american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
170 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY<br />
“radical form of democracy” organizes actors and performers and<br />
empowers people who are often left out of public debates due to age,<br />
race, education, and socioeconomic status (xxxi). However, as Negt<br />
and Kluge admit, “no local counterpublic can emerge today outside or<br />
<strong>in</strong>dependently of” larger, more powerful commercial structures<br />
(Hansen xxxv). As such, <strong>the</strong> small club show exists <strong>in</strong> an implicit relationship<br />
to corporate power and ma<strong>in</strong>stream hip-hop riches. To beg<strong>in</strong><br />
to address this concern, I want to take a brief detour <strong>in</strong>to postmodernism<br />
and hip-hop as a radical <strong>political</strong> “practice.”<br />
If live hip-hop shows can organize experience <strong>in</strong> order to enact<br />
coord<strong>in</strong>ated collective identity and agency, it is crucial to understand<br />
hip-hop as a <strong>political</strong> practice. Live hip-hop must be <strong>the</strong> fundamental<br />
component of Russell A. Potter’s and Richard Shusterman’s assertions<br />
of hip-hop as a cultural practice. In 1991, pragmatist critic<br />
Shusterman tentatively proposed that hip-hop was <strong>the</strong> “new radical<br />
cultural politics” Fredric Jameson claimed was only “hypo<strong>the</strong>tical” <strong>in</strong><br />
his much-discussed “Postmodernism, or <strong>the</strong> Cultural Logic of Late<br />
Capitalism” (627). Potter claims that hip-hop is “a vernacular practice”<br />
that depends on audience and performers collectively produc<strong>in</strong>g<br />
“a zone of sonic and cultural bricolage.” Hip-hop, he says, is a “practice<br />
<strong>in</strong> action” (45–46). Shusterman’s and Potter’s notions of hip-hop<br />
as a practice and as a form of cultural politics is best activated by—and<br />
<strong>in</strong>deed, is dependent upon—live shows, where it is possible to see hiphop<br />
as a <strong>political</strong> practice <strong>in</strong> action. Though both understand hip-hop<br />
as a fundamentally postmodern art, I want to suggest that even if its<br />
production and its musical form are postmodern, <strong>the</strong> space and form<br />
of <strong>the</strong> small club live show are not. Here, many basic features of postmodernism<br />
are trampled: <strong>the</strong> subject is alive not dead, agency is present<br />
not absent, uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty and ambiguity are difficult to f<strong>in</strong>d<br />
(confidence is paramount), and community is active <strong>in</strong>stead of simulated<br />
via passively received simulacra. A postmodern musical form<br />
need not obviate concerted <strong>political</strong> action. In live hip-hop shows,<br />
f<strong>in</strong>ally, it is not futile to dissent, mobilize, and speak truth to power.<br />
Active participation works aga<strong>in</strong>st cynicism and complacency.<br />
Unlike <strong>political</strong> <strong>poetry</strong>, where a poem is adjudged to be <strong>political</strong><br />
based largely on its content, language, or rhetoric, hip-hop’s<br />
<strong>political</strong> import is partially a function of <strong>the</strong> form of its performance<br />
and <strong>the</strong> context for <strong>the</strong> performance. The shows I discuss here occupy<br />
specific historical moments, moments that are important for those live<br />
shows <strong>in</strong> which performers comment on current issues. However, <strong>the</strong><br />
<strong>political</strong> work of a live hip-hop show does not rely exclusively upon<br />
<strong>the</strong> particular historical moment dur<strong>in</strong>g which it occurs. A performer