I enjoyed this reading (Plesch and Ashley) as it exposed me to new ideas in post-colonial thought. Specifically, this reading explained that appropriation is the adoption of some subcultural object by the dominant culture to assert power over the object or the subculture. Further, it explained that, while binary views of post-colonial theory typified by Said e.g. suggest that all usage of subcultural objects by the dominant culture are necessarily appropriative, modern post-colonial theory emphasizes models which confer agency onto the “other,” noting that otherized populations may subvert dominant cultures by using the tools of the dominant culture.
This made me think of rap. There are some who think that the popularity of rap music represents cultural appropriation. However, I think that, conferring agency upon the once-otherized this popularity rather represents an at-first unwilling dominant culture being forced to create space in its airwaves for culturally powerful music. Like graffiti writers claiming space in the spatial culture, these rappers are claiming space in the audio culture.
Examples of rappers noting that their success subverts the dominant culture’s framing stories and expectations:
“Wasn’t supposed to make it past 25, joke’s on you we still alive” Kanye West, “We Don’t Care”
”An arrogant drug dealer, the legend I become / CNN said I’d be dead by 21” Pusha T, “So Appalled”
”And they say by 21 I was supposed to die / So I’m out here celebrating my post-demise” Jay-Z, “Murder to Excellence”
“I don’t know what you take me as / Or understand the intelligence that Jay-Z has / I’m from rags to riches, ***** I ain’t dumb / I got 99 problems but a ***** ain’t one” Jay-Z, “99 Problems”
“Oh yeah, fuck the judge / I made it past 25, and there I was” Kendrick Lamar