Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 69

Rap Music Resisting Resistance

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persistence: "It seents like I’m locked in hell/ Lookin' over the edge,
but the R never fell/ I tripped and slipped, ’cause my Nike’s got
ripped/ Stand on my own two feet, come equipped." TTie image of
standing on one’s own two feet and the idea that even the very poor
can become wealthy and successful conforms nicely to the conservative
image of "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps." Moreover, while
overcoming desperate conditions and achieving success takes place
through individual effort, the downfall into drugs or crime takes
place through individual failure. This can be seen in the song by Ice-T
"You Played Yourself’ which is both about how the life of crime and
drugs can bring one’s downfall and how the responsibility for this
downfall can only be placed on the individual who chooses such
actions. The song speaks to a dealer who "ripped off all your family
and your friends" and eventually is caught for murder and "landed on
death row." Ice-T then asks, "Society’s fault?" and answers, "No/
Nobody put the crack into the pipe/ Nobody made you smoke off your
life." This line indicates that the belief in individual responsibility
has to some degree become questioned within Ice-T’s culture. Ice-T is
attempting to rearticulate this belief. Of course, this perspective
fails to recognize the severely impoverished conditions which make
the escap>e through the use of drugs so tempting or the economic crisis
which makes the illegal attainment of money the most practical.^ ^
Still, responsibility is a delicate issue within the black
community, and its preaching does not mean society is accepted as
flawless. That is, continued poverty and the recognition of historical
oppression may create a bitterness which is used as an excuse for self
destructive actions. Impoverished conditions by themselves may lead
individuals to such actions, but the consciousness of them being an
acceptable excuse may harm individuals’ desires to overcome these
conditions. An attempt is thus being made to articulate self
destructive actions into a discourse where they have no excuse.
However, as Ice-T does this, he still fails to account for the conditions
which brought such actions; he fails to articulate members of the
impoverished community into a discourse which would more fully
resolve the problems they face.
The supp>ort for economic individualism is support for the
American economic system of capitalism. Another way rap endorses
capitalism is through the wealth of rap artists. It was mentioned
above that the description of this wealth contradicted the message