american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

CONTESTATORY URBAN AGENCY 183
venue marketed to African Americans, would an African American
audience attend in full?
While Riley’s claim about marketing and promotion is largely
correct, many hip-hop shows at Cat’s Cradle reveal limitations with any
view that does not also consider other factors. Despite doing primarily
street-based marketing in the area and the presence of a large African
American population in the areas immediately surrounding the club,
Cat’s Cradle hip-hop audiences are often largely white, even for iconic,
Afrocentric groups such as Brand Nubian. In general, the hip-hop acts
that perform at Cat’s Cradle do not get a lot of mainstream airtime on
radio or cable television. As such, it is reasonable to assume that urban
radio stations influence not only the purchasing decisions of African
Americans, but to some extent they also determine the artists with
whom their listeners are familiar. This situation is problematic for
groups such as The Coup and dead prez in light of Dyson’s accurate
claim that radio executives usually opt for “pop rap as more acceptable
than its realistic, politically conscious counterpart” (8). For those urban
hip-hop fans who do not have ready access to the Internet or college
radio, this situation could prevent them from not only hearing a
group like The Coup, but from hearing of them. So if white kids are
attending hip-hop shows and listening to music intended primarily for
African American audiences, it is partly due to choices made by urban
radio stations, television executives, and corporate media nearmonopolies
such as Clear Channel. Consequently, The Coup often
“acts in concert” with an audience different than the one their music
is made to reach.
The blame, though, does not rest solely with promoters, clubs,
radio executives, and television producers. The political content of an
act such as dead prez may turn off some African American (and white
and Latina/o) listeners. The cover of their debut album let’s get free
(2000) shows young sub-Saharan Africans raising automatic weapons
in a revolutionary stance; a sticker that covers the guns claims: “this
artwork has been censored by the powers that be, due to its political
content.” Thus, dead prez preemptively claims that their music enters
the market under prohibition; they are keenly aware that their message
may marginalize them. When dead prez engages an audience
with the call-and-response question “Where are all my vegetarians
at?” before they perform their vegetarian anthem “Be Healthy,” it is
likely that they are not trying to reach a mainstream audience, black or
white. They could be said to marginalize themselves in much the same
why that the Language poets do (although with entirely different
motivations and aesthetics). Finally, revolutionary content may not