american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

182 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY
white (Kitwana). Many African American rappers have long been
perplexed by the lack of African Americans in their audiences at
shows. In The Roots’s “Act Too (The Love of My Life)” (Things Fall
Apart 1999), guest MC Common evinces a keen awareness of the
issue, but without pontificating or editorializing: “When we perform
it’s just coffee-shop chicks and white dudes.” Common points out an
unavoidable reality for many artists—the large percentage of whites at
hip-hop shows—but his lack of further comment implies that MCs do
not know yet how to interpret this dynamic.
A large white presence in audiences is presumably a more pressing
problem for artists who care about the cultural and political impact of
their music than for artists who care solely about making money.
Nelson George implies that white suburban audiences are a problem
within the historical context of hip-hop music’s development. When
he writes about his perceptions of a 1995 Run D.M.C. show that had
a “99.9%” white audience as a “sweet memory of childhood fun” in
which “a frenzy of rhymed words, familiar beats, and chanted hooks”
allowed the suburban crowd to drink and laugh, he laments that this
scene “may not be what many folks want hip-hop to mean, but it is a
true aspect of what hip-hop has become” (75). Scenes like this are
common, and though they are striking for their lack of an edge and
their lack of resistance to the inequalities against which hip-hop has
long fought, they should not be overly alarming if they are considered
“snapshots of a movement” (Potter 148). And though this scene is
not surprising at a Run D.M.C. show—perhaps the first hip-hop
(along with the Beastie Boys) that suburban white kids listened to in
the 1980s—it is perplexing when Run D.M.C. is one of the most
important acts in hip-hop history and is widely respected in African
American communities. Why didn’t African Americans (other than
George) attend this show?
This question is especially pertinent for groups such as dead prez,
Immortal Technique, and The Coup, who make some of hip-hop’s
most politically committed music. If their live shows are any indication,
much of their audience is white. The Coup’s Boots Riley believes
that marketing decisions are partly responsible for the predicament.
When asked about the lack of African Americans at hip-hop shows in
general and at The Coup’s shows in particular, “he blames such
scarceness on the manner in which promoters advertise his concerts,
targeting them specifically for and to white middle-class or suburban
youth venues” (Keyes 3). Riley points to marketing as a primary reason
that crowds are white, an assertion I find difficult to disagree with,
but his claim does beg a question: if The Coup were to play a city