A few weeks ago, I expressed optimism about hipster rap’s potential to be our generation’s black/white coalition. Last Friday night I decided to do a little empirical test of my theory by checking out a hip-hop show here in Boston and reporting back on the racial dynamics I observed.
I’ve been a big fan of Wale for a few years now. Heavily influenced by Washington DC’s go-go scene, Wale is like a breath of fresh air in the hip-hop game. He reps DC to the fullest, but is upfront about his recent move to suburban Prince George’s county. Wale’s rhymes are care free and lighthearted, and his style is clean and fresh. While MIMS raps banal lines like “This is why I’m hot,” Wale takes the same concept and makes it simultaneously artful and hilarious: “My climate is way higher than Lindsay Lohan’s nostrils on powder.” Sick. In other words, he’s a good example of the new generation of hipster rappers gaining widespread success and notoriety.
The venue for the show was near Boston University’s campus, and since it’s around finals time, I wasn’t sure what the crowd would be like. I got there around 8:30 and posted up at the bar, surveying the scene. It was definitely eclectic, to say the least. Near the front of the stage was a group of about seven black hipsters that I later found out had some connection to the opening act. A few underage white college kids wearing shorts, American Eagle polo shirts, and New Era fitted hats mingled around the bar area watching the Celtics game. What was most striking, however, were the multi-racial groups of friends that continued to sprinkle in the front doors as we got closer to show time.
At around 9:30 the venue started to fill up, so I moved from the bar to find a spot near the front of the stage. A white DJ was dropping some serious jams (Kool & The Gang’s “Get Down On It”??), and I was in heaven, nodding my head to the infectious beats. I was standing next to two black guys, and one turned to me and said, “I feel like I should be at a BBQ with these jams. Just flippin’ burgers. In, like, 1978.” I responded, “I was thinking more like ’82, but yeah, same idea.” Our conversation continued, discussing rap music and predicting when Wale would show up.
A few minutes later, a group of four drunk, underage white girls from Wellesley started to push their way to the front of the stage, making a bit of a scene in the process. My new friends and I had a laugh at their expense. Naturally, said white girls approached me to strike up a conversation. I felt like a strange racial middleman - - in my BAPE t-shirt and fitted hat from The Hundreds, I was like a bridge between my new black friends in slightly similar attire and the white girls from Wellesley. I know it might sound like I’m overstating my racial middle-ness here, but seriously, by the end of the night I was basically acting like a wingman.
I wondered, what if I was just a random white kid from Wellesley that loved hip-hop, and decided to check out this concert? What if I grew up in a racially homogonous community, went to a racially homogonous college, and had a racially homogonous friendship network? This concert would have been my only opportunity to engage and interact with folks of another race. And, most importantly, that interaction was actually happening.
As for the concert itself, well…it was underwhelming. The opening acts (including Detroit native and Kanye signee Big Sean) were for the most part pretty wack. The one shining spot of the whole show came not from Wale, but from a local kid named DStacks. At around 10:30, three of the goofiest white kids I have ever seen emerged from backstage and started setting up some instruments. After they warmed up, a 19 year-old rapper from Brighton—Damilleo Stacks—came out with his hype-man and pretty much rocked the house. You can check out his Myspace here, but it doesn’t do his performance justice. The kid was funny and charismatic. His hype-man was understated and played a solid supporting role. Best of all, he was rapping with a live band. A good live band. The dynamics of race relations at the concert, on stage and in the audience, were layered with multi-racial undertones. It was an interesting experience.
At the end of the show, I came to a number of preliminary conclusions about race relations, hip-hop music, and the Boston hip-hop scene. First, I consider this more evidence that hipster rap may be a powerful and important development for hip-hop. My personal experiences and observations suggest that this particular type of music really does bring folks together, in a meaningful (albeit brief/fleeting) way. If—and I emphasize if—hipster rap does become more and more mainstream, this development may have a positive effect on white kids’ perceptions and interactions with black culture.
Second, it was encouraging to see mainstream white college kids in the audience. I’ve seen a few “conscious” rappers perform in Ann Arbor (Mr Lif, Little Brother), and the audiences were by and large filled with white fans of underground music. The kids at the Wale show, by contrast, were the same kids that helped Lil Wayne go platinum. Probably the same kids that were singing “They tryin’ to catch me ridin’ dirty” a couple summers ago. Yet here they were, bobbing their heads in a multi-racial crowd to music void of any lyrics about guns, murder, or hyper-masculinity. As I thought about the future of violent images in hip-hop, this scene looked like a promising development.
Finally, I should note that all of my observations might have been contingent on the venue. Had this concert been promoted by a different marketing company, been in a different part of the city, or been in another city altogether, the “anatomy” of race relations might have looked entirely different. Either way, this experience points to a hopeful future.
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