Music Makes the People Come Together

According to Madonna in her song Music, “music makes the people come together”. There is a sense of community according to individual’s musical preferences, and more so when a sub-culture is formed around the music created. An example of one such sub-culture is that of the hip-hop culture, originating in the United States but which has spread internationally including Australia, with its own brand of hip-hop and sub-culture to match.

As well as community, there are other spiritual or religious elements associated with hip-hop culture. Robin Sylvan in Traces of the Spirit (194) states that the “transcendental element within contemporary rap” music in the United States “constitutes the core of the hip-hop tradition” and that “forms of rap show clear continuities with the African American musicoreligious tradition”. “Structural elements such as the centrality of the groove, polyrhythmic texture, foregrounded orality, vocal styles, call and response, audience participation, and dance, (as well as) its celebratory ritual form” all contribute to the spiritual essence of hip-hop. The DJ of a hip-hop outfit “is not only the musician but the navigator as well, the one with the power to set the direction for the collective musical journey” and “there is a conscious recognition that this power is spiritual” (198). 

 The Herd en.wikipedia.org

Rappers experience a form of transcendence with “some sense of being connected to nommo, the West African term for the spiritual power of words” (Sylvan 198) as they rap through their rhymes at high speed. Sylvan (198) also offers that “another central component (of rapping) is truth-telling” or “the message” (198). Australian hip-hop artists use this medium to tell uniquely Australian truths such as anti-racism, anti-random violence and community support messages, for example, The Herd’s 77 percent, with its claims that 77 percent of Australians are racist based on poll results that 77 percent of Australians supported John Howard’s stance on the Tampa crisis of 2001, and Hilltop Hood’s Stopping All Stations, with its story of an aging war veteran victimised by youths.

I have been fortunate enough to have experienced several live hip-hop performances including that of The Herd and Hilltop Hoods and there is definitely a sense of collective musical journey at these shows. A live performance of Michael Franti, an American hip-hop artist whose lyrics carry a peaceful, anti-war message, was typical of a transcendental experience similar to that experienced in an evangelical religious gathering.

Michael Franti www.last.fm

Hip-hop is not alone in its truth-telling. The pre-hip-hop era of punk, in particular the The Clash of the United Kingdom, carried a strong message of anti-racism which was sometimes at odds with the others of their genre. The message in these songs lives on in their recordings and continue to resonate with relevance decades later.

 The Clash http://www.facebook.com/theclash

References

Sylvan, Robyn.Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music. New York

and London: New York University Press. 2002 Ch. 6, Message: Rap Music and Hip Hop culture.182-213.