Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 73

Rap Music Resisting Resistance

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rappers ignored the gold chain boycott, some even wearing both gold
and the African medallion.
Equally important, rap must begin to recognize the oppression of
other groups: the overcoming of racial oppression must not be
articulated in opposition to homosexuals, women or other racial
m inorities.^ In the somewhat optinustic view toward social change
of Laclau and Mouffe, social activism must take place through the
building o f hegemonic blocks: a discourse where different subject
positions are articulated so they are not opposed to one another,
where others are accepted as having different relations of oppression
and are linked to a common oppression as well, would be a hegemonic
articulation (Laclau and Mouffe, 1989:134-45). The potential for this
to take place in rap perhaps might be found in the concluding line of
the Public Enemy song discussed above,”Move as a team/ Never move
alone/ But, Welcome to the Terrordome."
University of California, San Diego

Paul M. Fotsch

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