american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

CONTESTATORY URBAN AGENCY 165
with and identify with the group immediately above” and “to
distinguish oneself from the group immediately below” (136). Many
rappers’ lyrics suggest that those in the hip-hop community who flaunt
materialistic values—it is tempting to think of iconic figures such as
Combs, Jay-Z, and 50 Cent—strive to identify with America’s ultra
rich and to distinguish themselves from poor African Americans,
thereby judging them for perceived inadequacies. In disidentifying
with poor urban communities, they inadvertently identify with the
richer, disinterested larger American culture. In B.I.G.’s “Things Done
Changed,” an urban African American male has just three options—
hip-hop, drug dealing, or athletics—for gaining either type of capital,
which is a common but dangerous perception in much hip-hop. He
raps: “if I wasn’t in the rap game / I’d probably have a key knee deep
in the crack game / because the streets is a short stop / either you’re
slinging crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot.” Being a drug dealer
or star basketball player can provide inner-city youth with symbolic
capital—status, distinction, and a command on resources independent
of economics—and potential economic capital. For the former “occupation”
the economic gains can be immediate, but unsustainable, as
Boogie Down Productions’ “Material Love (Love’s Gonna Getcha)”
shows (see note 1); for the latter, however, a big payday may never
arrive even for an extremely gifted player. Thus, though Cheryl L.
Keyes rightly suggests that hip-hop music is a symbol of socioeconomic
mobility in the inner-city (172), this position glosses over the
lack of practical alternatives for poor African American youth. How
many, after all, become rap stars or basketball stars?
In “Respect,” B.I.G. ultimately exposes the mutable nature of
material ambition. He extols material success even as he laments—in
hindsight—his bad decisions. While he celebrates money made from
selling drugs (“making cream / on the drug scene”) and his hopes of
becoming the “king of New York,” he realizes that these pursuits are
fraught with peril. After being incarcerated he realizes that “all the
money stacked was all the money for bail.” Even though socioeconomic
conditions limit possible actions, until actions fail, the individual
is not likely to modify them. But when they do fail, the individual,
in this case B.I.G.’s drug dealer persona, 6 can move from “practical
consciousness,” which is based on a tacit knowledge of constraints—
here a lack of choices and economic resources—to conscious reflection
(Giddens 5). B.I.G.’s persona’s conscious reflection thus leads to
a reassessment of the relative worth of drug dealing. “Respect” indicates
that this type of feedback loop is built into both the actions of
inner-city actors and into hip-hop’s contestatory urban agency.