Authenticity and Race in Hip Hop

In a recent tribute in The Guardian of Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boy who sadly died at the age of 47, a quote from Public Enemy’s Chuck D succinctly touches upon the issues surrounding the contested and emotive issue of racial and personal authenticity in hip hop.

‘”In those days, hip-hop was truly from the streets, and everybody rapping was black. All of a sudden, these punk rock white kids crossed into hip-hop with the shock of Jackie Robinson in reverse,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D once said of the Beastie Boys.

And because they never pretended to be anything but “punk rock white kids”, they taught hip-hop fans who weren’t black, who weren’t from the street, that they shouldn’t play act at being anything other than who they were when listening to hip-hop. They weren’t revolutionary, as Chuck D said, they were evolutionary.’

www.globalnoise.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/authenticity-and-race-in-hip-hop/