Earlier this month the BET awards showed a ‘highly controversial’ cypher featuring rapper Eminem bashing Donald Trump. The video can be seen here:
While this naturally received a slew of press, celebrity endorsements, and right-wing hatred, to me it seemed to play into all the ideals that hip-hop has always stood for. Hip-hop, as an urban and traditionally African-American art-form naturally has a liberal agenda, values equality and inclusion, and esp. stands for civil rights (think Public Enemy, N.W.A., Mos Def, etc.). Therefore, while Eminem was definitely audacious (per his usual self) his views were certainly not a surprise given the hip-hop genre’s continued expression of left-wing ideals. In no way do I mean to discredit the ideals associated with hip-hop, in fact I stand with them, but I do mean to say that people getting surprised at a rapper having democratic views, would be like a teacher getting surprised that there students do their blogpost the day beforehand.
Needless to say this politically charged rant was met with cheers among other outspoken advocates for equality. The rap notable stands with Colin Kaepernick with the line “This is for Colin, ball up a fist.” Colin Kaepernick, of course made recent headlines with his refusal to stand for the national anthem at a preseason NFL game. Colin was quoted in an article with The New Yorker, saying that “To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” Colin gave a shout out to Eminem showing his support via Eminem was also given props by J. Cole and Lebron James, among many other celebrities.
To me these celebrity endorsements definitely show support for Eminem, but they do little beyond that. These tweets seem to circumvent actually saying anything substantial by merely showing support. I suppose in the Twitter age this is how support is shown, but at some point it makes you wonder when they are actually going to open a serious dialogue about their positions. The entertainment industry as a whole has expressed their disapproval for Trump several times now, but simply talking about it doesn’t seem to be doing much but catching headlines for a few weeks. I suppose what I’m saying is that art in this case Hip-Hop has advocated in attempts to affect social change for some time, but to me and it seems like to Eminem and other celebrities, we want to do more than just talk about social change we want to actually affect social change.
One idea that I think is pertinent to mention in discussing actually affecting social change is the “us and them” mentality, as it plays right into the hands of people who want to divide us. In keeping with the us and them mentality that divides the left and right parties of America respectively, Trump was recently quoted in an article by the New York Times saying “We write symphonies,” and in doing that essentially inferred that the white, right-wing, western world writes symphonies, (the pinnacle of music), and that, as a clear expression of our superior intellect, will help us overcome the barbaric savages we currently fight against (hard sarcasm). Trump’s ideals aren’t so much shocking anymore, but the fascinating thing is the clear connection he is making with music and politics. Our last president, Barrack Obama, was noted as having several rapper’s visit the White House, and said his favorite song of 2015 was Kendrick Lamar’s “how much a dollar cost.” Clearly, showing that president’s use their music choices to represent to the public something about themselves and their ideals. The problem with this and the ‘us and them’ mentality, is that when Obama was bringing rappers into the White House it was met with much contempt by the right wing, and now when Trump references symphonies the New York Times rips him apart in the aforementioned article. I think it is important to stand for what you believe in, but the “I’m right because you’re wrong” mentality I think is only dividing us further. It also isn’t to say that having one party where we all get along is ever going to happen either, as we clearly observed with the U.S.S.R. and socialist realism works of composers of that time. The point isn’t to make everyone fall in line and believe one ideal, but it also isn’t to alienate people and mock their views. We are not all going to get along, but I think if we can come together on some common ground, we could at least open a dialogue, which at this point seems out of the question by left-wing advocates like Eminem, but also by Trump himself.
Further research
Full Lyrics of Eminem’s Cypher
New York Times article about Eminem’s cypher
USA Today article about Eminem’s cypher
For other rapper’s speaking out against Trump, please see Snoop Dogg’s Lavender which was condemned by Trump in an article by the New York Times.