Yesterday in class I learned that there is a rap lyrics database, the Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive. This fascinates me because while the electronic sound of rap is not my favorite, I am interested in rap lyrics and narrative structure. Now I can read them, like poems and stories.
Rap styles, as we know, are rooted in particular places. Straight Outta Compton. West Bank Rap. The teenager who used to live across the street from me was shot dead by a schoolmate one fine afternoon a few years ago, right in the middle of his grandmother’s living room. When he was alive, I knew many more rap lyrics than I know now, because he would broadcast them to the neighborhood from his front yard. The two fragments I remember best were a code-switching Chicano one, “Jacarandosa, jacarandosa, today you tell me one thing y mañana otra cosa,” and a “It was a West Bank thing, it was a West Bank thing, it was a West Bank thing, it was a West Bank thing!”
At that time, I had a friend who was convinced I should leave academia to become a rapper. I actually composed, performed, and published a rap song, which started out:
She was a nice white lady with a diamond ring
It was a liberal thing, it was a liberal thing.
It was a liberal thing, it was a liberal thing
It was a liberal thing, it was a liberal thing.
This was about some denizens of NOW, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and my local department of Women’s and Gender Studies, who did not want any lesbians, persons of color, radical feminists, transgendered people, or punks – and certainly not any ‘dyed-haired women’, unless the dye job looked perfectly natural – to be abortion clinic defenders, against attacks from terrorists including Operation Rescue.
The argument made was that the face of pro-choice America needed to look conservative on television. I am convinced, however, that this was not the actual motivation.
There were a lot of fun, topical lines in the rap. These were about how the police department had built a chain link fence around one of the clinics, which kept the terrorists, but also the non-conservative feminists and some of the clients, away:
Outside the fence, the cops made us pay
But the Nice White Lady doesn’t dress that way
And she said, women, don’t betray our cause
Go shave those legs and put on bras.
It was a liberal thing, it was a liberal thing
It was a liberal thing, it was a liberal thing.
The fencing-in of the Nice White Ladies kept them safe from physical attacks. Clients, and Women, had to deal with the terrorist types directly, while police protected the Nice White Ladies.
This fragment was on race:
And I knew she was wack cuz she fainted when
I showed up with my date and we both had a tan.
I think of this now because of the heated discussions I have seen lately, about how feminist women should and should not dress. My own view on this, of course, is that freedom of dress should be extended to everyone. But one of the arguments made seems to be that the more closely you resemble a Cosmo Girl, the more radical you actually are. I am sorry, but this is poor reasoning, and whoever is teaching that, is a poor scholar.
It was a liberal thing, it was a liberal thing
It was a liberal thing, it was a liberal thing!
Axé.
