Wood, 'Resistance in Rhyme', Postmodern Culture v7n1
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Resistance in Rhyme
by
Brent Wood
Trent University
bwood@trentu.ca
Postmodern Culture v.7 n.1 (September, 1996)
Copyright (c) 1996 by Brent Wood, all rights reserved.
This text may be used and shared in accordance with the
fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be
archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided
that the editors are notified and no fee is charged for
access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of
this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the
consent of the author and the notification of the
publisher, Institute for Advanced Technology in the
Humanities.
Review of:
Russell Potter. _Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hope and the
Politics of Postmodernism_. Albany: SUNY, 1995.
[1] _Spectacular Vernaculars_ is the most recent book on
hip-hop to appear on university library shelves, and the
first to deal squarely with hip-hop as a specifically
postmodern phenomenon.
[2] Did I say "phenomenon"? Russell Potter would have my head.
The central claim Potter makes in the intriguing
introduction to _Spectacular Vernaculars_ is that hip-hop
culture constitutes a "highly sophisticated postmodernism"
(Potter, 1995: 13). By characterizing hip-hop as a
"postmodernism," rather than a "postmodern phenomenon,"
Potter begins to build his case for understanding hip-hop
as a self-conscious political *practice*, not merely as a
collection of commodities and customs. Furthermore, he
means to insist, against Paul Gilroy to whose work Potter
often refers, that hip-hop is fundamentally a
*post*modernity rather than an instance of *oppositional*
modernity (4).
[3] Hip-hop, in Potter's view, is a successful postmodern
guerilla resistance against both the New Right and the
corporate juggernauts that rule economic life in North
America. Moreover, argues Potter, hip-hop is a resistance
which has had "more crucial consequences than all the books
on postmodernism rolled into one" (13). On the other hand,
hip-hop is not simply a postmodernist praxis complementary
to the postmodernist theory purveyed in the academy, but
also a theoretical practice in its own right.
[4] Why hip-hop ought to be thought of as postmodernist rather
than modernist has something to do with the guerrilla
nature of its strikes and the ruthlessness with which it
employs capitalist weaponry and the found objects of the
postindustrial urban mediascape. Unlike Richard
Shusterman's 1991 essay "The Fine Art of Rap," which
discussed the postmodern aesthetics of hip-hop music,
_Spectacular Vernaculars_ is concerned with hip-hop's
political dimension. Ultimately, for Potter, hip-hop
*cannot* be modern because it operates, in Sun-Ra's words,
"after the end of the world." Potter also makes reference
to Shaber and Readings' characterization of the postmodern
as marking a "gap" in "the modernist concept of time as
succession or progress" (3). Potter compares this kind of
interruption in a culture's perception of historical time
to the interruption in musical time caused by the use of
the sample in hip-hop music. He also relates it to the
concept and practice of "signifyin(g)" as defined by Henry
Louis Gates, which implies a different relationship between
the present and the past than the one supposed by
modernism. As a "signifyin(g)" practice, hip-hop is always
reclaiming, recycling, and reiterating the past, rather
than advancing from it.
[5] The book's title, "Spectacular Vernaculars," plays on the
double meanings of each of the words (and is a bust-ass
four-syllable rhyme besides). The vernacular meaning of
"vernacular" is something like "language of the common
people," and to his credit Potter makes an effort to speak
in the language of the street. That he does not wholly
succeed is probably inevitable, given his theoretical
reference points and academic orientation. "Vernacular"'s
ancestry is more to the point of the book. It can be traced
back to the Latin %vernaculus%--"a slave born in his
master's house." "Spectacular" refers not only to the
quality of Potter's rhyme, but also to Debord's _Society of
the Spectacle_. Thus hip-hop is read fundamentally as a
use of media and capital by the common people to further
their own ends, rather than the ends of the hegemonic power
structures which we generally assume are in control.
[6] _Spectacular Vernaculars_ is divided into five chapters,
which deal, respectively, with hip-hop in terms of art;
language; the politics of race, class, gender and
sexuality; tactical resistance; and political theory.
[7] Potter begins by characterizing hip-hop as a vernacular
art, and seeks to demonstrate what he feels are its
essential aspects. He argues that its fundamental practice
is one of *citation* (or signifyin(g)), and that, as a
result, hip-hop necessarily resists the categories of
production and consumption. Three versions of the song
"Tramp" are presented to illustrate this point: Lowell
Fulsom's 1966 "original" solo version, Otis Redding and
Carla Thomas's 1967 duet re-make, and Salt 'n' Pepa's 1987
hip-hop track of the same name, which samples from and
refers to the earlier versions. This treatment of a song
lyric in its entirety and its evolution is one of the
book's high points. Unfortunately, this is the only
in-depth "reading" in the book. The remainder of its
arguments are supported only by short quotations.
[8] The second chapter, "Postmodernity and the Hip-Hop
Vernacular," has little to do with postmodernity %per se%
but much to do with the vernacular as a language of
resistance. Potter uses the medieval troubadours, Malcolm
X, and Deleuze and Guattari as reference points as he
builds a case for "Black English" as a resistant
vernacular. He then takes this argument to another level,
citing the subversive verbal and representational practices
of rappers Paris and Da Lench Mob (Ice Cube's crew) as
building on this vernacular premise. Paris is cited to
demonstrate the use of layered sampled dialogue (in this
case, George Bush's), while Da Lench Mob's record
_Guerillas in the Mist_ is offered as an illustration of
how hip-hop deals with racist verbiage from the likes of
the LAPD.
[9] The title of the third chapter, "The Pulse of the Rhyme
Flow," is also somewhat estranged from its subject matter.
Its subtitle, "Hip-Hop Signifyin(g) and the Politics of
Reception," is more to the point. Potter deftly shows how
rappers' rhetorical strategies are often misunderstood by
their audience, and how "moral panic" can be used as a tool
of powerful interests to keep insurrectionary culture at
bay. He also deals here with inflammatory issues of
sexism, violence, and homophobia in hip-hop, and with the
question of black "authenticity." In the end, Potter
concludes, hip-hop is a culture whose roots and flowers are
mixed and many. Hip-hop is not purely the domain of
straight black men from the ghetto, although that image is
often put to use by both rappers and the forces of moral
panic. Its roots spread deep into the African diaspora,
and its flowers transcend class, gender, sexuality, and
nation.
[10] The fourth chapter is devoted to the politics of
resistance, showing how hip-hop relays history to a society
of amnesiacs. Potter calls hip-hop a "cultural recycling
center" and a "counter-formation" of capitalism" (108).
Here the central reference point is Michel de Certeau's
theory that consumers trace their own paths through the
commodity relations with which they are presented. Thus
the "eavesdropping" of white kids on black culture (Ice
Cube's term), Potter argues, can be read as an invaluable
step toward an anti-racist society. The book's final
chapter continues this thread, emphasizing hip-hop's
multi-cultural and international aspects, and argues that
essentialist definitions of what counts as "black" and
"white" are ultimately more useful to the "powers that be"
than to the people who are held in their thrall.
[11] _Spectacular Vernaculars_ concludes with some insightful
commentary on the relationship of academics to hip-hop,
focusing on an interview between KRS-One and Michael
Lipscomb. Potter argues that Lipscomb continually misses
KRS-One's main thrust by insisting on literal
interpretations of language and conventional definitions of
politics. Here Potter reminds us that "some real ground
would be gained" by a dialogue between the sociologists of
popular culture and the "vernacular cultural expressions"
(153) they find so intriguing.
[12] Potter's book is positioned as a translator between these
two cultures and their respective dialects, yet it is
obviously directed squarely at the academy. No young hip-
hopper is going to read a book where rhyme is referred to
as "homophonic slippage" and quotations from de Certeau
open the chapters. Rather, Potter accomplishes much the
same thing that Tricia Rose accomplished with _Black Noise_
in clearing up the prejudices toward rap music and hip-hop
in general that exist in the academy.
[13] Rose, however, eschews the term postmodernism and succeeds
without it. Potter's own formulations of the postmodern as
an interruption in a collective sense of time and history
and of hip-hop as a spectacularly resistant political
practice are convincing enough in context, but in the end
may leave the theoretically-oriented reader unsatisfied.
Reference to James Snead's worthy essays are absent from
_Spectacular Vernaculars_, as is detailed consideration of
the work of Cornel West. Furthermore, since we are dealing
here with time and tradition, one can't help but feel that
there ought to be some consideration of West African
concepts of rhythm, music, and social organization, and the
cosmology that goes with them.
[14] In one sense, "Hip-Hop and the Politics of Resistance"
might have been a more accurate subtitle for the book. For
it is at its best when recounting hip-hop's political
history and serving up readings of the discourse between
rappers and the media, rappers and politicians, and rappers
and critics. Potter's lens is a wide-angle one; he clearly
considers himself a part of the culture in question, and he
writes from a political position that is progressive
without becoming preachy.
[15] One final issue is the relative neglect of aesthetics
(postmodern or otherwise), a neglect which tends to reduce
hip-hop's musicians and poets to speech-writers and
celebrities. After all, there is more to the hip-hop story
than the self-consciously political, and there is more to
the political itself than can be consciously thought. The
greatest power of hip-hop is rhythmic and is *felt* as
strongly as it is *heard*, yet the musical and poetic
dimensions of hip-hop are hardly touched on here.
[16] In spite of these criticisms, _Spectacular Vernaculars_
stands up as a complement to other recent academic writing
on hip-hop such as Brian Cross's _It's Not About a Salary_,
Rose's _Black Noise_, David Toop's _Rap Attack_ and Michael
Brennan's "Off the Gangster Tip." It's never what Potter
says that disappoints, but occasionally what he doesn't
say, especially given the book's tantalizing title, the
unresolved questions of African-American culture's
relationship to postmodernism, and the power of hip-hop
rhyme and rhythm.
WORKS CITED
Brennan, Michael. "Off the Gangsta Tip: A Rap Appreciation, or
Forgetting about Los Angeles." _Critical Inquiry_
20.4 (1994): 663-693.
Cross, Brian. _It's Not About a Salary: Rap, Race and Resistance
in Los Angeles_. NY: Verso, 1993.
Potter, Russell. _Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the
Politics of Postmodernism_. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995.
Rose, Tricia. _Black Noise_. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1994.
Shusterman, Richard. "The Fine Art of Rap." _New Literary
History_, 22.3 (1991): 613-32.
Snead, James A. "On Repetition in Black Culture." _Black American
Literature Forum_ 154 (1991): 146-154.
---. "Racist Traces in Postmodernist Theory and Literature."
_Critical Quarterly_ 33.1: 31-39.
Toop, David. _The Rap Attack_. London: Pluto, 1984.
---. _Rap Attack 2_. London: Serpent's Tail, 1991.</dd>
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