by Cornel West
Yet some young folk do persevere and prevail: those who are dissatisfied with mere material toys and illusions of security. They hunger for something more, thirst for something deeper. They want caring attention, wise guidance, and compassionate counsel. They desire democratic individuality, community, and society. They know something is wrong with America and something is missing in their lives. They long for energizing visions worthy of pursuit and sacrifice that will situate their emaciated souls in a story bigger than themselves and locate their inflated egos (that only conceal deep insecurities and anxieties) in a narrative grander than themselves. Their emaciated souls contain a rage that often strikes out at the world; their inflated egos yield a cocky pose and posture that defies authority, whether legitimate or illegitimate. A grand story and a large narrative—especially democratic ones—can channel their longings into mature efforts to contribute in a meaningful way to making the world a better place. This longing is the raw stuff of democracy matters.
Like every younger generation, our kids today see clearly the hypocrisies and mendacities of our society, and as they grow up they begin to question in a fundamental way some of the lies that they’ve received from society. They also begin to see that their education has been distorted and sugarcoated and has sidestepped so many uncomfortable truths. This often leads to an ardent disappointment, and even anger, about the failures of our society to consistently uphold the democratic and humanitarian values that can be born in youths in this phase of their life. This new sense of conscience in young people is a profound force that adult society should take much more seriously. In fact, we should understand the expressions of this moral outrage as having a profound kind of wisdom, even as we must also help to channel that outrage into a more productive sense of commitment to find a positive way forward.
In the political sphere, the most significant expression today of this mix of anger, disappointment, and yet a tough-edged longing is the democratic globalization movement here and abroad. Although still in the early stages, this movement to establish democratic accountability of the American empire and its global corporate behemoths is disproportionately led by the youth culture. The historical day of protest—February 15, 2003—in which millions of people in over six hundred cities (including nearly two hundred U.S. cities) protested the likelihood of a U.S. violation of international law in its invasion of Iraq exemplifies the deep democratic energy and moral fervor that youth can bring to bear. Other protests in Seattle, Prague, Washington, Rome, and Davos, Switzerland—driven largely by young people—focused international attention on the antidemocratic character of global world power centers that reinforce American imperial rule.
The central thrust of this movement is criticism of the dogma of free-market fundamentalism and the increasing wealth inequality all around the world that the slavish devotion to the dogma has produced. The movement also targets the aggressive militarism of the U.S. government and the escalating authoritarianism here and around the world. The impressive efforts to create lasting institutions out of the energy of these protests—such as the public-interest groups MoveOn and Global Citizens Campaign—exemplify democratic commitment in action. Much of the support for and enthusiasm generated by these organizations is owing to youth culture. One of the tasks to which I am devoted—as a democratic intellectual of middle age!—is to help make this movement more multiracial by linking it to black youth culture. One way I’ve worked at doing this is by engaging with the profound power and energy of hip-hop culture and rap music, by taking it as seriously as it should be taken.
Although hip-hop culture has become tainted by the very excesses and amorality it was born in rage against, the best of rap music and hip-hop culture still expresses stronger and more clearly than any cultural expression in the past generation a profound indictment of the moral decadence of our dominant society. An unprecedented cultural breakthrough created by talented poor black youths in the hoods of the empire’s chocolate cities, hip-hop has by now transformed the entertainment industry and culture here and around the world. The fundamental irony of hip-hop is that it has become viewed as a nihilistic, macho, violent, and bling-bling phenomenon when in fact its originating impulse was a fierce disgust with the hypocrisies of adult culture—disgust with the selfishness, capitalist callousness, and xenophobia of the culture of adults, both within the hood and in the society at large. For example, the most popular hip-hop artists today are Outkast from Atlanta, Georgia. On their first album over a decade ago, in “True Dat,” Ruben Bailey explained their name—an explanation that goes back to the original roots of hip-hop:
Operatin’ under the crooked American system too long, Outkast, pronounced outcast, adjective meaning homeless or unaccepted in society, but let’s dig deeper than that.
Are you an outcast? If you understand the basic principles and fundamental truths continued within this music you probably are. If you think it’s all about pimpin’ hoes and slammin Cadillac doors you probably a cracker, or a nigga that think he a cracker, or maybe just don’t understand.
An outcast is someone who is not considered to be part of the normal world. He’s looked at differently. He’s not accepted because of his clothes, his hair, his occupation, his beliefs or his skin color. Now look at yourself, are you an outcast? I know I am, as a matter of fact, fuck bein’ anything else.
The first stages of hip-hop were hot. Coming from the margins of society, the lyrics and rhythms of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kool Herc, Rakim, Paris, the Poor Righteous Teachers, Afrikaa Bambaataa, and, above all, KRS-ONE and Public Enemy (led by Chuck D) unleashed incredible democratic energies. Their truth telling about black suffering and resistance in America was powerful. The political giants of hip-hop all expressed and continue to express the underground outlook of Outkast: righteous indignation at the dogmas and nihilism of imperial America. Yet hip-hop was soon incorporated into the young American mainstream and diluted of its prophetic fervor.
With the advent of the giants of the next phase—Tupac Shakur, Ice-T, Ice Cube, Biggie Smalls, and Snoop Dogg—linguistic genius and gangster sentiments began to be intertwined. Ironically, their artistic honesty revealed subversive energy and street prowess in their work and life. As the entertainment industry began to mainstream the music, that street prowess became dominant—with the racist stereotypes of black men as hypercriminal and hypersexual and black women as willing objects of their conquests. The companies perceived that white kids were much more interested in the more violence-ridden, misogynist mode than in the critical, prophetic mode. This packaging for eager rebellious youth in vanilla suburbs—now 72 percent of those who buy hip-hop CDs and even more who illegally download them—led to an economic boom for the industry, until its recent downturn. Black Star, the progressive duo of Mos Def and Talib Kweli, responded to this market focus exclusively on the bottom line this way in “Hater Players”:
We started to see cats shouting “player hater” to anyone who had nerve to critique they wack shit. A lot of rich players are making wack ass music, that’s the bottom line! I remember when the worst thing you could be was a sell out. Then the sell-outs starting running things. We call this song “Hater Players” because there are many players who hate the fact that we do this for love.
The prophetic Lauryn Hill notes in “Lost Ones”:
It’s funny how money change a situation
Miscommunication lead to complication
My emancipation don’t fit your equation
I was on the humble you on every station
It is important not to confuse prophetic hip-hop with Constantinian hip-hop. Prophetic hip-hop remains true to the righteous indignation and political resistance of deep democratic energies. Constantinian hip-hop defers to the dogmas and nihilisms of imperial America. As DA Smart says in “Where Ya At?”:
What you trying to pull eatin’ us like cannibals
Whatever happened to that forty acres and that animal
Now you tryin t
o use integration just to fool us
Like Malcolm said we been hoodwinked and bamboozled.
That such powerful poetry and insightful social critiques could be created by youths who have been flagrantly disregarded, demeaned, and demonized by the dominant market-driven culture—targeted as cannon fodder by a racist criminal-justice system and a growing prison-industrial complex, in disgraceful schools and shattered families (including too many irresponsible, unemployed fathers) and violent environments—is a remarkable testament to the vital perspective and energy that can be injected into our democracy by the young, who have not made their compromises yet with the corrupted system.
What a horrible irony it is that this poetry and critique could be co-opted by the consumer preferences of suburban white youths—white youths who long for rebellious energy and exotic amusement in their own hollow bourgeois world. But the black voices from the hood were the most genuine, authentic voices from outside the flaccid mainstream market culture that they could find. So the recording and fashion industries seized on this market opportunity. The present state of hip-hop—with great talents like Jay-Z, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Master P, Kanye West, Pharrell, Killer Mike, Dead Prez, and, above all, Outkast—is tenuous. Although it remains a major force in the industry, much of the talent has gone underground. And as Imani Perry shows in her superb book, Prophets of the Hood (2004), the future of hip-hop is local music. Meanwhile the neo-soul movement—Jill Scott, The Roots, Kindred, Anthony Hamilton, Ruff Endz, Dru Hill, Donnie, India. Arie, Alicia Keys—is a mellowing out of the roughness and toughness. Just as is the revival of the perennial genius of Gerald Levert, Aretha Franklin, Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, Ronald Isley, and R. Kelly. Yet more underground hip-hop may surface soon. I hope so—for the sake of democratic energies in American life—because hip-hop has made such vital contributions to not only national but international political truth telling.
Like the forms of black music in the past, hip-hop seized the imaginations of young people across the globe. Prophetic hip-hop has told painful truths about their internal struggles and how the decrepit schools, inadequate health care, unemployment, and drug markets of the urban centers of the American empire have wounded their souls. Yet Constantinian hip-hop revels in the fetishism of commodities, celebrates the materialism, hedonism, and narcissism of the culture (the bling! bling!) and promotes a degrading of women, gays, lesbians, and gangster enemies. In short, hip-hop is a full-scale mirror of the best and worst, the virtuous and vicious, aspects of our society and world.
Hip-hop culture and rap music are, in many ways, an indictment of the old generation even as they imitate and emulate us in a raw and coarse manner. The defiant and insightful voices of this new generation lyrically proclaim that they have been relatively unloved, uncared for, and unattended to by adults too self-indulgent, too self-interested, and too self-medicated to give them the necessary love, care, and attention to flower and flourish. Only their beloved mothers—often overworked, underpaid, and wrestling with a paucity of genuine intimacy—are spared. They also indict the American empire for its mendacity and hypocrisy—not in a direct anti-imperialist language but in a poetic rendering of emotional deficits and educational defects resulting from the unequal institutional arrangements of the empire.
It is important that all democrats engage and encourage prophetic voices in hip-hop—voices that challenge youth to be self-critical rather than self-indulgent, Socratic rather than hedonistic. This is why I strongly support and participate in the efforts of Russell Simmons and Benjamin Chavis to organize hip-hop into a political force that accents the plight of youth. I also support the vision of KRS-ONE and others behind the Hip Hop Temple, which teaches youth the prophetic aims of underground hip-hop. There is also the organization of L. Londell Mcmillan—the Arts Empowerment Collective—which protects prophetic artists from abuse by the industry; and there are annual gatherings of the great musical genius Prince at Paisley Park, which bring the older generation together with the young artists in order to wrestle with political issues and enjoy performances. Prophetic hip-hop is precious soil in which the seeds of democratic individuality, community, and society can sprout.
I have experienced this sprouting on an intimate level in the making of my first CD, Sketches of My Culture (2001, Artemis), and my double CD, Street Knowledge (2004, Roc Diamond). The deep solidarity and community—shot through with critical exchange and political reflection—in Crystal Clear Studios in my old black neighborhood of Glen Elder, in Sacramento, California, is a vital democratic space for young people. Our group—Four Black Men Who Mean Business (4BMWMB)—brings together the inimitable producer and songwriter Derek “D.O.A.” Allen, the initiator and songwriter Michael Dailey, the elder leader and songwriter Clifton West (my beloved blood brother), and myself. Our aim is to teach youths the prophetic history of black music and to reveal to them the political foundations of hip-hop. We build bridges between the older and younger generations by speaking directly to them and performing with them in their own idioms and styles. These CDs are danceable education for artistic and political ends. In this way, democracy matters are woven into hip-hop culture in a respectful yet critical manner.
Hip-hop culture is hardly the only vehicle for such outreach, though it is a vital one. The disaffection of so many youths stems in large part from their perception that the adult community neither understands nor cares about the issues in their lives. Even within the university world, where the highest calling should be to spark the fires of intellectual exploration and to prepare young minds for engaged and productive participation in our democracy, the mandates of the market have attained prominence. The narrow quest for success crowds out the noble effort to be great—greatness understood as using one’s success to make the world a better place for all.
A market-driven technocratic culture has infiltrated university life, with the narrow pursuit of academic trophies and the business of generating income from grants and business partnerships taking precedence over the fundamental responsibility of nurturing young minds. It is imperative for the adults who have made the life of the mind their life’s calling to be engaged with the wider community and play a vital role in furthering the national discourse on the important issues of the day by exercising the ways of truth telling that engage youth. Young people are acutely aware of the hypocrisies of so many adults in the political and business worlds, and that’s why those of us in the universities who are free to speak more frankly without worries of recriminations—though the degree of that freedom is under fire—can create such an important bridge.
This is why I have made not only a serious commitment to teaching and writing in the academy but also a substantive conviction to communicate to the larger culture. I have taught in prisons for over twenty years. My numerous appearances on C-SPAN and other TV networks provide occasions to challenge fellow citizens on burning issues of the day. My weekly commentary on Tavis Smiley’s National Public Radio show offers deep democratic viewpoints on U.S. foreign and domestic policies. My grappling with the legacy of slavery with young kids on Linda Ellerbee’s Nick News highlights democratic progress. My cochairing of the National Parenting Association with Sylvia Ann Hewlett (including our books, The War Against Parents [1998] and Taking Parenting Public [2002]) spot-lights the needs of children; and my recent role as Counselor West in the last two Matrix films supports the deep democratic vision of the Wachowskis. Furthermore, the annual Pass-the-Mic tour of several cities—with crowds of thousands paying $50 a ticket to engage in a discussion of serious issues—that I do with Tavis Smiley and Michael Eric Dyson (the towering public intellectual of his generation) joins older and younger people in a democratic space of critique and resistance to imperial America. I have also tried to support brilliant young democratic intellectuals like Eddie Glaude Jr. of Princeton University and Farah Jasmine Griffin of Columbia University. On each of these fronts, I have been amazed at the hunger of young people for the expression o
f democratic ideals and for critical conversation.
I am especially inspired in my own outreach by the example of Tavis Smiley, because he is the most influential democratic intellectual in mass media of the younger generation—and possibly of any generation. His vibrant presence in the culture is always accompanied by his relentless wrestling with race and empire. He has done more than anyone to educate and inspire young people, especially young black people, to attend to democracy matters. Tavis Smiley’s commentaries appear twice a week on The Tom Joyner Morning Show—the black radio show with the largest audience in the country (twelve million people). His historic National Public Radio show and his TV talk show on public television are unprecedented: never in the history of mass media in America has anyone—of any color—had a National Public Radio show and a show on public television at the same time. His nine books sell swiftly. And both his Tavis Smiley Foundation for young leaders and his annual black think tank on C-SPAN are major forces for good. He understands and embodies the kind of vision and courage needed to make youth culture central to democracy matters.
