Fresh Out of School: Rap Music's Discursive Battle With Education

Au, Wayne

The "Discourse" [a way of life] of rap music is in the midst of a "battle" with that of education, where rap music resists and critiques education as a dominant and domineering Discourse. In this article, as a means of exploring the contours of this battle, the author analyzes rap music lyrics to flush out hip-hop culture's perspective on the education of African American youth. The author finds that, from the perspective of rap music, the Discourse of education is largely dysfunctional when it comes to meeting the material, social, and cultural needs of African American youth. The author concludes that there is a need for the implementation of more culturally relevant curricula in schools, and that teaching effectiveness with students would benefit from learning about and understanding hip-hop culture.

INTRODUCTION

At its heart, rap music has revolved around the concept of battling. Whether it is battling to keep your chin up during hard times or proving yourself by battling in competitions of vocal style, performance, and rhyming skill; rap music has been a way for urban youth to say to the world, "Look at me, I can take whatever you dish out and come out standing." Admittedly, this battling has occasionally spilled over into real-life violence, but, by and large, rappers-and their DJ, graffiti artists, and break-dancer counterparts in hip-hop culture-stick to battling through the expression of their respective arts (Castleman, 2004; Dyson, 2004; Hager, 1984; Holman, 2004). Hip-hop culture is often broken down into these four component parts: (a) the DJ (disc jockey) as the one who plays records; (b) the rapper or M.C./emcee raps over the records; (c) the break dancer literally dances over what is called the "break beat" in musical terms, also sometimes called a bridge; and (d) the Graffiti artist is responsible for large, full-color murals that transform words into visual art. This is part of rap music's Discourse, and it sets the tone for the combativeness with which this Discourse views the world.

For the purposes of this article, the author uses Gee's (1996) conception of Discourse which he defines as:

. . .ways of being in the world, or forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities, as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes. A Discourse is a sort of identity kit which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular social role that others will recognize. (p. 127)

The Discourse of education, like all other Discourses, with a capital "D," refers specifically to saying-writing-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations through language, whereas discourse with a lowercase "d" refers to "connected stretches of language that make sense"-a more general connotation (Gee, 1996, p. 127). Likewise, the Discourse of rap music also privileges specific ways of being in the world over others, part of which includes maintaining particular worldviews and ways of inhabiting certain social relations (Bourdieu, 1984).

The Discourse of rap music is in the midst of a battle with that of education, where rap music resists and critiques education as a dominant and domineering Discourse. Unlike an emcee battle, however, what is at stake is far more than just reputation and street-level credentials but the educational success of students of color in schools throughout the United States. In this article, as a means of exploring the contours of this "battle," the author analyzes rap music lyrics to flush out hip-hop culture's perspective on the education of African American youth.

Rap music, the vocal and musical expression of hip-hop culture, sprang from the African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latino communities of New York City's South Bronx in the mid1970s (Chang, 2003; Clay, 2003; Rose, 1994; Scherpf, 2001). Rap music originated humbly at community center dances and block parties (Chang, 2003) as a celebration of surviving the poverty associated with Reagan/Bush-era economics (Clay, 2003; Kun, 2002; Scherpf, 2001), an era that saw wages fall and work conditions worsen, while the income gap between the rich and poor grew (Kitwana, 2002). Reflecting its context within economic hard times, rap defiantly embraced both the "pride and pain" of the working-class urban experience (Rose, 1994; Scherpf, 2001) of a generation that has been characterized as "the throwaways of a new, mobile capitalism" (Kelley, 1997, p. 53).

Now, almost 30-years old, rap music has gone through a considerable transformation in both cultural and economic size and power. Kun (2002) remarks that,

[H]ip-hop has gone from being a cumulative inter-American, Afro-Caribbean product of Reagonomic violence on U.S. inner cities, the booming crack trade, and massive deindustrialization campaigns. . .to being a confirmed U.S. national commodity that can bring in over $1.8 billion in sales during a single year [as it did in 2000]. (p. 581).

The year 2000 also saw rap music pass country music to be the third largest music genre sold (Beady, 2001), and in 2002 it accounted for $1.6 billion in sales. These high sales are a testament to the fact that rap music is not just the stuff of urban youth of color anymore. Its influence now touches all parts of popular culture (Chang, 2003). In 1998, when 81 million rap music CDs, tapes, and albums were sold, 70% of them were purchased by Whites. Rappers and rap music are used by major corporations to sell almost anything: movies, soft drinks, clothing lines, pizza, deodorant, candy, Internet services, shoes, beer, cars, potato chips, and sporting events (Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2002).

BACKGROUND LITERATURE

Classroom practitioners and educational researchers have addressed rap music's growing influence among youth in schools in a variety of ways. Educational research has studied rap music for its more theoretical applications to pedagogy and the achievement differences among White, African American, and Latino students. Much of the research overlaps and deals with the two general themes: using rap to bridge the cultural divide that exists between schools and students' home and community cultures (Brown, 1995; Evelyn, 2000; Ginwright, 2004; Mahiri, 1998; Mahiri & Sablo, 1996; Morrell, 2002; Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2002; Paul, 2000; Quintero & Cooks, 2002) and using rap as a tool for developing critical consciousness among students (Brown, 1995; Ginwright, 2004; Mahiri, 2000-01; Morrell, 2002; Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2002; Paul, 2000; Scherpf, 2001).

Most commonly, in classrooms teachers have used rap in English courses as a bridge to the literary canon and to teach literary devices (Au, 1997, 1998; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2000; Mahiri, 1996, 1998; Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2002; Paul, 2000; "Tips for incorporating rap rhymes into English instruction, 2003) and to develop reading skills (L'Homme, 2000) and math skills ("Hip-hop hooray for math," 2002). Notably, the president of four historically Black boarding high school in the United States even recorded a rap album as an attempt to educationally motivate students and communicate what he termed as "positive" messages (Beady, 2001).

Several pieces of the existing literature are problematic in at least two ways. Rap music is often employed as a "bridge" to bring students into the dominant Discourse of education, regardless of the potential cultural and political implications of that act. This raises issues of identity development and the pragmatic use of a cultural practice, such as rap music as a means to an end, as opposed to consciously using those practices to significantly challenge the norms of educational Discourse itself. Put another way, one would ask the question, "Are we using rap music and other forms of popular culture to transform education, or are we using it mainly to help hip-hop youth be "successful" according to status quo norms of educational Discourse?" The second issue follows. Even though some of the research rap music includes student voices and a few mention specific rap artists in the classroom, there is little to no evidence of a sustained analysis of rap lyrics as a way to examine how the Discourse of rap music comments on the Discourse of education.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this article is to fill a gap in the existing literature, where most conclusions are drawn from studying the effective application of rap music with students (the audience of rap music) as opposed to listening to the voices of the authors of rap music (the lyricists/rappers themselves). This article seeks to survey those voices in hopes of challenging the system of education to serve more adequately the needs of African American and other hip-hop identified youth. While the author recognizes that it is important to study the intersections of rap music and education through students, it is equally important to examine how educational Discourse is confronted by the Discourse of rap music, given its massive popularity and since it contains salient critiques of education. Additionally, even though it is safe to assume that students do not regularly read critical theorists and academic journals, they do listen to rap music and are shaped by what this Discourse has to say about education and the world.

This critique of existing research must be viewed as friendly since the author fully supports the intentional use of rap music and hip-hop culture in the classroom. However, it seems prudent that if we are going to attend to the educational needs of hip-hop youth, we ought to at least listen to what their music has to say about education.

This article builds on cultural critic Kelley's (1996) assertion that the social realism portrayed in rap lyrics "loosely resembles. . .a sort of street ethnography of racist institutions and social practices. . .told more often than not in the first person" (p. 190) and Rose's (1994) observation that "rappers act out inversions of status hierarchies, tell alternative stories of contact with. . .the educational process, and draw portraits of contact with dominant groups. . ." (p. 101). Within this context, rap lyrics are analyzed to explore a question missing from existing educational literature: What does the Discourse of rap music have to say about the Discourse of education? This shift in perspective, from that of researchers and teachers to that of the rappers themselves, provides an opportunity to understand the variety of ways in which the current generation of rap music listeners and creators interacts with educational Discourse.

METHOD

This qualitative study uses a mix of textual research, Discourse analysis, and grounded theory. The sample of lyrics was limited because no centralized, systematized database of song lyrics currently exists. Assuming that the physical task of listening to all rap songs for their commentary on education is too daunting for the scope of this study, the author turned to online databases of lyrics that specifically included full-text search engines. Leo's Lyrics Database (Leo, 2003) provided an extensive resource for full-text searches, where search terms included the following: "school," "education," "teachers," "diplomas," "classrooms," "lunchrooms," "hallways," "books," or "playgrounds." Twenty-eight rap lyrics were found spanning 1989 to March 2004 (when the search was done). This sample was supplemented with nine rap lyrics that discussed education but were not artists included in the online database, resulting in a total of 37 lyrics in the data set. This supplementation clearly points to the limits of using an online database that is largely maintained by fans of popular music, as it will generally tend to contain lyrics that are widely popular and neglect lyrics by those artists who are not played regularly on commercial radio stations or video channels like MTV. The author selected the samples based on whether or not they had something to say about schooling and education regardless of qualitatively positive or negative referrals to schools and/or education. Using whole text analysis, the lyrics were coded into thematic units that reflected the rappers' perspectives and attitudes about the Discourse of education.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The analysis reveals that from the perspective of rap music, the Discourse of education is largely dysfunctional when it comes to meeting the material, social, and cultural needs of African American youth. This dysfunction is manifested in the rap lyrics in two broad themes: (a) Education is not useful in that it either is not successful in teaching skills/subject matter, or schools teach skills/subject matter that do not apply to rappers' lives and futures outside of school/in the "street"; and (b) Education generally conflicts with rappers' identities, particularly as these identities relate to their cultural identification of being African, African American, or Black.

An Economic Battle

Education is often equated with the ability to attain financial success and the American Dream (Bernstein, 2003; Yeakey & Bennett, 1991). Many rappers' lyrics show that the education they received in schools did not prepare them to find economic success and stability once they left school (Calhoun, 1991; Gavin & Alford, 2000; Jackson, 1991; Miller, 1999; Parker, 1990b; Rolison, 1997; Shaw, 1992; West, 2004b, 2004e), that schools were a place where they did not learn anything at all (Souls of Mischief, 1993; Tupac, 2001) or were unable to gain basic skills such as reading and writing (Dixon, Dechelaus, & Murphy, 1990; Shaw, 1992).

A particularly good illustration of the school's inability to meet the future needs of hip-hop youth can be found in the lyrical narrative "A Bird in the Hand" by Ice Cube (Jackson, 1991). This song is exemplary for both its poetic imagery and its political savvy, as witnessed by Ice Cube's poetic turn on the saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." This rap was written during the presidency of George H. Bush, and at that time a kilo of cocaine was known as a "bird." The protagonist of Ice Cube's rap would prefer to make money and support his family legally, but after graduating high school is unable to find a job that pays a living wage. The protagonist then turns to the local economy of selling drags as one of a few viable means of economic survival, a decision that the character clearly does not find easy to make, but he has to make money to feed his infant. The narrative comes together in the punch of the final lines where Ice Cube, in the voice of his protagonist, raps that he does not want to deal drugs, but a "bird" (a kilo of cocaine) in the hand is worth more than the help from a "Bush" (in reference to the then sitting President).

As noted by the scholars mentioned above, the economic policies of the Reagan/Bush era did not serve Ice Cube's South Central Los Angeles community well, and since the Discourse of education did not provide a road to success in society, many turned to the illegal economy to survive. "Negotiating this tension between the Discourse of education with its promise of success after graduation and the economic reality of the world outside of school" is another theme found in rap lyrics. The combination of a poor education and a lack of job opportunities created situations where many youth turned to illicit means to make money (Carter, Massey, Lindsey, & Thompson, 1993; Haynes, 2000; Mitchell & Deering, 1991; Muchita & Deering, 1993; Parker, 1990b). Understandably, some rappers commented in their lyrics that life experience was a better teacher than school (Gavin & Alford, 2000; Lynn, 1994), undoubtedly as a response to the inapplicability of school-based education to their own lives.

In an unconventional turn, Chicago rapper Kanye West in his debut album, The College Dropout (West, 2004a) rejects the notion that college is necessary for personal success. Even though West recognizes the popular belief that a college education guarantees a successful future, he rejects this as the only viable road to success for African Americans (West, 2004c) and posits that college is not worth the financial and emotional investment if you do not really know what you want to do with yourself (West, 2004b, 2004c, 2004d). While many might argue that a college education is vital component for African Americans to be successful in life, West chooses a standpoint that essentially rejects the Discourse of all institutionalized education in favor of an individualized education of his own design to meet his own ends-which could be construed as the education with the least amount alienation possible. It is a highly individualist position that, at times, even borders on rejecting all education and learning. However, given the current economy, West's perspective does reflect the growing difficulties that college graduates are having in finding gainful employment after graduation (Bernstein, 2003; Merritt & Scherreik, 2003).

A Cultural Battle

Another central theme found in the rap lyrics focuses on the relationship between the Discourse of education and the cultural identity of the rappers themselves. This tense relationship is characterized by the entanglement of several concepts. Many rappers felt that their education was Eurocentric and full of lies about African Americans and other people of color. This reinforces a general perception that the Discourse of education teaches "Whiteness" as a cultural norm, particularly through curriculum. Furthermore, several rappers expressed a distinct resistance to the institutional authority that schools and teachers represented, perhaps as a response to the curriculum and cultural oppressiveness of their education.

The most pervasive theme found in the lyrics was a critique of the Discourse of education's role in miseducating students about history and culture, and how this Discourse has shown an inability to teach students of color about their own histories and identities (Carter et al., 1993; Davis, 1993; Franti, 1994; Gavin & Alford, 2000; Hall & Small, 1989a, 1989b; Lynn & Burton, 1997; Parker, 1989, 1990a; Shakur, 2003; Young, 2002). The earliest occurrence of this view is illustrated by the Jungle Brothers (Hall & Small, 1989b) song entitled "What's Going On?" where they recount that they could not find any Black history in their textbooks and felt like they were being brainwashed. Later, the Jungle Brothers went on to express similar critiques more extensively in their song "Acknowledge Your Own History" (Hall & Small, 1989a) where they talk about how the presence of a Eurocentric curriculum combined with a lack of proud Black history negatively impacted their in-school academic performance. The lyrics of the Jungle Brothers, as well as many others, demonstrate that, even if African American students are essentially being kept out of educational Discourse and suffering academic failure as a result, it does not mean that they are not actively cognizant of the need for "culturally relevant pedagogy" (Ladson-Billings, 1994) in their classrooms.

Rappers' experiences with Eurocentric curricula have also lead many of them to actively identify the system of education with Whiteness and teaching White identity to students of color (Davis, 1993; Dixon, 1992; Gavin & Alford, 2000; Parker, 1989, 1990c; Tyler, 1992). For instance, in his song "Why Is That" (Parker, 1989), rapper KRS One specifically critiques schools for teaching Black kids to be White, and relates that process to teaching a dog to be a cat. In several examples, the Discourse of education is portrayed as altering the identities of African Americans and actively making them internalize Whiteness through curriculum and instruction. Several other artists echo this sentiment where they have specifically linked schools with the idea of brainwashing (Davis, 1993; Gavin & Alford, 2000; Hall & Small, 1989b; Jackson, 1994; Peretta & Taylor, 2004). In addition to the race and culturally based examples listed above, rappers' resistance to education was also manifested lyrically in terms of not wanting to be a "nerd" (Carter et al., 1993) or a "square" (Shaw, 1992).

Furthermore, it makes sense that if the system of education is not preparing you for future economic or social success and you feel culturally assaulted by that very same system of education, then you might feel a lack of overall care from schools and teachers. Some rappers noted that teachers either did not care about them (Jones, 2001) or told them that they would never amount to anything in life (Rios & Jones, 2001; Wallace, 1994). School failure can lead to personal disappointment, a sentiment that was expressed by rapper Cee-Lo (Benjamin, Patton, & Burton, 1994).

There is research to support these rappers' views and responses to education and schools, particularly as they relate to identity and student-teacher relationships. Research has found that some students develop "oppositional identities" in relationship to the social and cultural norms associated with the dominant Discourse of education (Dance, 2002; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986). Willis (2003) observed that similar identities developed among working-class boys in the United Kingdom whom he says actively "resisted the mental and bodily inculcations of the school and rejected students who showed conformist attitudes to the school authorities" (p. 392). Additionally, other research has also shown, and the evidence offered here supports, that expectations of teachers contribute to students' success and failure (Jussim & Eccles, 1992; Rist, 2000; Singham, 2003) and that caring is an important part of effective education (Noddings, 1992). Given rappers' perspectives and experiences with education, such resistance to the Discourse of education should not be surprising.

A Battle for Success in Education

Rappers' critiques of the Discourse of education should not be confused with a disdain for education or learning among rappers generally. In fact, common sense should tell us that rappers would not rap about education at all if it was not important to them on some level. Furthermore, it could also be argued that these rappers, by virtue of expressing their critiques of educational Discourse through their lyrics, are indeed using their music to educate their listeners about the problems with education. Since rappers are working in a medium that is meant to be shared popularly, the act of rapping about that issue is, simultaneously, an act of education. In addition, some rappers advocate the position that Black youth can and should successfully negotiate the duality that school and community tensions create (Cadet, 2002; Haynes, 2000; Mitchell & Deering, 1991). Main Source (Mitchell & Deering, 1991), in their song "Watch Roger Do His Thing," figuratively raps about a boy named Roger who actively rejects the pressures from the street around him to find success within educational Discourse.

Rapper J-Live perhaps epitomizes a real life "Roger" in that he has managed to negotiate school and the streets to be fully accepted within both the Discourse of rap music and the Discourse of education. While J-Live is respected as a skilled lyricist for his two albums, what makes him unique is that he is also college educated and has worked as a middle school teacher in New York, a story which he recounts in his song "A Charmed Life" (Cadet, 2002). Nelly (Haynes, 2000) also urges young hip-hop identified youth to go to school in his song "Utha Side." While Nelly acknowledges an apparent contradiction between cool and school, he asserts that this contradiction does not have to be an obstacle to academic success. It should be noted, however, that Nelly felt strong enough about the issue of identity to end his verse on education with a reminder to not forget "where you came from" as you successfully enter into the Discourse of education.

Students like Main Source's "Roger" and maybe even J-Live, who are successful within the dominant Discourse of education, do run the risk of being accused of "acting White" by their peers. Fordham and Ogbu (1986) are perhaps most famous for addressing this issue among African American students. In their work, Fordham and Ogbu concluded that African American students who were "successful" are associated with acting White based on the idea that the Discourse of education embodies Whiteness. The concept that high-achieving African Americans assumed a "raceless identity" was subsequently advanced by Fordham (1988). A major critique of these findings has come from research that has found that many successful African American students have done just the opposite and adopted culturally grounded Afrocentric identities to negotiate their schooling (Spencer, Noll, Stoltzfus, & Harpalani, 2001) or have used various strategies to manage their academic success within their peer groups without necessarily being accused of "acting White" (Horvat & Lewis, 2003). This does not deny the importance of Black identity in education, and as Tatum (1997) points out,

Certain styles of speech, dress, and music, for example, may be embraced as 'authentically Black' and become highly valued, while attitudes and behaviors associated with Whites are viewed with disdain. The peer group's evaluation of what is Black and what is not can have a powerful impact on adolescent behavior, (p. 61)

While it may be true that many academically successful African American students embrace a strong Black identity, it may be equally true that, regardless of empirical facts, some of their raceand class-based peers perceive their success in terms of "acting White," or as pointed out in some of the lyrics above, acting like a "nerd" or a "square."

CONCLUSION

Rose (1994) characterizes cultural expressions like that of rap music as "communal bases of knowledge about social conditions, communal interpretations of them and quite often serve as the cultural glue that fosters communal resistance" (p. 99). The qualitative data presented here have illustrated the use of a communal voice for communal critique of and resistance to the dominant Discourse of education. This communal critique or the themes of this study can be summarized as follows:

* Schools do not provide content deemed worthwhile.

* Schools do not teach the skills necessary for economic survival.

* Schools are associated with enforcing/teaching whiteness.

* Schools do not pedagogically engage or interest students.

* The school curriculum is full of racist lies and miseducation.

In some cases, individual African American students achieve in school, but this is not the norm.

The communal critique, as embodied in the lyrics analyzed and summarized, offer us some concrete suggestions for educational reform that could begin to meet the needs of urban African American and other hip-hop identified youth. In the broadest sense, the findings of this research suggest that there is an ever-present need for continued multicultural education in schools and in teacher education programs. This need exists in two distinct ways. First, in a more traditional and obvious sense, the content of teachers' curricula needs to address the various histories and cultures that are representative of our overall population. As the lyrics analyzed for this study contend, leaving African American voices and experiences out of the curriculum increases the level of alienation that African American students feel and experience in their education. A similar case could be made for all students. Additionally, a second type of multicultural education also grows from the analysis of rap lyrics. Given the prevalence of rap music in popular culture (Chang, 2003) and given the race and culture gap that exist between teachers (who are predominantly White) and their students (who are increasingly non-White) (Zeichner, 2003), teacher education and professional development programs would better prepare teachers if hip-hop culture and rap music were specifically taught as part of a broader program of multicultural education. Hip-hop culture and rap music can be studied just like any other subject area. Both have histories and traditions and communicate cultural norms and attitudes that are worth understanding, particularly if we seek to better understand our students. This is not to suggest that all teachers should become fans of rap music or even participants in hip-hop culture. Rather, the point is that educators engage rap music and hip-hop culture as part of a general mission to provide culturally relevant pedagogy (LadsonBillings, 1994) and demonstrate classroom caring (Noddings, 1992). This suggestion is not novel because many other scholars in the field of multicultural education have made similar suggestions before (see Banks, 1994; Sleeter & Grant, 2003; Vavrus, 2002).

Rap music's ability to act as an expression of both an individual and collective experience in critical observation of society is what makes it such a powerful Discourse. As Mahiri (20002001) puts it, "Rap has clearly emerged as a powerful discourse able to effectively critique other discourses including dominant ones" (p. 383). Rose (1994) adds, "Rappers are constantly taking dominant discursive fragments and throwing them into relief, destabilizing hegemonic discourses and attempting to legitimate counterhegemonic interpretations" (p. 102). In the case of this study, individual lyrics from individual songs and artists serve to paint a broader picture of how the Discourse of rap music critiques the Discourse of education in this country, while legitimizing the "counterhegemonic interpretations" of that Discourse. Educational researchers and classroom practitioners who have made rap music a focus of study and pedagogy should be pleased with the findings discussed. It appears that much of what they have officially observed, documented, and attempted to address in schools matches the critiques of educational Discourse that rap music has made over the last 15 years.

These lyrics are a call to action. Rap music's discursive battle with education clearly shows that African American and other hip-hop identified youth feel locked out of dominant Discourse of education. Likewise, the dominant Discourse of education has to change if it is going to serve the needs of students actively engaged in the Discourse of rap music. The New London Group (1996) asserts that effective pedagogies must embrace the teaching of "multiliteracies" to provide a meaningful education for the diversity of Discourses and literacies that are embodied by the students in our classrooms. This is an educational imperative because, as Gee (1996) points out, ". . .the exclusion of certain students' Discourses from the classroom seriously cheats and damages everyone" (p. 190).

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Wayne Au University of Wisconsin-Madison

AUTHOR

WAYNE AU is a doctoral candidate, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

All queries and comments regarding this article should be addressed to wwau@wisc.edu.

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