Dragonball Z In Rap Shows That All Millennials Have Common Ground.
Racism Shouldn’t Exist When Black, White, And Latin Millennials All Grew Up On The Same Asian Cartoon.
I’m kind of a nerd. Most of my friends find that obvious. Usually I write about more serious topics stuff in the technology sector. Stuff like Bitcoin, cryptography, and blockchains, but today, I’m going nerdy in a different direction. I’ve noticed something recently I want to write about. If you read the title you can probably guess it: Dragonball Z references in rap. When they come, they’re pretty cool and unexpected. Genius.com even made a massive chart about them that is too big to include here. But this is about much more than that, I think this is a prime example that shows we have a more connected culture and world than ever.
Now before I get deep into this, I’m a latino, and I hope I don’t offend anyone by writing a bit about race stuff. Anything I’m saying here comes from a deep appreciation of Hip-Hop, Dragonball Z, and social justice. You see, I’m a huge hip-hop head, and something I have noticed from a lot of millennial rappers across the racial spectrum is Dragonball Z references. When first noticing them I thought “That’s pretty cool” but then I realized that they represent more than witty DBZ references. These DBZ references represent the fact that for the first time ever in America, we have a generation of youth with more in common with each other culturally than differences.
It’s a little weird to think about because watching anime in America is usually seen as a nerdy white thing, but DBZ slips past that because growing up as millennials we all watched Cartoon Network, and we all were watching Toonami. The fact that Cartoon Network did this ended up breaking down some cultural barriers in the long run. It didn’t matter who you were, it was cool to watch DBZ, and we were all watching it at the same time on the same channel. DBZ became culturally transcendental. It’s so transcendental that RZA of Wu-Tang has compared it to black America’s journey. As he says in “The Tao of Wu”:
“Take even a cartoon like Dragon Ball Z. I mean, it’s a cartoon, but it’s one of the deepest cartoons in history. Its hero, Son Goku, starts out as a kid, begins martial arts training like San Te, and goes off on a quest for seven balls that unleash dragons that can grant wishes. Now that’s a fantasy, obviously, a children’s story. But it’s also based on a sixteenth-century Chinese folk novel, about a Buddhist monk who travels to India to find the Buddhist sutras. That voyage represents a journey to enlightment. But to me, Dragon Ball Z also represents the journey of the black man in America.”
It may sound weird, but I bet you that if you went up to any 20-something guy in America, no matter their background, no matter if they’re black, white, latin, asian, native, or any cultural/ethnic mix you can think of, and you asked them what they think of Dragonball Z they’d say something along the lines of “DBZ is straight dope bro.” There’s about a 50% chance that they’ll geek out about it no matter who they are too.
The same goes for hip-hop. A generation ago, there would have been a clear divide in listeners. Now it almost doesn’t matter who you are, your age or your background. Nearly everyone listens to hip-hop. Hip-hop music is the heartbeat of America, and nearly everyone in America listens to hip-hop now.
I think that’s great for America. Just one generation before millennials we still had a lot of stratification in the media that American youth were consuming based on their race. It’s weird but cool to me: We’re in a world where black, white, and Latin millennials all grew up on the same Asian cartoon. Not only that, but they were all listening to the same group of nine black guys rap about money, drugs, guns, and kung fu. Crazy right?
But even though that happened, we still have millennials that are being led into white supremacy and other forms of reactionary extremism. For many going down dark rabbit holes happens because fear of an artificial “Us Vs. Them” has blinded them. Maybe they’d be turn away from being reactionaries if they asked some of the people they irrationally hate what their favorite DBZ episodes are. They’d probably find out that they have stronger ties to millennial culture than any of that white supremacy garbage.
Even though it can be politically incorrect, the permeation of the music throughout american culture shows hip-hop can be a tool for social justice. I highly doubt that white America would be nearly as sympathetic to #blacklivesmatter without the proliferation of hip-hop. I honestly think that without hip-hop, racism in America and race relations would be significantly worse. Whether we realize it or not, cartoons like DBZ have helped too, by providing hip-hop a common ground for references that can bring us all together.
I know this at heart because hip-hop has helped me understand and identify with black struggle in America. Hip-hop made me a highly sympathetic advocate for the needs of our most vulnerable American communities. So next time you’re listening to some hip-hop and you hear a DBZ reference should know this: We might not need seven Dragonballs to achieve social justice goals in America after all.
If you liked this, follow me for tech analysis, political commentary, and occasional randomness like this. Thanks for reading. — Zach. https://1za.ch
