All Eyez on Us

The Hiphop Archive looks less like a research space and more like a well-kept living room. The walls are lined with numerous display cases, one for VHS tapes, one for books, and one for action figures. Sleeves of old vinyl hip-hop records run along the baseboards.

A big couch and a couple of chairs face a large flat-screen television. A few of the archive’s student research assistants lounge around, writing papers on their laptops or listening to hip-hop. Above the television, on a shelf, sits a collection of iconic hip-hop paraphernalia: a turntable, multicolored cans of spray paint, a boom box. A fully functional DJ station resides in one corner.

The space is, in short, hip. It feels perfectly suited for the work its researchers are doing: It is not so buttoned up as to be stifling, nor is it relaxed enough to imply that what goes on here is anything less than serious scholarship.

It may seem incongruous to devote an academic research center to a popular art form such as hip-hop, but the location of the Hiphop Archive itself is even more so: Harvard University. The Hiphop Archive ultimately raises question about the art form itself. What lies beneath the surface of this popular entertainment to merit such focus? Why does the Hiphop Archive belong within the ivy-covered walls of Harvard?

FEMINIST FEMCEES

A slideshow on the wall of Ticknor Lounge scrolls through pictures of female hip-hop artists. Some are posed modestly, like Queen Latifah, and others provocatively, like Nicki Minaj.

This display is the background for a discussion entitled “Feminism and Hip-hop,” hosted by the Association of Black Harvard Women, Latinas Unidas de Harvard College, and the Harvard College Women’s Center. The event is a part of Women’s Week 2012 and exemplifies the type of scrutiny that hip-hop receives at Harvard. The genre is typically examined through the lens of another theory; this afternoon, it is feminism.

Marcyliena Morgan, a professor of African and African American studies who directs the Hiphop Archive, moderates the discussion. Morgan begins the event by listing of female archetypes in hip-hop: the intelligent but frigid woman, the “sister with attitude”, the lesbian femcee. A central question underlies the discussion: How can love of hip-hop be rationalized with its rampant misogyny?

This question meets an uncomfortable pause. Morgan eases up, instead asking the students to consider what the ideal hip-hop feminist role model would be. Then the discussion takes off. The students rattle off their conceptions of this role model; she is independent, introspective; she has agency, self-respect, and confidence.

One student points out that this hypothetical woman is defined by her relationship to men. And then the discussion tackles men’s role in women’s objectification in hip-hop. The students question whether this approach—men leading efforts against misogyny—is inherently problematic or even entirely effective.

The lively discussion needs little moderation from Morgan. The students’ engagement with the topic may be due to the bare skin popping up on the wall of the lounge, but perhaps the cause for clamor is the potential for analysis and debate over rap music.

BEAT AND PULSE

Feminism is just one of many lenses used to examine hip-hop. The fields run the gamut in the social sciences and humanities, and the intersections can yield unexpected food for thought. Allyson M. Mcginty ’13, a student researcher at the Archive, is working on a junior project on homophobia and gender performance in hip-hop. Mcginty’s subject of study is probably more titillating than most: Nicki Minaj.

“I’m looking at whether Nicki Minaj’s hyper-sexuality through her body and her appearance promotes rigid gender types, and then whether that enforces ideas of homophobia within hip-hop,” Mcginty says. She is also examining Minaj’s gay male alter ego, Roman Zolanski, and whether her performance of a man plays into her hyper-sexuality or complicates it.

The overlap between hip-hop and social inquiry can also be found in Harvard’s classrooms. Laurence A. Ralph, an assistant professor of African and African American studies and anthropology, has designed an entire course with hip-hop in mind—African American Studies 102: “The Hip-hop Generation and Post-Civil Rights Black Politics.” Its curriculum does not focus solely on hip-hop, but the art form is deployed as a tool to examine how the younger generation responds to the expectations of the older generation.

Though it is categorized as popular entertainment, hip-hop’s popularity makes it an effective medium for approaching such pressing issues as intergenerational conflict, homophobia, and politics. These modes of inquiry assume that hip-hop takes the pulse of the society it entertains. Afterall, if hip-hop’s widespread success reflects its ability to resonate with audiences, then there is truth to this notion.

“RINGTONE RAPPER”

Deconstruct a novel in class, and it might lose its meaning. Analyze a piece of music and it might lose its power.

It is a common refrain when it comes to studying art—by academicizing it, one risks diminishing its impact. Hip-hop is no exception.

“I think part of the challenge that I’ve found that [hip-hop scholars] have in talking about hip-hop is critiquing something they love,” Mcginty says. “They don’t want to tear down hip-hop and make it seem like something negative, but they still have to address the negatives within the genre.”

Most researchers involved in hip-hop scholarship listened to hip-hop long before they began to look at it from an academic perspective. Luckily, they say academic treatment does not necessitate a waning of their love for the form.

“I say, hey, Soulja Boy is my favorite ringtone rapper,” says Joycelyn A. Wilson, one of the fellows at the Hiphop Archive. “I’m not trying to learn anything from it, but I do like to hear it when my phone rings. You know, sometimes I don’t wanna be preached to. Sometimes I just wanna go to the party.”

For Ralph’s students—who often consider themselves part of a hip-hop generation—treating hip-hop as an academic subject is eye-opening. “When we talk about hip-hop, everybody’s implicated in it,” Ralph says. “They’ve all consumed hip-hop. They’ve all listened to it. They’ve all loved hip-hop. So when they’re reading these things, they have to grapple with how they listen to hip-hop, why they’re excited about hip-hop. So it’s a different kind of relationship, I think.”

For these researchers and students alike, hip-hop was a passion before it was a specimen. Though intense study risks alienation to music, it also adds unexpected and valuable dimensions to the art form and may even foster greater appreciation.

LOUDER THAN WORDS

The motives behind hip-hop study extend beyond the listening habits of the scholars. The intersections of hip-hop and other fields, including history, can yield critical insights, both personal and political.

Jaqueline Santos, a fellow at the Hiphop Archive, fiddles nervously with the items on her desk as she talks; she has been in the United States only since January, born and raised in Brazil.

She speaks with a careful cadence as she gives an overview of her research. “I study the cultural exchange between black youth in São Paulo and New York, between the late 1970s and the late 1980s,” Santos says. “And the circulation of images and symbols between hip-hoppers in São Paulo and New York was important for a consolidated black movement in Brazil.”

According to Santos, the 20th century black community in Brazil struggled under the weight of discrimination. This Afro-Brazilian community was also a big consumer of African-American styles of music. They could not understand exactly what African-Americans were saying due to the language barrier, but because of the civil rights imagery on the covers of vinyl records, they understood what these musicians were talking about.

As Santos delves into her work, the tremor in her voice begins to fade, the delay between her words shortens, and a passionate glint appears in her eyes. She tells me how hip-hop is one of the biggest venues for youth activism around the world. Santos flips through her dissertation, showing me pictures of hip-hop figures in São Paulo engaging with various political figures and institutions; in one picture, former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva poses with several teenagers wearing hip hop attire.

Her passion is why she is here at the Hiphop Archive, researching the importance of a movement she loves. “I research—I don’t sing anymore,” Santos says. “But hip-hop gave other things for our lives. You don’t need to be an MC, a DJ, a graffitier, a b-boy. We can be lawyers, we can be anthropologists, we can be doctors. Hip-hop gave us the instruments to construct new perspectives for our lives.”

Santos’ connection to her work illustrates the possibilities of hip-hop. It can give voice to an entire class, an entire generation, not just in its birthplace in the United States but all over the world. It is overwhelmingly a tool of empowerment through expression. And studying hip-hop, bringing it into an academic setting, gives it the legitimacy it thus deserves.

NO ECHO CHAMBER

But all this research into hip-hop would not mean much if it were just noise in an echo chamber. Hip-hop research has practical applications.

Wilson, the other Hiphop Archive Fellow, focuses on the intersection of schooling and the millenium hip-hop generation. “Schooling” consists of all that is taught in a classroom, as opposed to education, which encompasses every learning environment—the family, the church, the classroom, and the street. Wilson emphasizes the importance and prevalence of the concept of “schooling” in hip-hop.

“Hip-hop is obsessed with school,” Wilson says. “Obsessed metaphorically, obsessed in how it categorizes generations—so now you’ve got old schools and new schools of hip-hop.”

When she first began her research, she sought to explore what hip-hop lyrics said about the benefits of formal schooling. Her results were less than glowing. “We still have to find out how to make their formal schooling a little more relevant to what [minority youth’s] issues are,” says Wilson.

Wilson believes that hip-hop can reach young people of ethnic minorities in a uniquely powerful way, so she is developing a program of leadership education—she calls it “hip-hop leadership pedagogy”—that uses hip-hop and its artists to teach kids how to be leaders. In one lesson, for instance, she discussed with KiD CuDi what it means to be a black man in America in front of a young audience at Morehouse College, Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater. She filmed the exchange and calls it her “KiD CuDi lesson.”

Her approach has not been met with universal enthusiasm. “Some of the misconceptions that people settle on when you’re thinking about hip-hop in any kind of environment in formal schooling is [that] all hip-hop talks about is violence and misogyny,” Wilson says. “That’s one of the challenges that I’ve had to deal with in bringing hip-hop into this...very intellectual space.”

But Wilson insists on hip-hop’s value and potency. “Hip-hop is an intellectual exercise,” she says. “These are stories. These are people’s narratives. Even the most violent song—you can take that and turn it into a teachable moment.”

THE SOURCE

Hip-hop is a mouthpiece for minorities and the oppressed, but hip-hop’s most surprising aspect is that it is a self-aware, self-critical system—much like academia itself—which is capable of critique within its own borders.

Morgan, the director of the Archive, explains this capacity for introspection. Hip-hop has five fundamental elements. “We have DJing, turntableism; the b-boy/b-girl dance aspect; the graffiti and the art that comes out of hip-hop; and then the emcee, the lyricism, the writing, and all of the lyrics,” she says. And then there’s the fifth element—knowledge. “There was this expression when hip-hop first started out—‘keeping it real,’” Morgan says. “It really was a quest for continuing to understand and critically analyze the world that they were experiencing at every conceivable level.”

The critique is one of the most important aspects of hip-hop. “If you have skills—if you come to the table with knowledge—it’s like,  ‘Let’s do it!’” Morgan says. “And if you don’t have knowledge, it’s like, ‘Why don’t you come back?’”

The very notion  of “every conceivable level” means that there’s a highest level of knowledge to be sought through hip-hop. Harvard, she explains, operates at that highest level and has the resources to give hip-hop its proper academic treatment. “Harvard has this commitment, and when you come in here,” she says, gesturing out the window of her office into the main room of the archive, “You see that this is a serious commitment.”

Harvard and hip-hop actually have a long history together, according to Morgan. The Source, one of the world’s most widely read hip-hop magazines, was started by two undergraduates at Harvard in 1988. It just seems incongruous; the images of hip-hop and the images of Harvard are so far removed from each other.

She hands me an old vinyl album. Along the side, B.M.O.C. is written in gold letters—“Big Men on Campus.” The two men on the cover look much like stereotypical Harvard men: blue-eyed, blond-haired, sharp features. But they are both sporting straight-brimmed baseball caps, and one has a bat slung over his shoulders. At first it seemed funny: They were trying too hard. They were caricatures. This was a novelty item.

But then everything Morgan had been saying about hip-hop’s unflinching inclusivity, its accessibility and the value it places on critique and experimentation—it all made sense. The pursuit of knowledge unified the seemingly incongruous hip-hop and Harvard.

“Lots of people say the Hiphop Archive doesn’t belong here,” she says. “If not at Harvard, then where?”

—Staff writer Matthew J. Watson can be reached at matthewwatson@college.harvard.edu.