Behind the Veil: Trap music, embodiment, and collective selves

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

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore how trap music is embodied and resonates with collective manifestations of selves. The study draws from eight (8) self-identified experienced hip hop/street dancers (Magaña, 2015) who were recruited via snowball sampling (Braun & Clarke, 2013). The data included a trap rap mix, a dance cypher, sonic cartographies (Gershon, 2013), and a group discussion.
We used Post-Intentional Phenomenology (PIP) to frame and understand the experiences of participants in this study. PIP is concerned with how one finds themselves in relation to phenomenon, rather than trying to solely understand the phenomenon itself (Vagle, 2018). PIP analysis is a layered and cyclical process that involves a continuous turn to the phenomenon, phenomenological materials, theories, and positionalities. To foster hip hop aesthetics (Petchauer, 2015), ethos (Harrison & Arthur, 2019), philosophy (Bailey, 2014), and sensibilities (Love, 2016) through our analysis, we created flows and ruptures through a process of sampling and layering (Rose, 1994) to create manifestations of the phenomenological experience.

Through this creative endeavor, various points of interest were noticed. Trap music is typically distinguished against conscious rap and serves as an example for critics of what needs to be purged from hip hop in order to keep it pure (Bogazianos, 2012; Burton, 2017). With trap music’s discussion of drug abuse, illegal enterprises, hustle culture, and violence, it may be difficult for some to see what is behind the veil. We may bask in its glorification, becoming a “bloodhound for the bread” according to rapper Jeezy, however, what is behind this veil isn't something new; it's a part of our past. Trap music remains a form of hip hop, just “a different manifestation from a younger generation” as Magaña explains.

Trap music, just like hip hop, serves as a form of social protest against Euro-centric ways of being and knowing (Baszile, 2009; Rose, 1991). It is a source of raw, unfiltered counter-storytelling that objects to these norms, a declaration of what one has been through, and holds the autonomy to decide who one wants to be. It represents collective freedom to express its versatility and duality, as Lyric explains, “within my own freedom, within my own flow.” This is shown through the circular movements created during the dance cypher as well as the repeated reference to driving both in relation to the movements and memories dancers associated with trap music in their sonic cartographies.
Trap music brings many possibilities to the field of Hip Hop Based Education empowering us to confront the stigmatizing discourse surrounding hip hop culture and respectability politics (Johnson, 2021) and challenges what it means to be intellectual. Trap music highlights the importance of testimony (Baszile, 2009) as contributing to a culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995), responsive (Gay, 2018), and sustaining (Paris, 2012) pedagogy. Behind the veil, trap music validates a non-binary/linear/hierarchical and embodied ethico-onto-epistemological pedagogy (Kuby & Christ, 2018) exemplified by the hip hop aesthetic of autonomy/distance and kinetic consumption respectively (Petchauer, 2011; Shusterman, 2000).

Authors

• Roya Fathalizadeh, Arizona State University

• Jorge Magaña, Arizona State University

• Mirka E. Koro, Arizona State University