The Sociological Message of Crunk: The New Generation Statement

The blogsphere has been awashed in the past month with commentary on Greg Tate’s piece in the Village Voice on Hip Hop turning 30. Tate asserted in the essay that hip hop had been overrun by corporate interest and this interference cause the culture to lose all of its’ sociological impact. Most initial commentary on the essay congratulated Tate on supposedly exposing the disease within the hip hop community. However, shortly after the article appeared and a certain segment of the blogshpere harnessed their chance to pat Tate on the back, a strong backlash formed against the assertions of Tate and his ilk. These sociological orientated commentators imply that hip hop failed in living up to its sociological potential.

A certain segment of the blogsphere raised the question of whether Tate and his praise choir were merely expressing sour grapes over their time in Hip Hop being over. This segment of the blogsphere, led to the forefront by Hashim at Hip Hop Blogs, argued that a generational gulf separated the new school of hip hop fans and commentators. Hashim went so far as to call Tate old in his response to the article. The crutch of the argument seem to lie in that older hip hop fans hold unrealistic expectation for hip hop and that older critics apply too much sociological hopes for Hip Hop developing into a political force for the black community. Simply put, this set of commentators want a return to focusing on rhyme, rhythm, and beats within hip hop instead of vain sociological aspirations. For simplicity’s sake, I will tag these commentators as the ‘skill’ set because there focus is on the skills that an artist possess.

Amid this cacophony of opinions, I decided that both sides of the debate missed the point. While Hip Hop, and music in general, offer many profound sociological observations that the ‘skills’ obsessed tribe would care to admit, the more academic crowd misses the point in their somewhat when they presume MC’s and Hip Hop groups should address social issues a’la Public Enemy or other 90’s rap groups.

Hip hop, whether of the mainstream, underground, conscious, or whatever variety, comments on social conditions through it’s very existence; the necessity for Hip Hop acts to comment on social problems in moot, because the music itself reflect social conditions. The academics’ approach assumes that songs are created within a social vacuum.

I could venture that the academics in which Tate appeals would condemn crunk, the regional variant of rap popular in the South and Atlanta particularly, as deficit on grand statements on black America. But the crunk experience offers itself to many critiques that reveal to the world the individually unique experiences of young urban dwellers in Atlanta.

The ‘skills’ crowd might embrace crunk purely on its’ sonic brashness, if they could ignore it deficit lyrical prowess. However, any attempt to analyze crunk contribution to society would seem irreverent to the ‘skills’ crowd, which slights the sub-genre itself. But the academics would also shun the sub-genre and any sociological impact it might have or reveal because of crunk MC’s limited range of topics and a perception that crunk MC’s delivery and cadence is simple.

Crunk sociological perspective is an analysis of how the raucous, synthesized beats and menacing yelps and grunts of the MC manifest the hopelessness of the listeners and the social conditions that crunk expresses. By reorienting the analysis towards an investigation of styles rather than a set of expectations, one could develop a comfort zone in the direction that Hip Hop is taking.

Crunk seemingly embodies an aggressive, joyless, doom ridden narcissism within the urban environment of the South, especially Atlanta. Crunk milleau is the strip clubs that it provide the soundtrack for, the less plush nightspots ignored and ridiculed by the urban elite drawn to Atlanta, and the traps or drug selling zones occupied by over-energized and undereducated drug dealers. Although my description makes crunk seem grim, it actually is the music of celebration in the South. Even with its heritage as a dance music, the music, through it mechanics of frentic beats and even more rowdy vocals reflects the resentment and disdain the underclass feels towards the upperly mobile; this disdain is felt, but never verbalized except for the MC’s exerting the crowd to inflict violence upon each other, especially to outsiders such as ‘punks’ or ‘busters’ that might as well be the upwardly mobile in code.

Check out these websites to get more insite into the issue.

http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000729.html

http://www.hiphop-blogs.com/hiphop/2005/01/steven_samuel_o.html

http://www.cantstopwontstop.com/blog/2005/01/hip-hop-is-dead.cfm#c110499624894279881

http://www.hiphop-blogs.com/hiphop/2004/12/yes_virginia_hi.html

http://www.hiphop-blogs.com/hiphop/2005/01/greg_tate_is_an.html

http://villagevoice.com/news/0501,tate,59766,2.html

http://www.o-dub.com/weblog/2005_01_01_archive.html

Everyday People

The Streets latest album, A Grand Don’t Come for Free, received accolades throughout the past year for his everyman sensibility and storytelling skills. His every bloke stories however are lauded just because of that; he’s a bloke on Her Majesty island, while many everyman tales that originate in the colonies are ignored.

J-Zone, on his five albums has maintained a steady belligerence throughout his career as a producer/artist, recounting common tales about piece of shit cars, shifty females, and the everyday annoyance that a low cash flow entails.

If that sounds as lot like The Streets first two albums, Original Pirate Material and A Grand…, it’s eerily scary to me to. So why does The Streets receive so much shine while J-Zone is unknown even among the underground and backpacker set.

It would be convenient to attribute the difference to race, the easy sociological explanation, but J-Zone racial background is cloudy at best; I’m willing to gamble that his roots have a lot more to do with some non-Wasp European group than the Motherland way south of Germany. He’s even went so far to point out that he doesn’t want people to ask his racial background, which points to it being a touchy subject.

So with the pseudo intellectual reason eradicated, what contributes to the difference; I think it simply comes down to rockist attitudes that slight what hip-hop is about and references hip hop to the same rules that rock albums are critiqued.

While the content is similar, The Streets approach is earnest and follows a story arc while J-Zone is undeserved machismo bordering on parody and scatological sequenced at best. Rock critics favor cohesion and search for the ‘truth’ above all else.

However, within hip hop circles, vocal delivery matters, with crisp and sharp beats also bearing notice, which J-Zone possesses in droves and The Streets hardly seems to worry himself about. It not as if the Streets hasn't produced work such as this before; Original Pirate Material didn't skimp on these elements while A Grand... gives the listeners slivers of this sort of visceral experience.

Now don’t get me wrong; I appreciate The Streets as an artist and I think it’s a bit unfair on my part to compare him to another artist. However, I think that rock critics need to observe that their bias or as J-Zone would say, eatadicup.

I'll post track from these two as soon as I get my hosting site up.