Hip-Hop Quiet After Katrina

And I ain't gotta ball in a Beemah
Man, I'm tryin to live,
I lost it all in Katrina.
––Juvenile,  "Get Ya Hustle On"

by Mik Awake

In the late seventies and early eighties, a rebellious musical movement was birthed in the shattered wastelands of post-Civil Rights America. In the music, artistic, and dance movement that became hip-hop, it was clear that, for most African-Americans, the King-era dream of racial equality was just that: a dream.

Thus, rap music became—for better or worse—the default outlet for this deferred dream. Rap was, and is, as Chuck D of Public Enemy has said, “CNN for black people.”

It has been one year since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast as our current administration sat idly by. Besides exposing a legacy of racial disparity and loathing that has existed unchecked for centuries, Katrina also proved a decisive event in the history of hip hop music: it exposed the political paralysis of contemporary rap music.

Perhaps for fear of incurring the wrath that Kanye West did when—abandoned by his customary wit and eloquence—he said during a televised fundraiser, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” mainstream rappers remained silent. From moguls like P. Diddy and Jay-Z: not a word. From New Orleans’ own Cash Money Records: not a note. Most puzzling of all, perhaps, were those rap stars who came out in full support of the administration. 50 Cent, who is an avowed Bush supporter, stood behind the President’s actions, saying that Bush did the best he could since Katrina was “an act of God.”

Of course, some rappers gave tepid anti-Bush and anti-FEMA interviews to the media. Benefit concerts were held. Russell Simmons helped organize a march on Washington. Taken as a whole, however, rap stars turned a deaf ear to the surging injustice perpetrated in New Orleans; in doing so, a generation of musicians floated off into absurdity and irrelevance.

Except for one.

New Orleans native Terius Gray—a.k.a. Juvenile—was, despite his name, the most mature voice to emerge from the wake of Katrina. Not only did he lose his own home, he lost many more he’d bought for relatives. Juvenile also lost his patience.

His video for the single “Get Ya Hustle On” was released on MTV and BET in February of 2006 and depicts in grim, post-apocalyptical overtones, a series of neighborhoods meant to resemble the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast. Fusing the drug-dealer nihilism that made him famous with a newer, more irrepressible anger, Juvenile growls, “Everybody need a check from FEMA / So he can go and score him some cocaína.”

In the video, three children don masks of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, with the words “Help is Coming” on the back. People stand on abandoned cars or sunken porches holding up signs that read “1905 or 2005.”

The question Juvenile asks is clear: without a society that takes responsibility for its most desperate citizens, what else is one to do but get one’s hustle on?

Comments

[J]

Two rappers did address Katrina directly besides Juvenile. K-otix's "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" flipped Kanye's quote and summed up the situation perfectly. You can listen here.

Mos Def also had a track called "Katrina Clap" but it seems heartless at best and puzzling at worst. Calling out Bono??
You can listen here.

[Mik]

Thanks for the comment, J. Though I'd heard about the Mos Def track, I wasn't aware of K-otix's song. Even so, three combined songs in the face of an injustice of this magnitude seems like a drop in the bucket. Not to sound like someone hung-up on bygone eras of music - I don't hold nostalgic illusions of what hip hop was - I do think that the output is painfully slight compared to the concerted efforts of previous generations of mainstream rappers. The distinction between mainstream and underground is a crucial one here. Take "Rappers Against Apartheid" in the late eighties, for example: That video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYA-9WC4crU&mode=related&search=) was made at a time when the form had verifiable social weight and import, and it put the hip hop elite of the day (Kurtis Blow, Run DMC, Afrika Bambataa, etc.) together in one place at one time for an issue that wasn't even, as Katrina is, a domestic concern. The fact that Katrina hit so much closer to home and that only quote-unquote "underground" (hate that term) rappers - with the exception of Juvenile - were able to express their outrage is, I think, very telling of the state of fear and disingenuity that is a hallmark of our most public hip-hop ambassadors. It's quite depressing. One always hopes that the Diddy's and the Sean Carter's of the world genuinely care about the well-being of the people that give them the power to be who they are. With so many self-referenced parallels between hustling crack and hustling raps, one must wonder what the rappers of our generation see their fans as - addicts, maybe? Pawns? The source of a quick buck? It's hard for me not to be so pessimistic about it.

[Supreme Hater & Music Nerd No. 1]

Killer Mike has a song called "That's Life" that tackles some Katrina-related issues. Here's a line: "The comment Kanye made was damn near right, but Bush hate poor people be it black or white."
But basically, yes, there is a major lack of "political" hip-hop these days. You know there's a problem when Kanye and Talib Kweli are called political rappers. A lot of people make vague statements against The Man but nobody seems to really be saying anything of substance.
But there is some hope. Immortal Technique has taken over where Public Enemy left off, and Michael Franti uses his admittedly sometimes corny brand of hippie-hop to craft some of the best anti-war songs of the decade.

[Josh]

Excellent article and thanks for making us aware of Katerina!

Josh R