By Lee Hubbard
African Americans who grew up listening to Marvin Gaye in the late 60s and early 70s have a different perspective on life and what it means, than the ones who are now growing up on Jay Z and Outkast.
While this is apparent to most, you would never know this listening to many African-American leaders today. And look at the voting patterns of younger Blacks compared to older Blacks. Older Blacks have been the voice of the community for so long that many younger Blacks feel that their messages or the ideas that they wanted to convey have gone unheard.
But recent studies show that this lack of voice has led to a generation gap between the two demographic groups. This gap on perceptions and ideas is very apparent when one looks at hip-hop music and its impact on the Black community. While older Blacks don’t like some of the messages that are conveyed in the music and the usage of the word “nigga,” many younger Blacks don’t think about this issue, and use the word liberally.
The differences in the two groups can be seen in how they look at each other and how they view politics, history, and the importance of race in today’s times. All of these issues are dealt with in the book, The New HNIC: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop by Dr. Todd Boyd, an associate professor at the University of Southern California Cinema School.
Boyd, the author of three previous books, and the writer and producer of the film The Wood, believes that hip hop and the culture that it represents is the voice of the new Black generation, which he feels is something that older Blacks cannot accept. In his book, Boyd deals with the myriad of issues that affect the two groups and how they are at odds with each other. I was able to talk to the loquacious Boyd about his book, the hip-hop and civil rights generations, the word “nigga,” and his confrontation with Spike Lee.
First, how would you define the civil rights generation?
To me, the civil rights generation marks the time period of people who grew up during the time when Black people were segregated by law and were trying to push their way into the mainstream of America. Then there is a generation of people who grew up in the aftermath, between civil rights and the Black power movement. They grew up in the world that the success of civil rights gave them different options.
How would you define the hip-hop generation?
I would define the hip-hop generation as the people who were born or came of age after the civil rights movement, who came off age during the 1980s and the age of Regeanomics and after. When there was no longer legal segregation, but the impact of racism was such that you got the rise of crack cocaine, the rise of the prison industrial complex. Black people and especially poor Black people were pushed to the margins and this culture of hip hop gave those a voice to express themselves.
So what about this divide between the hip-hop and civil rights generation?
I think that this divide is pretty deep. We have a generation of Black people from the civil rights era who have gotten accustomed to assuming that their experience is the experience that all Black people have experienced, and that is not the case.
People who grew up after the civil rights and Black power eras have grown up in a different era. It is hard for one generation to say this is the way it is and to try and pass it down to another generation, when another generation says we see things differently.
At the end of the day, I am not saying that racism has not disappeared. But I am saying that there was a way in which people were taught to think during the civil rights era. They were taught to look at things a certain way. That mindset is no longer applicable. That mindset is out of style and it has played out. It is one thing to grow up in a world where there is segregation. But it is different when it is legal, and people can put up signs. Things are just different and the civil rights mindset is outdated.
So what do you mean by the new HNIC?
Back in the 1970s, people often used the phrase HNIC or Head Nigger in Charge. This was a hot 1970’s thing. It had to do with the first people integrating into mainstream society. I thought about this when thinking about the book title. There is now a new group of African Americans who have integrated the mainstream but in a very different way. They did not go to the mainstream, the mainstream came to them. These people, to me, are the people who are best defined by hip-hop culture.
When thinking about this, I looked at Fortune magazine’s list of the 40 richest people under the age of 40 and people such as Master P, Michael Jordan, Will Smith, and P Diddy were on the list. Most of these young African Americans are connected to hip hop, and this is very significant. You have a number of people with that much money and power connected to hip hop. This is a new Black ruling class.
You are a tweener, a term that I and Bakari Kitwana term for people who grew up right after the Civil Rights Movement and just before the hip-hop era. How does this make you feel when you write, talk, and analyze hip-hop culture?
I look at it like this. You can call it being born between the two. But I was born in 1964 and there are a lot of people who are claiming hip hop who were not around in 1979. There are people in the hip-hop generation born in 1980 and 1981. I can remember being in school and having a contest to see who could remember the lyrics of “Rapper’s Delight.” I feel closely connected to hip hop. I was born the same year that Martin King got the Nobel Prize. I am in some ways not part of the civil rights revolution. civil rights are more of my parent’s generation.
But with hip hop, I was there from day one. To me, I feel connected to hip hop although a lot of people my age don’t feel that they have that connection. I feel like I have the ability to look at both hip hop and civil rights and comment intelligently on both. When I was on the set of the film The Wood six years ago, when the young actors on the film were working we would sit up and talk about hip hop. The older people on the film did not understand how I could sit up there and talk about hip hop. To me it is the ability to walk both sides of the strength. If you are going to be significant you can’t walk one way. You cannot be one dimensional.
What is the difference between the civil rights mode of thinking and the hip-hop generation’s mode of thinking?
Civil rights is very old school. It is valuable as something historic to learn from, but it is not something that can be applied today. Civil rights was about access because Black people were denied so much in this society. Civil rights was about gaining access. We now live in a society were people have access in some form. So we have to cut the garment according to the cloth. We have to recognize that things are different.
Now people are looking for empowerment. They want to be able to participate in society and not as a secondary player but as a major player. In that way, civil rights will not do it. Hip hop is about keeping it real. A lot of civil rights were about accommodation. It was about putting on your best face, acting a certain way and demonstrating to the mainstream society that you were worthy of being accepted. To me hip hop is not about accommodation. It basically says that look, “we are who we are. If you like us, cool. If not, that is cool too.” The culture is not trying to fit in. That is why I love that phrase, “I am going to do me.” I am not going to do you or what everybody else wants me to do. I am going to do me and be true to myself. That is very much different than the civil rights era. This is not to say racism is gone and disappeared, but times are different.
Speaking of racism, what did you think about Trent Lott’s racist comments in favor of segregation, which led him to step down from his post as Senate Majority Leader?
In a way, when things like that happen I am glad. There are so many people who want to act like there are no racists in our society or racists in positions of power. When Black people mention racism, people say we are making too much out of it. Or that you have a chip on your shoulder or that was in the past. To me, when he made his statement, that was confirmation of what we already know.
Trent Lott has had influence over something very significant. The statement just indicated we have a lot of people in this country who are still racist.
And what frustrated me about this was the fact that everyone wanted to act like he did not mean it. That it was a joke and off of the cuff. They wanted to imply that the statement was not bad. But ultimately, it was a good thing, because it is a reminder that we still have a long way to go in this country. That there are still racists, there is still racism and that Black people and other people of color are victimized by this.
How has hip-hop culture impacted the Black community?
I think that hip hop has given the Black community a voice. It has given the community a way to express themselves. It has allowed people to represent. Hip hop is about the good, bad, and ugly in Black life. Some people don’t want to deal with the bad and the ugly, they want to deal with the good. But to me that is not progressive or is it realistic.
Life is good sometimes, bad sometimes, and sometimes it is ugly. Hip hop reveals that reality. Also, people do not have a sense of history. If you look at the blues, they were talking about some of the same things hip hop is talking about now. It was specific to its time, but nevertheless, they were dealing with life. Hip hop is like a documentary film; it attempts to capture a certain sense of reality. I think that hip hop has given the Black community a way to be seen and heard in a very effective and dramatic way.
Why was there resistance to hip hop in the Black music and civil rights community?
There was a lot of bourgeois amongst a certain segment of Black people. They felt that since they got there degrees, cars, jobs, businesses, and other things that they wanted to assimilate. Hip hop didn’t want to assimilate and it reminded many Blacks of something that they wanted to forget about. You have to remember that when hip hop came about, that was during the time of Jerhi curls, sequence suits, and Prince.
No one was coming out in music with anything hard core. Hip hop came and it was like “Yo, we are taking it back to the streets.” Hip hop educated a lot of people. A lot of people did not know about Malcolm, the Nation, or other elements of Black history. A lot of Black music executives and Black civil rights people were talking about Bill Cosby and trying to be Heathcliff Huxtable. Hip hop started speaking to people with more of an edge to it.
In the book you talk about the word “nigga”. Why did you say it is the most beautiful and powerful word that is used today?
I love the word “nigga.” It is my favorite word. When I wake up in the morning, I say the word ten times; Nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga. It puts a smile on my face. I hate this N-word business that was started with OJ. It is not like just because you don’t say the word that racism will disappear. If you could guarantee that if people stopped saying nigga, then there would be no more racism then I will be all for not using the word.
The real issue with the word is what it symbolizes. It symbolizes a very problematic history in America, and that is what we need to talk about. The word is just window dressing. Hip hop has refined the word. It is not about nigga. It is NIGGA.
Like Tupac said, “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished”. Nigga. That is what I am about. To me, any word that causes this much controversy is something that we need to look into and we cannot look into censoring it. I say lets say it, until someone starts to look at the history that makes that word so troubling in the first place.
To many civil rights activists and those who grew up during that time, your comments about the word Nigga, would trouble them?
They grew up at a time when the word was exclusively negative. For them, it carries a different weight than it does for other people. But we need to be honest. Black people have been saying nigga from day one. Black people used the word nigga as much as they used the word, the. Clearly there was a difference when someone was using it in a negative way than a positive way. Like “My nigga.” To me that is love. Or you can use it derisively. If we are going to be honest, I don’t know how many times White people called me a nigger. You know after a while it did not make a difference. Them calling me that did not make me feel good, but after a while you deal with it. Instead of these racists being able to hide and function in a covert manner, I think that they need to be outed so that everybody can see who they are and what they are about. You cannot legislate the use of a word. It is in all of these hip-hop songs and movies and you cannot legislate the use of language. We need to focus on challenging and hopefully trying to eradicate racism.
What are some of the themes that you are trying to convey in your book?
I want people to think about how things have changed in society. I want people to recognize that we cannot always apply 1960s thinking to the 21st century. You cannot do that, if your head is in a past era.
What is the most defining moment in hip-hop history for you?
For me. I don’t know if I can reduce it to one moment. I would have to say when I first heard “The Message.” When I first heard Grandmaster Flash in 1982, I was a freshman in college. Up until that point, most of hip hop was kind of silly. It was cool, but it was not serious. But then I heard “broken glass everywhere, people pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care,” and I was like “wow.“
Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” indicated to me that rap could be more than talking shit, bragging, and wilding out, which is cool. Grandmaster Flash indicated to me that this music could be used for comedy, drama, and politics. To me that is the golden era of hip hop. Then a year later I heard Run DMC’s “Its Like That” and “Hard Times”.
How does this moment contrast with the most defining moment in civil rights history, the Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream“ speech?
Lately, I have been thinking about this “I Have A Dream” speech. The whole refrain in the speech is that I have a dream where people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. King used this metaphor of a dream. When I think about King’s speech, I think about Biggie’s dream. “It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine, Salt and Peppa and Heavy D up in the limousine.” To me, King planted a seed and that seed has now grown into something different. Much love and mad props to King, but to me what is more relevant today is the dream that Biggie was talking about.
That comment is sure to incite older Blacks. How do they respond when you say this?
They get hot. They get pissed. What I say to them is the purpose in life is to grow. You don’t get to a point and stop. You should not reach a point in life and stop. You should always grow. I always say that if you are doing the same things at 30, that you did at 20, then you have not made any progress. To me civil rights, Martin King, and “I Have A Dream” is what we did in 1964. But in presently, we are doing something different and we have grown.
Is some of the criticism of hip hop valid?
If you go back to the 1960s there was no hip hop, but people were still getting shot and using dope. You had pimps, hoes, and all of the negative things that were talked about. A lot of hip hop is just people talking shit. To me that is part of Black culture. People talk shit and say things. To me, hip hop captures various elements of Black life that shouldn’t be taken seriously. There has been a lot of stupid people around from day one. People who will mimic.
You have had a small beef with Spike Lee. Explain this?
I wrote a piece about him in the L.A. Times about his film Get on the Bus. In the piece, I wrote that Spike was the man in the 1980s, but he had fallen off in the mid 1990s. He got upset about the piece and he had one of his boys send me a letter calling me out. He had his producer send me this fax, which I thought was kind of cowardly.
I called his producer back, but they would not accept my calls. Sometime later, I ran into Spike at a L.A. Lakers game at the old Forum. He tried to loud talk me and call me out, as he was yelling and screaming. But I have no beef with anyone. We ought to be able to disagree with Black people and sit down and chop it up. You take your position and I take mine. We should at least be able to sit down and show each other respect.
In the book you write a lot about the Black Man/White Man buddy roles in film. How did this play in contemporary society and is this image reality?
This is your typical buddy-buddy flick. The Black man, White man genre. This was played out in contemporary society though Bill Clinton, who was one who people say, was connected to Black culture. In one moment of trouble he was connected to Vernon Jordan. When you think about this image, you cannot help but think about Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. Now there are situations where you have this reality. Black Male, White Male reality.
Back in the day, the Black man was always subordinate, but now the Black man does not have to be subordinate. Eminem needs Dre, more so than Dre needs Eminem. At the moment of Clinton’s impeachment, Clinton needed Jordan, whereas Jordan did not need Clinton.
What do you think about those people who are saying that Eminem is one of the greatest rappers ever?
I don’t think that Eminem is the problem. But I think it is what people put on Eminem. Eminem is down for hip hop. If he were wack, niggas would not fuck with him. He is not whack. Eminem of late, is one who is taking the game seriously. You can tell that he has been honing his lyrics. I am not mad at him. But, it is what people put on him. That is where I have problem. It is like Larry Bird. When he was playing ball, he was a great basketball player. But he was not the greatest player ever, which is what they made it out to be. If you are Black, that makes you feel uncomfortable, because the media blows these White characters out of proportion.