The Rap Year Book Paper
Mia Weisfeld
Professor Alexander Shashko
Afro-American Studies 154
April 28, 2021
The Rap Year Book Paper
2016 was a year filled with turbulence and turmoil in all aspects of American life. Obama’s two-term presidency was coming to an end, fears of terrorism plagued the American public, Donald Trump was running his campaign on a platform of toxic white nationalism, which gave a voice to many discriminatory groups, and mass shootings were becoming all too prevalent. At this time, Black Lives Matter was forming, empowered by Obama’s presidency, because, on top of the disorder of this country, Black people still experienced inequitable circumstances due to their skin tone on a day-to-day basis. Shea Serrano wrote his book The Rap Yearbook to not only embody the journey of rap from its beginning but to identify songs that greatly impacted the genre as a whole. He chose one song for each year since 1979 and the songs he chose were not necessarily the most popular songs of the year; he chose the songs that he deemed to have cultural significance at the time or to hip hop as a genre. 2016 was a year of incredible music, especially surrounding artists who shared their experiences as a Black person living in America in that sociopolitical climate. Kanye West, Noname, and J. Cole all released songs that shared crucial circumstances of society towards Black people in 2016. The song “Neighbors” by J. Cole was the most impactful song of the year because it outlined the Black American experience to audiences around the world.
The second runner-up for most important song is Kayne West’s “Ultralight Beam” off of his album The Life of Pablo. Following the largely misogynistic album Yeezus, The Life of Pablo brings Kayne back to his beginnings with the fusion of rap and gospel. The Life of Pablo ranked at number one on the Billboard 200 chart for 157 weeks. “Ultralight Beam” is a song that Kayne uses to question his faith in God because of events like the 2015 Paris terror attacks and the issues that impact the Black community. The song takes a journey through Kanye’s questioning of God’s role in society. It begins with the voice of a child preaching, “We don't want no devils in the house, God (Yes, Lord)/ We want the lord (Yes, Jesus)/ And that's it (Yes, God)”. He uses these lyrics to rid of the bad entities that taint his holy path. The chorus rings with the phrases “I'm tryna keep my faith”, “This is a God dream”, and “This is everything”, which shows his faith in God’s creation, but questions his devotion. He prays for peace, as Kelly Price chimes in “So why send oppression, not blessings?/ Why, oh, why'd You do me wrong?”, but she eventually reaches her faith. The song closes out with a message from a preacher, reassuring listeners that no matter what they have done, God will always accept them, effectively ending Kanye’s internal battle with his devotion. This song is incredibly important to Kayne as an artist because it brought Kanye back to his roots after his tumultuous years of losing himself, from the Taylor Swift scandal to his eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder. This song is an important representation of the impact of Chicago on Kanye. He grew up in Chicago, which is largely known as the center for Black American culture and for its music scene that merges genres together. Kanye’s fusion of gangster rap, conscious rap, and gospel, as well as his ability to recreate his image time and time again, led him to great success, as was mentioned in lecture. As important as this song was to the re-emergence of gospel music in the rap genre and to Kanye’s personal comeback, this song does not speak as deeply to the Black experience in America in comparison to the other songs. It was a runner-up because it still did have a large impact. At this time, the world seemed so chaotic, and many began to question their faith. Kanye perfectly articulated the feeling of abandonment by God when it seems like everything is falling apart and many listeners related to that.
The first runner-up for best song is “Casket Pretty” from Noname’s debut mixtape Telefone. Noname is a slam poet, producer, and rapper. Though this album did not make the charts or win awards, the thoughtful album based on important phone conversations that Noname underwent in her lifetime did make waves with some media outlets and a lot of rap listeners. The song “Casket Pretty” recognizes the effects of police brutality in Chicago. In the span of the one-minute and 51-second song, Noname shares her fears for the people of her city. She paints the images of funerals for young black men, the fear of the police, the constant stories on the news, and the pleading that her friends will make it home okay. According to Time Magazine’s article “See Chicago’s Deadly Year in 3 Charts”, a University of Chicago study revealed a 58% increase in deaths from 2015 to 2016, 4,331 of which were shooting victims. The Chicago Tribune shared that over a 6-year period in Chicago, Black American males were about four out of five victims being shot by the police. Noname says in the hook, “All of my n****s is casket pretty/ Ain't no one safe in this happy city/ I hope you make it home/ I hope to God that my tele' don't ring”. This lays down the premise for the song. With the high rates of Black male mortality in her city, she worries that the people of her community won’t make it home safely. She’s afraid to get the phone call that another one of her friends has fallen victim to gun violence. This is a fear that has been expressed by many Black people. Just walking outside can put a Black person in danger of losing their lives, such as Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed while taking a jog in Georgia. Noname raps, “And we watch the news, and we see him die tonight/ Tonight, the night, the night his baby said goodbye/ Roses in the road, teddy bear outside, bullet there on the right”. This verse reveals the gut-wrenching images that Black people see over and over again; the news showing another Black death and vigils taking place at the scene of the crime. In 2016, the FBI recorded that 57.7% of criminal incidents reported to law enforcement agencies were racially or ethnically motivated. Though women are still affected by police brutality and racism in this country, such as the death of Breonna Taylor, Black men are disproportionately affected by this issue. With that being said, this song is not the song of the year because it is written from an outside perspective, the perspective of a woman plagued by the consequences of police brutality. This song goes hand in hand with the next song, which is written from the perspective of an affluent Black man who still has to worry about his personal safety in the presence of police, regardless of his social status.
The song that takes first place for most impactful song of the year is “Neighbors” off of J. Cole’s album 4 Your Eyez Only. Conscious rapper J. Cole released this album at the tail end of 2016, so it embodies all of the unrest that the U.S. experienced in 2015 and 2016. The whole album touches on many serious subjects for the black community, including mass incarceration, police brutality, racism, and the implications of growing up with a “ville mentality”, which means constantly being stuck in a toxic masculine cycle that continues for generations in black neighborhoods. The song “Neighbors” is not only a retelling of a true event that happened to J. Cole as a Black man residing in a predominantly white neighborhood but also highlights the pervasive nature of racism and stereotyping by white people and police alike. He opens up with the line, “I guess the neighbors think I'm sellin' dope, sellin' dope”. Cole shared his story in an interview with Genius Magazine, where he builds off of the song’s blatant lyrics, sharing that a SWAT team raided the house he was staying at in North Carolina off of baseless suspicions by white neighbors of drug activity. He said in the interview “Every time in this country a black man gets some money, what’s the first place he moves to? Nine times out of 10, he’s gonna be living next door to somebody who’s not comfortable with [his] presence, but that’s where we go anyways because we feel validated” (Cole, 2017). Due to systemic inequality and racial disparities, housing has always been an easy way for white people to continue segregation in communities and exercise white privilege, as was mentioned in lecture. In the last verse of the song, Cole says “So much for integration/ Don't know what I was thinkin'/ I'm movin' back to south side”. No matter how affluent or successful Cole is, the inherent racism that exists in white communities will keep him from assimilating in the way that he wishes to. The song takes the number one spot because it touches on so many important subjects of the Black American experience. It shows how racism and discrimination permeate our society no matter what your socioeconomic status is. This song is a call for change in our society and the way people treat each other. The whole song is about how Cole built himself up from poverty only to experience the same issues in wealth. “Neighbors” resonated with a lot of listeners, as it reached number eight on the U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. At a certain point, all 10 songs on the album were in the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Since the beginning of commercialized music, Black people have been sharing their experiences as people of color in America with audiences all over the nation, and these three tracks are no different. Whether it is about the role of religion, police brutality, mass incarceration, death of friends and family, affluence, poverty, or institutional and interpersonal racism, Black artists have used music as an outlet, as well as a platform to educate others on the hardships they face. These songs perfectly embodied Kanye West, J. Cole, and Noname’s impression of the Black experience in America in 2016.
References
FBI. (2017, November 13). 2016 Hate Crime Statistics. FBI. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2016-hate-crime-statistics.
J. Cole Tells The Full Story Behind The Police Raid That Inspired "Neighbors". Genius. (n.d.). https://genius.com/a/j-cole-tells-the-full-story-behind-the-police-raid-that-inspired-neighbors.
J. Cole. Billboard. (n.d.). https://www.billboard.com/music/j-cole/chart-history/streaming-songs/song/1007288.
Kanye West. Billboard. (n.d.). https://www.billboard.com/music/kanye-west/chart-history/TLP/song/970419.
Li, D. K. (2020, May 12). Black man shot dead while jogging in Georgia, and two months later, no arrests. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/black-man-shot-dead-while-jogging-southeast-georgia-two-months-n1196621.
Sanburn, J., & Johnson, D. (2017, January 17). Chicago's Deadly 2016: See It in 3 Charts. Time. https://time.com/4635049/chicago-murder-rate-homicides/.
