Art Voicing Peaceful Protest: Hip-Hop and Rap in the American and Arabic Cultures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33806/ijaes.v24i1.555Keywords:
cultural identity, defence mechanism, hip-hop, rap, resistanceAbstract
For centuries, poems and songs have been utilized to criticize oppressive and violent regimes, eliciting emotions and aiding the public in coping with hegemony. Rap and hip-hop, blending poetry and music, have emerged as powerful tools for combating oppression and marginalization. Despite the misconception that loud, aggressive music may incite violence, recent research disproves this notion. This study employs Sigmund and Anna Freud's psychoanalytic theory, focusing on defense mechanisms and free association, to analyze data. The study reveals that poets and artists across cultures, including Arabic culture, have employed rap and hip-hop as a means of cultural resistance, fostering a collective identity among young individuals to enhance their understanding of themselves and their culture. The study argues that rap and hip-hop serve as peaceful tools of resistance and function as a therapeutic outlet for managing anger, contrary to claims by some critical theorists that they stimulate violence in society.
References
Aaltio, Iiris, and Albert J. Mills. (2002). ‘Organizational culture and gendered identities in context’. In Iiris Aaltio and Albert J. Mills (eds.), Gender, Identity and the Culture of Organizations, 3–18. UK: Routledge.
Aidi, Hisham. (2004). ‘Verily, there is only one hip‐hop Umma: Islam, cultural protest and Urban marginality’. Socialism and Democracy, 18(2): 107-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854300408428402
Al-Jaffal, Omar. (March 11, 2020). Rap becomes battle cry of Iraqi protests. Al-Monitor, March 11, 2020.
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/03/rap-becomes-battle-call-of-protesters-of-iraq.html
Currie, Elliott. (2020). A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Dimitriadis, Greg, and Michelle Dimitriadis. (2009). Performing Identity/Performing Culture: Hip Hop as Text, Pedagogy, and Lived Practice. Switzerland: Peter Lang.
Duinker, Ben. (2021). ‘Segmentation, phrasing, and meter in hip-hop music’. Music Theory Spectrum, 43(2): 221-245.
https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab003
Dunsby, Johnathan. (2004). Making Words Sing: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Song. Cambridge University Press.
Evans, Jabari M. (2019). ‘Deeper than rap: Cultivating racial identity and critical voices through hip-hop recording practices in the music classroom’. Journal of Media Literacy Education,11(3): 20-36.
https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2019-11-3-3
Freud, Anna. (1993). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense. London: Karnac Books.
Freud, Sigmund. (1920). ‘A general introduction to psychoanalysis’. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 52(6): 548-549.
https://journals.lww.com/jonmd/citation/1920/12000/a_general_introduction_to_psychoanalysis.47.aspx
Freud, Sigmund. (1959). Collected Papers (Vol. 4). New York: Basic Books
Freud, Sigmund. (2014). ‘Psychoanalysis’. In Robert Ewen (ed.), An Introduction to Theories of Personality, 11-51. Psychology Press.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315793177-3/psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud
Gabsi, Zouhir. (2020). ‘Rap and Mizoued music: Claiming a space for dissent and protest in post-Arab Spring Tunisia’. Sociological Research Online, 25(4): 626-643. https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780419898494
Gana, Nouri. (2012). ‘Rap and revolt in the Arab world’. Social Text, 30(4): 25-53.
https://read.dukeupress.edu/social-text/article-abstract/30/4%20(113)/25/33730
Hughes, Langston, Dolan Hubbard, Leslie Catherine Sanders, Donna Sullivan Harper, and Steven Carl Tracy. (2001). The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. University of Missouri Press.
Jay-Z. (2010) Decoded. New York: Spiegel and Grau.
Johannsen, Igor. (2017). ‘Keepin’it real: Arabic rap and the re-creation of Hip Hop’s founding myth’. Middle East-Topics & Arguments, 7: 85-93. https://doi.org/10.17192/meta.2017.7.6329
Keith, Anthony, and Crystal Leigh Endsley. (2020). ‘Knowledge of self: Possibilities for spoken word poetry, hip hop pedagogy, and "blackout poetic transcription" in critical qualitative research’. The International Journal of Critical Media Literacy, 2(1): 56-82.
https://brill.com/view/journals/jcml/2/1/article-p56_56.xml
Khalil, Joe F. (2019). ‘Neo-Tajdeed? Rap in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia’. In Tarik Sabry and Joe F. Khalil (eds.), Culture, Time and Publics in the Arab World: Media, Public Space and Temporality, 113-126. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Krims, Adam. (2000). Rap Music and The Poetics of Identity. Cambridge University Press.
Lyrics. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/20949481/Grandmaster+Flash/The+Message
MacDonald, David. (2019). ‘Framing the "Arab Spring": Hip hop, social media, and the American news media’. Journal of Folklore Research, 56(1): 105-130. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jfolkrese.56.1.04
Malott, Richard, and Donald Whaley. (2013). Psychology. Lulu. Com.
Martinez, Theresa. (1997). ‘Popular culture as oppositional culture: Rap as resistance’. Sociological Perspectives, 40(2): 265-286.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/1389525
Mayes, Renae, Marjorie Shavers, and James Moore. (2022). African American Young Girls and Women in PreK12 Schools and Beyond: Informing Research, Policy, and Practice. Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-231720220000008013
MC Abdul - Shouting at The Wall (Official Video) – YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8qay1Al7Dc
Mckie, Robin. (October, 11, 2014). Hip-hop therapy is new route to mental wellbeing, say psychiatrists. The Guardian. Retrieved March 19, 2023, from http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/11/hip-hop-rap-therapy-mental-healthpsychiatrists-pharrell-happy
Mohamed Nasir, Kamaludeen. (2018). ‘Hip-hop Islam: Commodification, co-optation and confrontation in Southeast Asia’. Journal of Religious and Political Practice, 4(3): 374-389.
https://doi.org/10.1080/20566093.2018.1525902
Nooshin, Laudan. (2011). ‘Hip-hop Tehran: migrating styles, musical meanings, marginalized voices’. In Jason Toynbee and Byron Dueck (eds.) Migrating Music, 108-127. Routledge.
Nyawalo, Mich. (2013). ‘From "badman" to "gangsta": Double consciousness and authenticity, from African-American folklore to hip hop’. Popular Music and Society, 36(4): 460-475.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2012.671098
Pangestu, Nathania Astria, and FX Dono Sunardi. (2016). ‘An incomplete psychological novel: A psychoanalytical analysis of Hazel Lancaster in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars’. Journal of Language and Literature, 16(1): 20-28.
Potter, Russell A. (1995). Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and The Politics of Postmodernism. State University of New York Press.
Pough, Gwendolyn D. (2015). Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere. North-eastern University Press.
Rateb, Mohamed Saad. (2022). ‘The prophetic voice of a war-traumatized poet: Representation of trauma in the early poetry of Robert Lowell’. Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures, 14(2): 287-308. https://journals.yu.edu.jo/jjmll/Issues/vol14no22022/Nom4.pdf
Reavey, Catherine Anne Elizabeth. (2017). Poetry as a practice of freedom: Martin Luther King's somebodyness as a challenge to the langpo dismissal of self in American poetry. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Union Institute and University.
Reyes leBled (President of the Country).
https://cmes.arizona.edu/sites/cmes.arizona.edu/files/7.%20Hip%20Hop-El%20General.pdf
Richards, Arnold and Martin Willick. (2013). Psychoanalysis: The Science of Mental Conflict. Routledge.
Sule, Akeem and Inkster, Becky. (2014). A hip-hop state of mind. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(7): 494-495. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(14)00063-7
Taylor, Verta, and Nancy E. Whittier. (1992). Collective identity in social movement. In Jo Freeman (eds.), Victoria Johnson Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties, 169-194. Rowman and Littlefield.
Wellek, Albert. (1962). The relationship between music and poetry. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 21(2): 149-156.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/427187
Winn, James Anderson. (1981). Unsuspected Eloquence: A History of the Relations Between Poetry and Music. Yale University Press.