{"id":52,"date":"2005-09-19T10:56:01","date_gmt":"2005-09-19T14:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/2005\/09\/19\/hip-hop-and-intuitionism\/"},"modified":"2005-09-21T12:57:27","modified_gmt":"2005-09-21T16:57:27","slug":"hip-hop-and-intuitionism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/2005\/09\/19\/hip-hop-and-intuitionism\/","title":{"rendered":"Hip Hop and Intuitionism"},"content":{"rendered":"

bell hooks, in her essay entitled “Postmodern Blackness” confronts several key issues in postmodern discourse that address the African American voice, both critical and participatory.  I would like to look closer at her discussion of “yearning” and the ways that this “psychological state” plays a part in a medium, namely rap, that hooks identifies as a positive and creative outlet and public forum for African Americans.  She states that, “it has enabled underclass black youth to develop a critical voice…a ‘common literacy.’ Rap projects a critical voice, explaining, demanding, urging.”  If rap is identified as a postmodern music, with the sampling of beats and lyrics and assimilation of music genres and forms, then the freedom of the African American voice that hooks identifies as a part of rap, is a positive outlet and art form, even when dabbling in postmodern constructs.  hooks points to Lawrence Grossberg’s essay “Putting the Pop Back into Postmodernism” which states: “The postmodern sensibility appropriates practices as boasts that announce their own–and consequently our own–existence, like a rap song boasting of the imaginary (or real–it makes no difference) accomplishments of the rapper.  From the earliest roots of hip hop to the present day manifestations of the form; from the Bronx battles of Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash to the flow of Notorious BIG, the ability to express and the want to boast has been a part of the scene.  As Grossberg points out, it made no difference that the boasts were real: BIG drew what he rapped about from stories he heard on the street, and not necessarily from his own life.  Yet, this form of music enabled the African American inner city voice to be heard.  It is also interesting to look at the way that graffiti, a part of hip hop culture, subsumes and recontextualizes the utility of the subway train, and in so doing, provides the canvas for another voice to emerge.  For an interesting discussion of the history of graffiti art, I recommend Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis In New York City<\/em> by Joe Austin.  In looking at The Intuitionist<\/em>, at the struggle of the African American voice therein, I go back to Kira’s discussion of the end of the novel, and the ways that Lila Mae attempts to reconcile the revelations.  Lila Mae, in stating, “Intuitionism is communication. That simple. Communication with what is not-you” (241).  In light of the book, the “not-you” is elevators, and the ways that they work and don’t work.  In a larger context, even within the text, Intuitionism can be a way of communicating with the “not-you” who is of a different race, cultural background, sexual orientation, and so forth.  Learning to navigate the difficulties of communication and finding the voice that allows that is the most important task.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

bell hooks, in her essay entitled “Postmodern Blackness” confronts several key issues in postmodern discourse that address the African American voice, both critical and participatory.  I would like to look closer at her discussion of “yearning” and the ways that this “psychological state” plays a part in a medium, namely rap, that hooks identifies as … Continue reading Hip Hop and Intuitionism<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}