Is Hiphop the New Harlem Renaissance?

(photo of Bayo Olorunto and A.K. Powell courtesy of Nightjohn)

In many ways Hiphop is the Harlem Renaissance of the twentyfirst century. Two particularly good examples supportive of that hypothesis are Bayo Olorunto (a member here at CB) and A.K. Powell. Known collectively as Nightjohn, theirs is the combined talent behind the icon-challenging book "The Hiphop Driven Life" and their ultra-fresh self-titled CD.

So how do we bridge the historical gap between such giants of the (1920s to 1940s) Harlem Renaissance as author Zora Neale Hurston and jazz great Duke Ellington, and the modern-day multi-talented duo Nightjohn? By considering the following factors:

Just as the highly successful Harlem Renaissance blossomed out of the innate creative talents of African Americans, so did the crossover triumph of Hiphop. Just as advances in technology, the growth of the publishing industry, diverse forms of black music, and everyday folk culture provided the Harlem Renaissance with the raw material necessary to achieve prominence, so have corresponding elements propelled Hiphop to the forefront of global popular culture.

The corpus of published works by Harlem Renaissance authors--Hurston, Jessie Redmond Fauset, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and many others--comprise a major component of the movement. Often considered chief among those works is the comprehensive anthology titled The New Negro. Edited by philosopher Alain Locke, the book contains work by the very cream of the Harlem Renaissance literary crop, covering every area of black life at the time. Likewise, Hiphop also has a foundation in the printed word--one of the most dynamic texts to define, defend, and advance the movement is The Hiphop Driven Life.

2.
Most people taking a quick note of its title might think the 455-page The Hiphop Driven Life is little more than a survey of famous names, cutting edge fashions, and rap music. They would be mistaken. This astonishing tome is nothing less than a powerful strategic guide to Hiphop as both practical and spiritual life-enhancing methodology. The subtitle, "A Genius Liberation Handbook," comes off as a bit over-the-top until flipping the book open to the table of contents and viewing chapters on such subjects as: whole brain thought and divine purpose integrated with others on Hiphop as a force of cultural philosophy in action. Also included are sections of memoir that lucidly illustrate the authors' own discovery of Hiphop's empowering qualities.

It's about tapping into what it means to be human and what it means to add something to the greater good of the world," said Olorunto, speaking with Vilma Butler on her Conversations and More Youtube program. "Hiphop is a lifestyle that allows people to live more according to their divine gifts and talents." Likewise, "The Hiphop Driven Life" is a book that its authors believe can help people do the same.

Olorunto and Powell's shared conceptualization of Hiphop comes at a time when the cultural movement has been forced to take a public bullet for every ill plaguing African America from family-destroying drug abuse and gang violence to unplanned teenage pregnancies and the disproportionate imprisonment of black men and women. The excessive focus on the more extreme negative elements in commercial rap music and videos make it easy to shift blame or responsibility from sociopolitical conditions and place it on rap culture. While rap may very well have made its contributions to African America's most troubling challenges, the mistake is in the assumption that hardcore rap is all there is to Hiphop rather than recognizing it as one variable within Hiphop's overall cultural domain. In fact, there has always been within rap itself a psychospiritual element that stressed self determination, raising one's political and social consciousness, and recognition of individual as well as collective divine potential. So what happened to it?

This did--the more videos that popped up with hard male bodies flashing diamonds and gold next to super-sized female asses vibrating erotic thunder, the more the consciousness-raising elements within rap got kicked to the curb. The rap industry and popular media, whether by agreement or not, both indulged in a field day of sensationalism that it largely created, sustained, and perpetuated. Tragically, the commercialization of black youths' sexuality developed alongside the commercialization of black youths' deaths. As loudly as the sirens screamed in our neighborhoods, some apparently cared much more about the sound cash registers made following the blare of those sirens.

From the mid 1990s on into the new century, media hype and the lure of big bucks caused a loss of perspective and balance that maimed one soul and neighborhood after another. In their writings and in their music, Nightjohn is among those cultural visionaries emerging to help restore what was loss. With that in mind, The Hiphop Driven Life provides a tool for a meaningful assessment of current cultural conditions and a source of effective methods for achieving personal liberation under any conditions--popular or not.

3.
It may surprise some to learn that the more scandalous examples of rap were also around during the Harlem Renaissance when the vinyl phase of the recording industry was just developing. Back in those cultural revolutionary days comedic acts like Butterbeans and Suzie employed rap with heavy sexual innuendo as part of their regular routine. A number of uncensored unrated all-the-way-off-the-chain blues singers did the same.

While there are major similarities between the Harlem Renaissance and modern Hiphop, there are also major differences. The Harlem Renaissance has sometimes been described as elitist due to the educator and human rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois’ call for a “Talented Tenth” among African Americans to help the race advance socially, economically, and politically. By contrast, popular Hiphop is more grass roots oriented and tends to be fueled largely by folk and street culture even after proponents of it manage to become millionaires. The very raw nature of that street culture does not always come across as entertaining to those unfamiliar with it.

Another major difference is public awareness of the two movements. The great author-poet Langston Hughes noted famously that if there was a renaissance going on in Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s, most folks were too busy trying to earn a living to know anything about it. On the other hand, those who ascribe to Hiphop in any context tend to be very much aware of it. Whether as a form of entertainment, object of media scrutiny, fashion, visual art, personal style, linguistic cool, academic subject matter, or object of controversy, Hiphop is both highly visible and influential. Moreover--in this case very much like the Harlem Renaissance--its impact has not been restricted to the United States but influences lifestyles around the globe.

The private and public awareness of Hiphop also ties into a third major difference between it and the Harlem Renaissance. One defining aspect of the Harlem Renaissance was a geographical migration that took African Americans out the South to the North, Midwest, and West. Rather than a physical migration, Hiphop seems to consist more of an inner journey that initially, in the late 1970s and afterwards, served to help define a generation, but evolved to comprise a crosscultural identity.

In his superb book, "On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance," celebrated athlete and author Kareem Abdul Jabbar proffered that the Harlem Renaissance never really faded from history as so many have maintained. In his eyes, the humane principles articulated and championed during the Renaissance simply took on different forms and names like Negritude and the Civil Rights Movement. Whether we consider Hiphop as an evolved manifestation of the Harlem Renaissance or something completely new under the sun, it clearly has moved beyond the stage of just entertaining lives to that of informing and empowering lives.

by Aberjhani
author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
and The Harlem Renaissance Way Down South