality in 2016 when hundreds of activists gathered at Cleveland State University for a conference for the Black Live matter Movement or BLM. At this time there was a lot of tension as news broadcasted the death of Sandra Bland an African American woman found dead in a Texas jail after being arrested at a traffic stop. The video for the protest chant can be found at the following link: BLM Conference WeAreGonnaBeAlright.
The injustice of Sandra Bland was just another reminder of police brutality and the importance of speaking out against it. It’s difficult to pinpoint when exactly the song “alright” was being used at a protest but it was becoming visible that the lyrics (video can be looked in this link) :
“All my life I have to fight, nigga
All my life I
Hard times like yah!
But if God got us then we gon’ be alright
Nigga, we gon’ be alright
Nigga, we gon’ be alright
We gon’ be alright
Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon’ be alright
Nigga, we gon’ be alright
Huh? We gon’ be alright
Nigga, we gon’ be alright
Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon’ be alright”
Connected strongly to the African American community. Especially as the event ended with the crowd growing and the police surveillance growing as well, which led to the police pepper spraying the chanting but peaceful crowd. All while protesters shouted “we gon be alright”, striking a form of unity and a political statement as the tensions between the police and the African American community grew.
Another example is Kendrick Lamar’s involvement in the soundtrack for the Black Panther movie. Even though it was a soundtrack for a superhero movie the lyrics alongside the issues occurring around the event invoked high feelings of the political climate and helped create unity in the community. Furthermore, the Movie for the Black panther created a representation for the American American community and shows the struggle of being of African American descent (Smith, 2021 ).
The words for the title “Black Panther” have a strong association of the black power movement starting from the 1960s when the African American community emphasized forms of unity through black-owned business and self-defense from groups that believed in segregation or the era of slavery (more can be found in this article). These are just a few associations and occurrences that had already spoken loudly of the injustices and discriminations against minority communities as the African Americans suffered in the US, more in regards to the time can be referenced in this Article. Hence in the Weekend’s song “pray for me”. Feat. Kendrick Laram, the lyrics :
“I fight the world, I fight me, I fight myself”
sparked a lot in the community struggling with the oppression of police brutality. These kinds of raps gave people an opportunity to express themselves especially when it comes to forms of oppression, such as police brutality.
Overall, Hip-Hop is a very strong tool used to convey ideas and social issues within the world. We can see it in the multiple rap songs that use their lyrics to convey their discontent with racial profiling. Even more so when actions of police brutality come to light, like George Floyd and Sandra Bland, we tend to fall back to Hip-Hop more so than ever. Hip-Hop is a medium for the voices of the people, and in this case, to express the discontent towards the police. Hip-Hop is a medium to go against police brutality, to try and prevent more cases of it from happening within the states. The use of the genre to go against racial profiling and the injustices caused around the country is one of the greatest weapons that we have.
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