A Trap Critical Theory Approach to Hip-Hop Education

• In Event: Beyond Respectability: Centering Trap Music and Epistemologies on the Road to Educational Remedy and Repair

Abstract

This paper introduces a trap critical theory (TrapCrit) approach to hip-hop education. TrapCrit acknowledges how trap music illuminates the systematically excluded counter-narratives of individuals experiencing oppression and while rejecting anti-Black narratives of respectability that attempt to dictate how individuals make sense of oppressive lived experiences. Theoretically, TrapCrit is informed by BlackCrit’s understanding of the permanence of anti-Blackness and the assertion that there needs to be a liberatory space for dreaming about a future where the fullness of Blackness is nurtured and sustained (Dumas & ross, 2016). While this work is conceptual in nature, the core of this paper focuses on the analysis of three songs: Preach by Young Dolph, Get Paid by Young Dolph, and Trauma by Meek Mill. Through repetitive active listening, I listened to the songs and voice recorded my reflections on the lyrics. Recorded reflections were analyzed through cultural intuition (Anzaldúa, 1987).

Towards a Trap Critical Theory in Hip-Hop Education
This conceptual work contends that trap music’s exemplification of counter storytelling, a grounding in sociopolitical awareness, and the expression of joy as resistance can deeply transform the way we think about how individuals respond to oppressive experiences.

Counter-storytelling
Stories have always been a tool for “survival and liberation” (Delgado, 1989, p. 2436), and at its core, trap music is about telling a story of life in the trap. Stories are nuanced and personal, but too often stories of Blackness and the Black experience are not afforded the individualism that stories that embody white perspectives and norms of expression (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). This privileging of white perspectives and norms of expression “distorts and silences the experiences of people of color” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 32). Trap music is a liberatory means of expression that refuses to cater to white perspectives and norms of expression, which often leads to trap music being miscategorized as a simple glorification of violence and drug culture.

Sociopolitical Awareness
TrapCrit recognizes that trap artists’ sociopolitical awareness is a cornerstone of counter storytelling in trap music. This complex storytelling rooted in sociopolitical awareness provides a rich site for deep conversations about how oppression is perpetuated and can aid in the development of individuals’ political consciousness (Clay, 2012). However, trap music’s grounding in an acute awareness of one’s sociopolitical position is often overlooked—which extends the marginalization of Black Americans’ displays of participatory politics—because the displays of this awareness do not fit neatly within the constructs of white politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis, 2006).

Joy as Refusal
TrapCrit recognizes trap music as a demonstration of joy as refusal. An exemplification of joy as refusal moves beyond positioning joy as a mechanism for resistance and rejects the white gaze altogether (Stewart, 2021). Through this refusal, conduits of oppression that seek to police expressions of Black joy, like respectability politics and cultural assimilation, are ignored. Additionally, joy as refusal is a recognition that the wholeness of Black humanity does not solely contain stories of oppression (Duncan, et al, 2023; King, 2020; Stewart, 2021).

Author

• Kelly R. Allen, Augusta University