Sample Critical Analysis
Black Music and Cultural Exploitation
Among the many changes that take place when two cultures collide, are almost always
changes in musical expression. The interaction of African and European cultures in North
America is a case in point. Both cultures have influenced each other’s music
enormously. However, this paper deals with the negative impact exploitation by the
dominant white society has had on the course of black culture and music over many
years. Two pieces of writing quoted in The Call to Write by John Trimbur that illuminate
some of this dynamic are Kevin Powell’s article from the October 9, 2002, issue of
Newsweek, “My Culture at the Crossroads” and Brion Keagle’s essay, “Blues Songs and
the Devil’s Music,” written for an assignment in an African-American Literature and
Culture course.
Powell’s article is a poignant lament for the good ole days of hip-hop before it became
corrupted and coopted: “…that period in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s when such diverse
artists as Public Enemy, N.W.A., Queen Latifah, M.C. Hammer, LL Cool J and DeLa
Soul coexisted and there was no such thing as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ rap…”(qtd. in
Trimbur 58). According to Powell, changes in rap came about when a “formula” was
discovered by promoters that would guarantee a hit song. All that was needed was to
“fancy yourself a thug, pimp or gangster; rhyme about jewelry, clothing and alcohol;
denigrate women in every conceivable way, and party and b.s. ad nauseum” (qtd. in
Trimbur 58). So Powell believes that corporate interests, who control the music
industry, exploit black artists by forcing them into a mold that gives them hits and makes
them money, but caters to the worst elements of society and does not necessarily promote
the best features of their art. Those who don’t fit the mold receive no air time, no
recognition, and consequently, the general public sees only the negative side of rap and
hip-hop culture. In other words, the music industry, driven by the profit motive, is
exploiting black music and influencing its course in negative ways.
Another point made in Powell’s article is that rap is not the only form of black music to
suffer at the hands of the mainstream music industry. He states, “Naturally you see a
connection between the lives of [Robert] Johnson and Tupac Shakur, not to mention a
not-so-funny-link between the mainstream hyping of Elvis and Eminem as innovators of
black music forms. And, for sure, you wonder, loudly, if what happened to rock and roll
will happen to hip-hop, if it hasn’t already” (qtd. in Trimbur 58). What he is saying here
is that artists such as Robert Johnson and Tupac Shakur were never very successful
because they were not recognized for their art by the mainstream music industry when
they were alive; while white artists such as Elvis and Eminem became very successful by
taking black music and utilizing it as their own. His comment about what happened to
rock and roll refers to the fact that rock came out of black music culture and then was
exploited by the mainstream music industry to sell records. In the process, it was changed
to be more palatable to white audiences. In addition to rap music changing to emphasize
the negative and sell more records as noted above, white musicians changing rap for their
own use is yet another example of black music being altered as a result of exploitation.
This theme of exploitation and changes in black music is also touched upon in Keagle’s
paper, which is about the development of blues and gospel music from the same roots.
Referring to newly arrived African slaves, he writes,” As a polytheistic people oriented
themselves to the monotheistic world of Christianity, good and evil separated. The
concurrent development of gospel and blues is a direct result of this process. From their
common sources in slave songs, gospel became the African American’s devotional
music, while the blues became the sinful counterpart” (qtd. in Trimbur 621). Keagle is
saying that as slaves, a definitely exploited class in the New World, Africans had to alter
their beliefs and consequently their music in order to survive. His reference to the
separation of blues music from gospel under the pressure of Christianity is very like what
Powell says about hip-hop becoming positive and negative after being taken up by the
mainstream music industry. Again, this is an example of exploitation causing changes in
black culture and music. If Africans were not brought to America to be exploited as
slaves in the first place, their music probably would never have separated into sinful
blues and sacred gospel. And so many years later, rap music has separated into “positive”
and “negative” rap as a result of exploitation by the music industry’s emphasis on the
negative aspects to sell records.
Keagle also makes the point that bluesmen liked to emphasize the “sinful” aspect of blues
music in order to sell more records. Quoting Charles Keil in a personal interview, he
writes, ”In most things connected with the blues, there is a pattern of African American
culture and at the same time there is a commercial aspect to it in terms of what will sell.
The aura [of evil] sold records” (qtd. in Trimbur 623). In this statement we are told that
very early on, it became necessary to emphasize the negative aspect of black music to
make it appeal to a mass audience and be commercially successful. So, the profit motive
(exploitation by the music industry) was largely responsible for reinforcing the evil
aspect of blues music.
From both of these pieces, it is obvious that the exploitation of black culture by
mainstream society has brought about profound changes in the musical expression of that
culture. First, in the early slave days, the separation of black music into blues and gospel
came about to enable blacks to survive at all in the dominant white society. Then the
sinful aspect of the blues was reinforced by the mainstream music industry to sell
records. And most recently, as rap music was exploited by that same industry, its
negative aspects were again emphasized to sell more records. White musicians have also
played a role in this exploitation by changing black rap music and using it to sell their
own records. Such exploitation is a long-standing pattern of practice raising many
questions that may best be left to the cultural anthropologists. For instance, why has the
financial success of black musicians in our society depended upon changing the music to
emphasize the negative? Is it possible for any artist to thrive or even survive in our
society without compromising his art? Is it only the profit motive that has changed the
music or are other factors in our society at work?