Part Two, featuring Chance, Acid Rapper, Soccer-Hackey-Sacker
Back in June of 2016, Chance the Rapper took part in a discussion at the University of Chicago entitled “the Art of Activism.” The hour-long talk ranged across a number of topics including family, Chance’s relationship with the music industry, and religion, but ultimately, it centered around the intersection between art and activism, specifically, the relationship that rap and hip-hop artists maintain with activist traditions. I’ve pulled a couple of clips from the talk that I felt were particularly relevant to our class discussions in the last few weeks. The first clip centers around a concept that Chance references over and over during his talk, that of the “free artist,” and in the second, Chance breaks down the tension that exists between different schools of activist thought, a concept he sums up as the choice between “the mouth and the fist.”
Back in June of 2016, Chance the Rapper took part in a discussion at the University of Chicago entitled “the Art of Activism.” The hour-long talk ranged across a number of topics including family, Chance’s relationship with the music industry, and religion, but ultimately, it centered around the intersection between art and activism, specifically, the relationship that rap and hip-hop artists maintain with activist traditions. I’ve pulled a couple of clips from the talk that I felt were particularly relevant to our class discussions in the last few weeks. The first clip centers around a concept that Chance references over and over during his talk, that of the “free artist,” and in the second, Chance breaks down the tension that exists between different schools of activist thought, a concept he sums up as the choice between “the mouth and the fist.”
Use of the phrase “free artist,” is interesting for two
reasons. First, Chance is careful to
place himself in the long lineage of black musicians who have fought to
maintain control of their artist license, a decades-long fight for agency that
ties in closely with the activist traditions we are looking at. Secondly, I immediately related Chance’s term
“free artist” to the idea raised in class last Thursday, “What does freedom
mean?” For Chance and other musicians
who follow a similar vein of thought, freedom means control of one’s artistic
process and product. For others artists,
freedom means the opportunity to chase a record deal, regardless of the
circumstances. I’m fascinated how this
dynamic parallels the dynamic found between the different schools of thought
within black activism around the turn of the century (Integration vs.
Washington’s economic focus, etc.)
Chance’s statement, that “there’s a lot of thought that goes
into deciding…whether to be a mouth or a fist,” is really a great summation of
the tension within 19th century black activism between physical and
intellectual resistance. I noticed this
tension most clearly while reading David Walker and the Nat Turner confession a
few weeks back. When I watched Chance’s talk,
I immediately drew parallels between David Walker as “the mouth” and Nat Turner
as “the fist.” I can acknowledge that
this is somewhat of a limiting comparison, but I’m struck by how relevant
Chance’s phrase felt in relation to the tensions that we have explored in class
discussions.
I’d encourage you to watch the whole clip if
you’ve got some free time!
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