It’s been a year since the death of Michael
Brown, a year since the rebellion in Ferguson, a year since the Black Lives
Matter movement began to shift the conversation in just about every avenue of
American life. That shift can be seen in politics and economics. It can also be
seen, perhaps most obviously, in our culture - and in music, in particular. Not
surprisingly, hip-hop has led the way - not just through a predictable barrage
of tweets by musicians and artists, but a sustained, meaningful wave of
creativity and outspokenness engaging with a bold, sometimes-chaotic movement.
The examples are many: Run the Jewels’
second album, recorded months before the verdict letting Officer Darren Wilson
off the hook, which tapped into the profound anxieties of “post-racial”
segregation, surveillance and police brutality. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly
is being hailed as a masterpiece and is even being taught in college courses.
Jay-Z and Beyonce even paid bail for several demonstrators arrested during the
Baltimore rebellion. It is no coincidence that performers like Killer Mike and
Talib Kweli have emerged as de facto artistic spokespeople for this moment.
Those with an awareness of hip-hop history
might answer such observations by saying that there are always artists in rap
and R&B seeking to distill the spirit of the time down to something
poignant and fresh, if one simply looks beyond “what the radio is playing.”
These commentators are, of course, correct. But the context of a movement in
the streets has put all of this on a different level.
Black Lives Matter has taken the
ever-present tensions percolating from centuries of American racism and put
them into the center of mainstream consciousness. The same has happened at
several key points in modern music’s history (with hip-hop, in particular).
Popular artists make themselves meaningful again—not to the directives of a
profit-hungry music industry but to the logic of a movement. That movement, in
turn, has engaged with music in a conversation.
First came an incident of heavy policing at the
Black Lives Matter conference in Cleveland. When police bore down on attendees
in response to an alleged incident of public intoxication with pepper spray and
handcuffs, demonstrators chanted back the refrain of the most recent single
from Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly:
“We gon’ be alright! We gon’ be alright!” The incident was more than a simple
act of defiance. The Single “Alright” is something of a keystone on the album,
bringing together the album’s tropes—the pain, inner turmoil and rage of
American racism—and inverting them into a declaration of uncertain hope. The
surreal video follows suit: Lamar and his friends in a car carried by LAPD
officers in place of wheels, the artist balancing atop a streetlight before
being shot down by a surly cop. The performance of the single at the BET Awards
pushed further in that same direction, with Lamar performing in front of
Jumbotron footage of a waving American flag while stomping on a graffiti
covered police car. No matter what anyone says about modern day hip-hop artists
they still display the same fire and power needed to create change.
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