Is Hipster Rap Our Generation’s Black/White Coalition?

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.

In Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, Bakari Kitwana discusses a trend in American politics: we are moving away from the “old racial politics"—characterized by stark black-white cultural differences and cultural territorialism—and into the “new racial politics”—recognizing the nuance and fluidity between cultures and races. According to Kitwana, commerce and commercialism are the driving force behind this movement, facilitated in large part by hip-hop’s rise in commercial popularity.

As the title of his book suggests, Kitwana chronicles why white kids (like me?) love hip-hop culture, debunking a few myths of white consumption along the way (for example, the oft-cited, but unfounded statistic: “80% of hip-hop is bought by whites”). However, Kitwana is most forceful in his projection of the future. He argues that hip-hop’s multicultural appeal can be harnessed into a hip-hop voting bloc, and that hip-hop will bring blacks and whites together in more successful coalitions than years past.

Is hipster rap the realization of Kitwana’s projection?

A friend of mine put me on to the video above, shot in one take at NYU by a rapper named Nyles. In it, Nyles teams up with his noticeably multi-racial group of friends to remix Lil Wayne’s “Let the Beat Build” off of Weezy’s 2008 multi-platinum selling album Tha Carter III. As my friend Joey wrote, this video is “probably one of the dopest things I’ve seen in a while. Creativity + hip-hop is inspiring.” I couldn’t agree more.

Hipster rap culture has received considerable praise, and tremendous ridicule by the underground internet-based press. Hipster rappers, such as The Cool Kids, Kidz in the Hall, Kid Cudi, Mickey Factz, and countless others are somewhat of a throwback to A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul; their rhymes are light-hearted and their style is clean, fresh, and trendy. A hipster rapper’s wardrobe—fresh Nikes, keffiyah scarves, and pants slightly tighter than normal—stands in sharp contrast with what is traditionally associated with hip-hop culture—baggy jeans, oversized hoodies, and Timberland boots. Criticism has predictably carried homophobic undertones.

That said, hipster rap is dominating the airwaves, and hipster infused hip-hop culture is dominating streetwear style. Most importantly, this style is universal and marketed to a multi-racial youth public. Just check out the models at Karmaloop.com, or better yet, head down to their store on Newbury Street in Boston. There, you will see an almost utopian blending and conversing of youths of all races. Indeed, the very content and style of hipster rap culture makes all races legitimate consumers. In other words, hipster rap carries an inherent universal message, and both blacks and whites are equal participants.

My point is this: the "street hustler shtick" of commercial rap music (read: T.I., Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy) promotes negative images of black people that are in turn consumed by the majority of white hip-hop listeners. Underground hip-hop (read: Mr. Lif, Little Brother) is uplifting and consumed by whites, but fails to garner mass appeal. It's hard to imagine a "new racial politics" emerging from either segment of the hip-hop world; most commercial hip-hop only perpetuates stereotypes, and underground hip-hop is so marginalized that its impact is negligible. Hipster rap, by contrast, is both commercially successful, light-hearted in content, AND appealing/relatable to all races.

As the above video makes vividly clear, hipster rap seems to bring blacks and whites together in a way that hip-hop has thus far never been able to do. I admit, I was originally a hipster rap skeptic. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe the hipster rap movement is an important development for the future of multi-racial hip-hop politics. A modern day “Rainbow Coalition,” if you will. If hip-hop is the exploitation of black culture by whites, then hipster rap may even out unequal power dynamics. Better yet, if hip-hop is the vehicle for multi-racial youth politics, as Kitwana claims, then hipster rap may have control of the wheel.

Couple the rise of hipster rap culture with the election of Barack Obama, and the “new racial politics” may have officially conquered popular discourse and popular youth culture. The future looks promising.