Before we get going on this, this is about the most delicate subject I can possibly imagine discussing. I don't use racial slurs, I don't judge people based on their ethnicity and I don't look for excuses to stir up controversy. I promote freedom of speech, but I oppose hate speech. As I lay out my thoughts on the use of racial epithets in music, I'd like to make it clear that neither I (jonny Lupsha) nor my publisher (A Carrier of Fire) condones prejudice or discrimination of any kind, especially and including racism. If this offends you, I offer my sincere apologies. The only reason I use "The N-Word" in this blog is to discuss its place (if it has one) in pop culture. Thanks.
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So here's the problem. On the one hand, I'm as white as white gets - I burn in the sun, my hair was platinum blonde until I was 20 years old and in middle school they used to sing "Blinded by the Light" when I took off my shirt in gym class, in between beating me up while calling me Casper and Powder. On the other hand, I love hip-hop - especially, as you can imagine, Wu-Tang Clan and its affiliates. This wouldn't be a problem, but rap music throws out the ever-controversial "N-Word" like they're giving away candy. You know which N-Word I'm talking about.
"Nigga."
It used to bother me. I bought a copy of Del tha Funky Homosapien's Both Sides of the Brain when I was 17 or 18 and I wouldn't even listen to the songs that said it. I just skipped them because I was afraid I was condoning bigotry by enjoying those songs. But the more music I listened to - from Public Enemy all the way back to Sly and the Family Stone - the more I heard it, and I had to settle what I imagined was an ethical debate in my head: Am I going to stop listening to any song with the lyric "nigga" in them? Or am I going to get over this issue and listen anyway? If the latter, how?
So I started looking it up online, in discussion groups and on websites; and I started talking to some other rap fans I knew, some black and some white, about their feelings on the subject. "Doesn't it make us bigots?" I asked. "Is music with the n-word perpetuating some hideous 'softshoe, house slave, Uncle Tom' stereotype?!" The responses came back and it seemed that as usual, I was worrying too much.
To explain why I don't bat an eyelash anymore, I've collected some of my thoughts on varying words meant to describe people of African descent - especially the oft-used "nigga" in rap music.
"Negro" comes from the Spanish and Portuguese for "black," meaning the color (with no connotations), but as evidenced in films like X, other language and arts students propose that the color black be associated with ignorance, death and evil. Saul Williams, a brilliant poet, does a poetry slam in the film Slam that contains the line "Negro from necro meaning 'death' - I overcame it so they named me after it." I saw Slam in 1999 and that poem opened my eyes to the possibility that some pejorative terms can be repurposed for a more friendly, familial usage in certain communities. In my opinion, Saul is saying that there is a positive way to look at an ethically-questionable word like "negro" to describe the hardships his ancestors have come through with African lineage over the course of human history.
Saul Williams opened the floodgates for me. Some of my high school and college friends of African descent told me the same thing about the contemporary use of the term "nigga" that I inferred from the Saul Williams poem. "No, no, it's not racist; when they say something like 'my nigga' to someone, it's like saying 'my brother.' It's familiar, like a war buddy." And I asked "Then why not say 'my brother' if they're talking about someone who's come through hard times with them? Wouldn't that be better?" The response I got, I'll never forget. "Who do you have more long-term history with: your blood brother, or your entire bloodline?"
And as silly as it may sound, the simple two-letter difference between the insult "nigger" and the contemporary slang "nigga" is monumental. The former is a racial slur, used with malice and venom and disgust and derision; the latter is that repurposed badge of familiarity that its users pin on someone else - someone with whom they share a past, an affinity. If you don't believe such a slight difference can create two diametrically-opposed meanings, look at "bisexual" and "asexual". Bisexuals find both genders attractive; asexuals find neither attractive.
By college I'd come to a rudimentary philosophy of the six-letter insult form of the word - I'd never use it myself; I knew that. If I heard anyone else use the slur with an ounce of prejudice or insult intended, I'd take a stand against their racism. Now, why not "If I heard anyone else use it at all?" First, if I see a guy walking away from a girl and he has a fresh red handprint on his face, I'll ask someone what happened. If that person says "Oh, she slapped him because he called her a nigger," I'd rather that person find a way around saying it but if they don't, it's not fair to assume they meant it with malice instead of just relaying a news event and not having much tact. I'd probably say "Well, you could say 'he called her the n-word' because some people might not appreciate you throwing it around like that," but again, we can't assume that that messenger meant any harm. The second instance is akin to this blog post. I'm not making excuses for myself, but if it helps to diminish racial prejudice or to understand human history and its follies - since "forget the past and you're condemned to repeat it" - I can understand someone objectively discussing etymology and events surrounding the racial slur. I wish there were a way around it, but when Mark Twain wrote it into Huckleberry Finn he was showing the world how openly racist people could be without consequence in the 19th century - that they had no regard for the pain and suffering associated with that word. It's a brutal look at social inequality, but it teaches us a lesson about taboos and hatred. I've never believed that ignorance is the best cure for a problem. No matter what the issue - from slavery and the Holocaust down to teen pregnancy and recreational drug use - knowledge and understanding beat blinders and secrecy any day.
So how did I get over on the five-letter, borderline-affectionate alternative "nigga?" I've heard white friends say "Why can black guys say it when we can't? That's not fair!" and I disagree. Considering the history associated with the word, especially its uses in American slavery; considering that any of the aforementioned "black guys" who say it could have had ancestors who were raped, beaten and killed by somebody who thought of them as subhuman because of the color of their skin; but especially considering its intention as free speech, not hate speech, I think white people should just let this one go.
Getting back to rap, rap music is often identified by making references to both classic and modern history as well as pop culture and sociological and political concerns. Loud enough voices in art can affect change - just look at Jonathan Swift. Similarly, Public Enemy has a song called "Anti-Nigger Machine," which deals with both censorship of music and the deliberate racial epithet its name contains. It was released in 1990, when Tipper Gore's war on mature-themed art was still going strong, and the Public Enemy track places a time stamp and interpretation of that historical legal battle. Without using such controversial language, a lot of the song's impact (as well as the irony of being a song about censorship so replete with profanity) would be lost.
The same goes for the Mos Def song "Mr. Nigger," about racial prejudices in the entertainment world and the ancient expectations set for black entertainers. The list goes on and on. Even the Les Claypool song "Ding Dang" talks about how harshly a young man's life was affected because the bullies in his class called him "little nigger boy." It's an anthem against bullying and hearing the harsh language really punches the listener in the gut.
So why write this? Who cares what I think about the n-word? In reference to this blog in particular, Map of Shaolin is analyzing every group and solo album from Wu-Tang Clan, as well as many Wu-based soundtracks and compilations - over 65 albums in all. Wu-Tang uses the n-word like it generates clean oxygen, so there's almost no way to navigate the minefield of n-words without discussing it here and there. I skipped one last week, which I'll mention in a moment, and I regret it. It's a good line - no, a great line - by Method Man, and makes good use of internal rhyme.
In Wu-Tang's "7th Chamber," Method Man's verse opens with the following couplet:
"I be that insane nigga from the psycho ward
I'm on the trigger, plus I got the Wu-Tang sword."
Often, hip-hop lyrics only rhyme at the end of the line - in this case, "ward" and "sword" - and there's nothing wrong with that in the least. But here, Meth also manages to rhyme "nigga" with "trigger" - pronounced "trigga" - and the whole thing just shine. These first two lines set off his verse like a bomb and they really, really pop. If I still let that language upset me, I wouldn't be able to listen to 99% of the songs Wu-Tang has put out - and my music collection and my love for music would have some big holes in them. Please keep in mind as Map of Shaolin reviews future Wu-Tang-related albums that our (very rare) uses of the word are only meant to analyze and interpret the rhythm and context of lyrical expression.
So think what you want, and keep which sensibilities you choose. For my money, after my experiences with the n-word, I grew a thick skin about my rap lyrics and learned a bit of history and sociology along the way. It doesn't bother me to hear it as creative expression anymore, and I can appreciate a larger amount of artwork because of it while taking a stronger stance against bigotry than I did in the past.
Thanks for your time and be sure to check back tomorrow for my look at Method Man's 1994 debut, Tical.
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