Hiphop Literacies by Elaine Richardson
Richardson’s final chapter considers how alternate realities, “good video games” (Gee), allow players to apply conceptual knowledge and create new ways of making meaning through appealing identities, interaction, production, and agency. Considering these ideas along with Banks’ assertion that design is rhetorical (102), I am considering what Jay Z can offer to the conversation. Specifically, I am arguing that Jay Z’s identity performance serves as a fantastic example of how he projects and acknowledges an awareness of the public’s notion of hiphop aesthetics (103) while also providing a stellar example of four of Gee’s principles of learning in action. Just as “good” video games are rhetorically constructed, “good” rap artist images and music are also rhetorically constructed. Much like “Def Jam Vendetta” (98), Jay Z’s “Forever Young” incorporates values from dominant society, marginalized values, and male-centeredness to create a complex construction that does not completely exists in dominant or marginalized society, not completely fantasy or reality.
The song’s title and its structure are examples of dynamic construction. The song sampled throughout and riffed off of is a direct incorporation of dominant culture. First written and performed by Bob Dylan in 1972 and then covered by Rod Stewart in 1988, “Forever Young”’s content can be described as a blessing from a parent to a child with the chorus repeating, “May you stay forever young.” Jay Z ‘s awareness of this association allows him to play with his audience, forcing them to consider an opposing view of “Forever Young” by introducing a new question in the chorus of his song: “do you really want to live forever?” This is a question sung by a Rod Stewert-ish singer, Mr. Hudson, in somber and stark tones.
Before he starts rapping, while Mr. Hudson is still singing, Jay Z speaks over the music and offers his own kind of blessing: “May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.” This is a wish that could be uttered as a toast at a wedding or whispered from a new mother to her child, but Jay Z immediately offers an oppositional view, bringing us back to a reality by saying, “But we aint even thinking that far. Ya know what I mean?” Any sentimental sweetness is exiled as a result of what we aren’t even thinking about. Why aren’t we thinking about it? Are we too busy with living? Is our reality more day-by-day than planning for the future?
He continues this first person plural narrative when he starts rapping: “So we living life like a video/When the sun is always out and you never get old/And the champagne’s always cold/And the music is always good.” Jay Z is creating a metaphor for his audience’s way of living like a fantasy. The use of we could be a way for his audience to feel closer to him, and for him to feel closer to this culture – a culture he is from but may be considered an outsider of at this point. It is a distant dream for much of his audience but a reality for him. But he chooses to not acknowledge this disconnect. Instead, we go on.
The male-centered nature of his image and song along with the complex position of rappers come into play with the next part of his exploration of living life like a video: “And the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood/And they hop their pretty ass up on the hood of dat pretty ass car.” Not only is he discussing women like they are “eye candy”, but they are also capitalist objects, like a nice car. While previous examples may disrupt aspects of dominant culture, he is subscribing to capitalism in this instance. Richardson’s exploration of Gee’s idea of producer in the real world and a constructed world echoes the same kind of conflict. Is Jay Z mirroring reality or contributing to it? Or both?
There is a lot that I am leaving unexplored, like Jay Z’s word play with young, his own twist on Dylan’s idea of passing on a blessing to a son, his articulation in the song that he may no longer “fit in” with where he is from and who he is rapping about,… and don’t get me started on Jay Z’s conversation with Oprah about the n—word. (Awesomeness.) Instead of going on about these things, I will reread and revise the rest of this to make sure it makes sense and actually does relate back to Richardson’s book.
The song’s title and its structure are examples of dynamic construction. The song sampled throughout and riffed off of is a direct incorporation of dominant culture. First written and performed by Bob Dylan in 1972 and then covered by Rod Stewart in 1988, “Forever Young”’s content can be described as a blessing from a parent to a child with the chorus repeating, “May you stay forever young.” Jay Z ‘s awareness of this association allows him to play with his audience, forcing them to consider an opposing view of “Forever Young” by introducing a new question in the chorus of his song: “do you really want to live forever?” This is a question sung by a Rod Stewert-ish singer, Mr. Hudson, in somber and stark tones.
Before he starts rapping, while Mr. Hudson is still singing, Jay Z speaks over the music and offers his own kind of blessing: “May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.” This is a wish that could be uttered as a toast at a wedding or whispered from a new mother to her child, but Jay Z immediately offers an oppositional view, bringing us back to a reality by saying, “But we aint even thinking that far. Ya know what I mean?” Any sentimental sweetness is exiled as a result of what we aren’t even thinking about. Why aren’t we thinking about it? Are we too busy with living? Is our reality more day-by-day than planning for the future?
He continues this first person plural narrative when he starts rapping: “So we living life like a video/When the sun is always out and you never get old/And the champagne’s always cold/And the music is always good.” Jay Z is creating a metaphor for his audience’s way of living like a fantasy. The use of we could be a way for his audience to feel closer to him, and for him to feel closer to this culture – a culture he is from but may be considered an outsider of at this point. It is a distant dream for much of his audience but a reality for him. But he chooses to not acknowledge this disconnect. Instead, we go on.
The male-centered nature of his image and song along with the complex position of rappers come into play with the next part of his exploration of living life like a video: “And the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood/And they hop their pretty ass up on the hood of dat pretty ass car.” Not only is he discussing women like they are “eye candy”, but they are also capitalist objects, like a nice car. While previous examples may disrupt aspects of dominant culture, he is subscribing to capitalism in this instance. Richardson’s exploration of Gee’s idea of producer in the real world and a constructed world echoes the same kind of conflict. Is Jay Z mirroring reality or contributing to it? Or both?
There is a lot that I am leaving unexplored, like Jay Z’s word play with young, his own twist on Dylan’s idea of passing on a blessing to a son, his articulation in the song that he may no longer “fit in” with where he is from and who he is rapping about,… and don’t get me started on Jay Z’s conversation with Oprah about the n—word. (Awesomeness.) Instead of going on about these things, I will reread and revise the rest of this to make sure it makes sense and actually does relate back to Richardson’s book.