| When passing Marc Bamuthi Joseph on the streets of Madison, there are some who would probably furtively glance at him, see him through the narrow lens that they have learned to view young Black men with, and be dismissive of him or cross the street to avoid him. That would be their loss for not only would they have acted as part of the "wall of racism" that attempts to keep young Black men in "their place," but they would have also been deprived of experiencing the wit, wisdom, and perspective of a multi-talented, multi-disciplined performer. And it is precisely this wall of illusion, of the mythology of Black men that Bamuthi Joseph tears down in his hip hop theater performance. Bamuthi Joseph is immersed in the hip hop culture. It is something that he has grown up with. And with a Master's degree from San Francisco State and spending endless hours in the classroom, he's had a chance to observe, analyze, and deconstruct hip hop culture and how it is reflective of and influences American culture. While there are some who may blame hip hop for youth violence, in Bamuthi Joseph's view, hip hop is reflective of something deeper going on in American society. While there is an organic form of hip hop that grew up in America's inner cities, there have been other derivatives of hip hop that have morphed out into other directions. "Hip hop for me is again to say we are the products of our environments," Bamuthi Joseph said. "Some of the worst elements of our society -- misogyny, violence, materialism -- are those things that exist here in America and the corporate culture finds any means possible to sell those ideas and concepts back to the American people. Coors Light wants to sell their product so they just go down to the base common denominator and put scantily clad women in front of you. The message is 'If you drink this, you'll get this.' I think corporate culture also understands that hip hop is a great instrument to sell similarly based ideas to the American people and unfortunately to the global population. Of course, there are negative elements of hip hop culture, but I see them more as instruments for the negative elements of American culture." In fact, Bamuthi Joseph feels that there are people who are a part of the hip hop culture who are just every day people with strong value systems and families. "There are just as many people, myself included, who dance, who parent, who educate according to a paradigm of and by hip hop," he said. "I think there is a much wider tunnel for what hip hop can be than what is narrowly sold and broadcast to the American and global people." It is the corporate side of hip hop, with rap being one of its idioms, that has led the image and reputation of hip hop to a bad place. "When you own Viacom or you are the head of EMI and you don't understand the culture and you don't understand the music and you just want to sell records, then you aren't going to sell lofty ideas," Bamuthi Joseph observed. "Few folks got rich pushing intellect onto the common man. You sell base needs. You do it in a base way. And you get rich. I think the business of hip hop has masked what is the artistry and the humanity of hip hop." While hip hop is allegedly a portrayal of inner city life by young African Americans, the end users of the culture may be markedly different. "I think hip hop is used as an avenue to the dark side, the danger of living vicariously through the mythology created in these songs," Bamuthi Joseph emphasized. "By and large, according to Sound Scan, something like 70-80 percent of consumers of hip hop and rap music are middle-class, suburban White kids. It's not that they are immediately relating to some of the basest elements of the culture. It's a tool for them to escape in the same way that 30 years ago, kids who adopted a punk aesthetic weren't out in the streets throwing bottles. There wasn't random anarchy. The kids gravitated to Sid Vicious or Iggy Pop because there was something in the music that spoke to them and they could escape inside of the music. The same politicians or the same parents who probably rocked out to anything from the Rolling Stones to the Sex Pistols probably now have a problem with hip hop culture and unfortunately don't see the corollary, but it all smells like 'teen spirit' to me." Even some of the very talented, complex hip hop artists have been reduced to cardboard images by the corporate push to sell music. "I was in Belgium two weeks ago and I was flipping through the channels in the hotel room," Bamuthi Joseph confessed. "Don't ask me why I was in another country and I was flipping through channels. An old concert from The House of Blues in Los Angeles came on and it was Tupac. Tupac who was and has since been glorified and deified throughout the world wasn't performing 'Keep Your Head Up' or 'Brenda Had a Baby' and any of the songs he is known for in terms of his more positive inclinations. He was doing 'Nothing But a Gangster Party' and 'Hit 'Em Up' and all of these songs that lean towards immediate violence. For him, particularly in the mid to late 1990s, that was the way that the corporate culture had turned towards again narrowing the options for the consumer and defining these ways of extending and projecting violence in a way that made money. When you narrow the options, when all you have are Coke and Pepsi, then it's either going to be Coke or Pepsi. Then you find out that there is water or juice to drink. When your options widen up, you move toward health. I think that's the way music goes as well. So for Arrested Development or any number of MCs that have positive images in their music and are intellectually stimulating, they get pushed to the side by the corporate culture that doesn't understand the music and certainly isn't about the business of uplifting people. It's about the business of selling records. Those artists get pushed to the margin." The music industry has become so top-down due to the concentration of media ownership, in Bamuthi Joseph's opinion, that today's youth are no longer in control of their musical tastes. "Kids these days, the consumer, are not fans of artists and aren't really fans of artistry," he said. "They're fans of BET and they're fans of Clear Channel. So you just insert whatever flavor of the month inside of a set format and that's what the kids are fans of. It's one of the reasons why the overwhelming majority of artists don't last more than an album or two. Again whatever is being flipped, they know that when they turn their radio station on in the morning, they are going to listen to whatever it is that comes on and like it. In most markets, there isn't an overwhelming variety of choices for them. Their radios are going to be tuned into the same station. They're going to listen to whatever comes on and they'l be attracted to it because it's Coke or Pepsi. And it's what they are supposed to like. Those are the options they have been given. All of these things really contribute to the narrowing of our vision and our identity around hip hop." And again, Bamuthi Joseph feels that what is going on with hip hop is reflective of what is going on in the broader American culture. In some ways, hip hop is the "canary in the mine shaft." "How much do we know about Iran?" Bamuthi Joseph asked. "How much do we know about China? We know only as much as we are either urgently seeking to know or as much as is in our face. Our collective knowledge base of things in and around hip hop culture is fairly low. I think that the big shock about Katrina wasn't just the inept reaction by the United States government, but I think the true shock was there existed a people who lived so far below the poverty line that the great unspoken truth of this country isn' the racial divide, which we don't really want to talk about, but it is really the class divide which is almost impossible to talk about because poor people in this country don't have a mouthpiece. So the closest thing poor people have to a mouthpiece is hip hop. One of the ways through which we access poverty in this country, particularly the way that suburbia accesses poverty, is through this vicarious tunnel to hip hop culture. And so that is where the ideas are constructed, but they all are in fantasia; they're all in myth." In many ways, according to Bamuthi Joseph, the modern day portrait of the hip hop artist as a gangster falls into the long line of myths that American culture has created about African American men. From the Mandingo warrior to Superfly, the identity of African American men has been controlled by the myths of mainstream media. "What 50 Cent is today, John Shaft was 30 years ago," Bamuthi Joseph said. "We just keep it moving and again, this is just the latest incarnation. I listen to some rap and I know the kids are lying. I know that they don't have as much money as they are saying. I know they haven't murdered anyone. I know they are rapping about a condition that they don' know personally. And so that removes the humanity from the music." Bamuthi Joseph's performance art, which uses elements of theater, West African and tap dance, spoken word, poetry and live music, has been created to break through and destroy the myths of the African American male in order to allow his humanity to break through. "I think one way to move outside of the way that this mythological construct has perpetuated these stereotypes is begin coloring outside of the lines a little bit and paint real picture and not just trace over what's already been done," Bamuthi Joseph said. "We need to move outside of the realm of archetypes and tell stories from another perspective, to create flawed characters who confront every day and deal with every day circumstances, but perhaps have a nuanced approach or perspective to those conflicts. That is what I try to do on stage. My means of doing it is to use my body, but also to use records and turntables, to use various styles of Black dance and ultimately, to speak in rhyme, which completely derives from my love for identity with hip hop culture. "I'm not a gangster. I'm just not who someone might think I am walking down the street. I have a story. I hurt. I'm not afraid to say it. And I think in doing what I do, I help to undermine archetypal mythology and beginning to collectively point us in a different direction." It is a matter of opening our eyes to what is so that we don't see the mythology that we have been taught to see since before the Mayflower. |
| An interview with Marc Bamuthi Joseph Deconstructing hip hop By Jonathan Gramling Part 2 of 2 |
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