The B (Blues)-Side of Rap

• In Event: Fundamentally Hip-Hop: The Pedagogical Function of the Lyrical Art

Abstract

Blues rap is the continuation of the narratives found in Black music (Spirituals and Blues) that guides the Black community through the terrain of white America’s hypocritical democracy. Blues rap songs are laced with traumatic expressions and used as a vehicle of liberation and therapeutic exercise. These are the songs rap artists express the pain and terror of the struggles within the Black experience. The artist uses their music as a form of therapy and liberation by speaking to and about their trauma which is a fundamental characteristic of the blues. This is how and why the name blues rap was constructed, to be the voice of the pain, horror, and neglect in the poetics of rap. The majority of blues rap has been restrained from American popular culture. This is concerning, as rap artists have a higher mortality rate than artists of any other genre of music, but there is no space allotted in mainstream America for rap artists’ trauma to be expressed. Blues rap grants space for artists to navigate and process the grotesque realities of Black life in America while affirming the artist’s humanity. Simultaneously, blues rap addresses the reality of life for the artist, community, and America. The goal is to illuminate how blues rap entreats America to acknowledge the humanity of rap artists in a society only concerned with the artist as a material artifact to maintain an atmosphere of celebration and commodification.

Author

• Solomon Cochren, University of Memphis