Using Hip-Hop to Be Heard

Jmia Armstrong Dr. Harris ENG 2017-65125 Major Project Using Hip-Hop to Be Heard Hip-hop has been more than just a musical genre for a long time. For the Black community it is a means of conveying a person's thoughts, culture, and hardships. As a Black vernacular tradition, hip-hop is a form of expression that utilizes language and narration derived from actual life experiences. It has gradually transformed into an influential medium for addressing social and political matters. Black women in Southern hip-hop, in particular, are using their voices not only to confront stereotypes but also to speak of issues that concern them. Adeerya Johnson in Dirty South Feminism portrays Southern Black women in hip-hop who, against all odds, rebuff respectability and carve out their own space to be heard. Understanding her work alongside other scholars, one can see that hip-hop is more than just music it is an immense expressive element useful in identity, resistance of stereotypes, and transformation. Originally, hip-hop was the means of people living in neglected areas to communicate and depict their lives. Switching from formal language to the use of a different language, slang, and storytelling was the most natural way of doing it. In Black vernacular traditions, this way of communicating is one of the most significant elements of Black culture. According to Elaine Richardson “encompasses ways of behaving interacting valuing thinking believing, speaking which mirror people's lives and worldviews” (Richardson 789). This means that hip-hop is more than just music it is an entire mode of expressing one's identity and experience. She also points out that hip-hop literacy involves how a person reads language gestures images, material possessions to figure out one's position in the society (Richardson 790). Hip-hop is a way of helping people to understand the world surrounding them. One of the reasons hip-hop is so culturally significant is its unique use of language. According to Candice Jenkins, rap is distinguished by its lyrical power and dexterity. Jenkins calls rap's linguistic prowess "a strong facility with language" (45). This suggests that hip-hop is worthy of scholarly attention, similar to literary works or poetry. When individuals truly engage with the lyrics, they unveil profound reflections on selfhood, authority, and the communal framework. This demonstrates that hip-hop is potent and significant. Taking Black female artists in Southern hip-hop as an example, Adeerya Johnson's Dirty South Feminism highlights how these women defy stereotypes. She points out that Black Southern women, in fact, invent several personas including "the southern belle, the country girl, the city girl, and the trap girl" (Johnson). These different personas illustrate that being a Black woman is not limited to one single type; rather, women adapt and form their identities through their various circumstances and life stories. Furthermore, Johnson mentions that these women "generate their own hip-hop culture and economy utilizing their geographical position" (Johnson). This implies that they are not merely consumers of hip-hop culture but also actively contributing to its evolution and development. In addition, Johnson elaborates on how Black women creatively utilize performance, dance, and storytelling as modes of self-expression. She links this with the notion of "bringing wreck, " which is essentially the act of speaking out and seizing one's presence in public (Johnson). This could involve dancing, being loud, or showing confidence in ways that might lead to negative judgments. Take twerking as a case point dance move associated with sexuality and often deemed inappropriate. Yet, Johnson makes the case that twerking is actually a part of Southern culture and tradition. Through these kinds of behaviors, Black women not only resist respectability politics that dictate how they should behave but also assert their choice to be themselves, free from any imposed standards. Some other authors also highlight how hip-hop plays a role in identity formation. For instance, one paper states that engaging with hip-hop culture can be a means for individuals to discover their identity and establish a cultural belonging (Alim et al. 120). This underlines the fact that hip-hop is not merely confined to a local level and has a worldwide influence and is a medium that people everywhere use to reflect on issues of identity and race. In this way, music becomes a bridge that links individual life stories with larger social constructs. According to Gwendolyn Pough, hip-hop can be a great vehicle for social change. In fact, she even calls it an "awesome catalyst" for social and political expression (Pough 171). Though hip-hop has its issues, she is convinced that there are artists who still stand up for their beliefs through it. Women in hip-hop especially focus on the spotlight issues like gender and inequality. Their participation in hip-hop feminism is a catalyst for change. However, criticisms of hip-hop are really quite common, especially regarding women. Some feel that it negatively stereotypes women. Yet, these accusations often miss the point of the music and performance. Johnson and other researchers point out that even what people criticize as dancing or clothing style can be forms of self-expression and resistance. Instead of trying to confirm to the standards of society these women are making up their own versions of identity and power. What's great about Southern hip-hop is that it really shows off a culture and history that you can't find anywhere else. Johnson points out that Black women in the South, as a whole, use storytelling, dances and language as a means of expressing the very culture to which they belong. The basis for these habits include things such as call-and-response, social dancing and collectively experienced moments of the community. (Johnson 147) Yet, these are not artifacts of culture that people have simply lost track of over time, they are deeply valuable elements of culture that have been handed down over generations. Essentially, hip-hop as a Black language tradition has been a very powerful means for social and politics. It is such a tool that it can even change people's ways of thinking and allow them to address problems of the real world. In Dirty South Feminism, Adeerya Johnson shows the ways in which Black women in the South have been able to use hip-hop to effectively combat negative stereotypes and establish their own presence alongside the dominant culture. Aided by researchers such as Richardson Jenkins Alim, and Pough, you come to understand that hip-hop is not merely a form of music. On the contrary it is completely transformed into a prominent instrument of self-identity, resistance and change. Hip-hop is still, very much, helping to shape culture and society. It is a great platform for people to say what is on their minds and to confront the various forms of oppression. In fact, it is the Black women who do Southern hip-hop, that are particularly utilizing their voices to shatter stereotypes and thus, at the same time, change the meaning of being heard. Besides their music and performances, they also prove that you can make a statement through self-expression. Because of this, hip-hop remains a powerful platform for social and political change. Work Cited Page Johnson, Adeerya. Dirty South Feminism: The Girlies Got Somethin’ to Say Too! Southern Hip Hop Women, Fighting Respectability, Talking Mess, and Twerking Up the Dirty South. University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Richardson, Elaine. “‘She Was Workin Like Foreal : Critical Literacy and Discourse Practices of African American Females in the Age of Hip Hop.” Discourse & Society, vol. 18, no. 6, 2007, pp. 789–809. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42889166. Alim, H. Samy, John Baugh, and Mary Bucholtz. “Global Ill-Literacies: Hip Hop Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Literacy.” Review of Research in Education, vol. 35, 2011, pp. 120–146. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41349014. Jenkins, Candice M. “Introduction: ‘Reading’ Hip-Hop Discourse in the Twenty-First Century.” African American Review, vol. 46, no. 1, 2013, pp. 1–8. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23783597. Pough, Gwendolyn D. “What It Do, Shorty?: Women, Hip-Hop, and a Feminist Agenda.” Black Women, Gender, and Families, vol. 1, no. 2, 2007, pp. 78–91. JSTOR.