Juneteenth Jamz ❤️🖤💚

Black creatives have been infiltrating the world of music through hip-hop for centuries and using it as a way to convey Black experiences with their communities. Transcending through generations, different forms such as Blues, R&B, Gospel and Rap have shown proven to be an effective tool for communication, education, protest and representation. Contrary to popular belief, the music is not always about strife. While rappers like KRS-One, Jay-Z, Lil Baby and Childish Gambino have used their music to bring notice to the violence against Black people, artists such as Queen Latifah and Beyoncé highlight the joys of Black Pride with allusions to descending from royalty. Their approaches to the complexity of the Black American and representations of space and place show that hip-hop consists of more than cool beats and hard bars, but is a culture. 

Lawrence “Kris” Parker, better known by his stage name KRS-One, used his platform in starting in the 1908s as a way to encourage Black people to take their education into their own hands. In fact, KRS stands for "Knowledge Reigning Supreme Over Nearly Everyone", is an ode to his journey of becoming an educated Black man through the absorption of knowledge through books. His song "You Must Learn" hones in on the "don't believe everything anyone tells you" adage, with rhymes about being called rebellious because he didn't take at face value what he was told and felt the information he was being force-fed was an insult to the Black Mentality. If you get a chance, take a close look at the music video. KRS-One presents himself as an "unorthodox" teacher because he does not agree with the information he is being forced to teach the students. When he attempts to teach his students about African History, he is thrown out of the classroom - but not before he can leave them with a Bible verse - Genesis 14:17. Go open that Bible!

With the fight for erudition very prevalent, this verse which talks about a fight over kings, is a metaphor about the party who was seemingly at a disadvantage (representing Black people) had won and reacquired everything which initially belonged to him (taken by White people). This was a nice way to incorporate faith into the music, by adding the religious undertone which a lot of Black people could resonate with and symbolizing a glimmer of hope that one day, Black people reacquire what was taken by White people. 

By using his platform as a way to educate in a non condescending way, he is not only able to give advice for what he believes Black people should do but provide reasons why. According to Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-Hop and Black Politics by Lester Spence, it was the goal of rappers and MCs to provide cultural awareness to their people as a way to condemn social norms. They are referred to as "cultural workers" who "accommodate and criticize mainstream norms and values". Because they are artists, they have what Spence calls "political autonomy", meaning that they are not governed by anyone but themselves and their own values.

Shawn Carter, also known as Jay-Z has a plethora of themes with the music he creates, but in recent tracks he goes into depth about a theme that I find disheartening: No matter how successful one may be, being Black will always be the biggest obstacle.

In the joint album “Everything is Love '' he released in 2018 with his wife, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, they discuss overcoming barriers that White people have put in place and finding themselves in spaces that were not originally meant for them. In their song “Nice”, Jay-Z raps:

 “Yeah, f*** your subpoenas and your misdemeanors was too busy touring out all your arenas, My passport is tatted it look like its active, I play on these planes, y’all catch me in traffic, Y’all drag me in court for that s***, y’all backwards, After all these years of drug trafficking huh? Time to remind me I’m Black again, huh? All this talking back I’m too arrogant, huh?”

In this verse, he is showcasing the limits of his being a rich Black man. When he says “y’all drag me into court for that s***, y'all backwards, After all these years of drug trafficking, huh?”, he is making a reference to how he, even in his status, is not above being pestered by the police. He also makes an allusion to his past as a drug dealer, which he has been very open about. Even though he made it to this point with a successful career being a world renowned artist, his line “Time to remind me I’m Black again, huh”, shows regardless of status, nothing will ever change the fact that he is a Black man first, and that is how he is seen in the world’s eyes. 

Jay-Z also uses this song to show that he has come to terms with the fact that there is nothing he can do about his Blackness. He states, “I have no fear of anything, do everything well, I have no fear of jail, I was born in the trap, I have no fear of death we all born to do that, It’s just life”. His reference to his “It’s just life” outlook as great advice, which is a symbol of acceptance for the way things are. However, by saying “I have no fear of anything, do everything well,” it seems to me he is saying don’t let this outlook limit you and whatever you want to do well. It reminds me of the song "Git Up, Git Out" by Outkast, encouraging listeners to "get up, get out and get something", not let the "days of your life pass you by" and reminding them to take a leap of faith, because "how will you make it if you never even try?"

On Jay-Z's 4:44 album released in 2017, he conveys the same limits of Blackness in his song “The Story of OJ”. Orenthal James Simpson, or O. J. Simpson, was an American football player and is infamous in being tried for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

O.J. Simpson is also known for saying “I’m not Black, I’m O.J.”. In the song, Jay-Z uses this quote and follows it with a chuckle and by saying “Ok”. This happens only after he describes different type of Black people then concludes that at the end of the day, no matter what they do, or what title they hold, they are still Black. His lyrics quote, “Light n****, dark n****, faux n****, real n****, rich n****, poor n****, house n****, field n****, still n****, still n****”. 

Donald Glover, a musician and actor who is also known as Childish Gambino, caused a lot of uproar with his song “This is America”, released in 2018. From distractions by mainstream media to gun violence and incarceration, the song and video are an agglomeration of what he has chopped America up to be. Glover's mannerisms throughout the video reflect those of the Jim Crow caricature, which was made to make fun of Black people. 

In “The New H.N.I.C.: The Death of Civil Rights and The Reign of Hip Hop”, Todd Boyd, a media commentator and the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Pop Culture, Boyd states that he believes hip hop now represents a new version of the civil rights movement.

“Hip Hop has rejected and now replaced the pious, sanctimonious nature of civil rights as the defining moment of Blackness. In turn, it offers new ways of seeing and understanding what it means to be Black at this pivotal time in History,” (Boyd 259). Hip hop’s sometimes aggressive nature is able to send a message without being concerned how it is coming across. Historically, during events like the Civil Rights movement, figureheads such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated to keep the peace and stuck to that mindset.  

The video ends with a symbolic scene, where Glover is running towards something with no end in sight and the people chasing him are closing in, which can mean that the fight is nowhere near over.

Dominique Armani Jones, or Lil Baby, released his single “The Bigger Picture” in June of 2020, in the midst of the chaos of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the uproar of violent demonstrations in wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

The song begins with news clips of reporters saying the protesters were calling for the conviction of the officers involved with the untimely deaths of these innocent Black people. Lil Baby then goes on to say “We just some products of our environment, How the f*** they gon’ blame us? You can’t fight fire with fire I know, but at least we can turn up the flames some”, noting that Black people as a community are products of the environment White people created, so it is not fair that they be upset at how Black people react. 

In the “This is America” video, there are parallels that show how mainstream media is guilty of gatekeeping. The topics that get the most coverage are often not the ones that matter the most, or if they do, it is relative to the audience. In “The Bigger Picture”, Lil Baby is yearning for his audience to focus on the bigger picture of what is going on in the world instead of getting caught up in minuscule one off topics. He says “They trainin’ officers to kill us, then shootin’ protestors with these rubber bullets, They regular people, I know that they feel it, These scars too deep to heal us, What happened to COVID? Nobody remember, It ain’t makin’ sense, I’m just here to vent”. From this set of lyrics , Lil Baby talks about how the disarray surrounding the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic had seemingly been forgotten once the protests began.

While a significant portion of hip hop serves as a catalyst for denouncing systemic abuses of power and challenging America's contentment, a large piece of it is embracing Black pride.

Dana Elaine Owens, a rapper from Newark, New Jersey also known as Queen Latifah, often references being royalty not only in her stage name but in her music. In the song “Welcome into my house”, she says “Welcome into my Queendom (My Queen), come one come all”, meaning that this is something everyone is welcome to witness. She exudes a certain level of confidence in her lyricism that backs the fact that she is a queen and unapologetic about it. Queen Latifah alludes to her connection with other people in multiple songs, including “Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children”, showing that she has strong sense of family and wants everyone around her to be successful. 

In Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement, author S. Craig Watson, professor at the University of Texas, Austin, talks about how the hip hop movement is shifting.  

“In addition to being a pop culture force, hip hop’s widening sphere of influence has shouldered it with the burden of being a genuine political force. Gone are the discussions about whether hip hop matters; they have been replaced instead by the key issues of who and what kinds of values will define how hip hop matters” (Watkins, 6). 

As it continues to influence culture, hip hop is likely to undergo a plethora of changes but one thing about it will remain constant: the connection to the community and distribution of self-expression. 

To Celebrate Juneteenth this year, I will be sharing some of my favorite songs from my playlist "juneteenth jamz❤️🖤💚" by Black artists that really showcase their storytelling abilities and display their insurmountable contributions to Black culture. From the 80s to the 2020s, there isn't a song in here that won't have you boppin' your head or jiggin' that shoulder!

Find the entire playlist in my Apple Music - https://music.apple.com/profile/mikks15