Hip Hop and Philosophy: A Poetic Alliance

 
            “There she fell in with Sleep, twin brother of Death.” – Homer, The Iliad             (XIV, 277)

            “To die: to sleep… To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay,             there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.” –             Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act III, Scene I, 60-66)

            “I never sleep, ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death.” – Nas, Illmatic

Hip hop emcee KRS-One, part of the legendary group Boogie Down Productions, is also known as ‘The Philosopher’. His moniker is an acronym for ‘Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone’. This should come as no surprise to hip hop aficionados; for almost a quarter of a century KRS-One has been one of the most intelligent and authentic representatives of this now global cultural movement.

In his 1995 song ‘Squash All Beef’, a cry for peace amongst warring rappers, KRS-One refutes René Descartes’ dualism when he asserts, “There is no separation between the mind and the environment.” Instead he attempts to show that we are all one and part of a collective consciousness when he adds, “Me and you go into the universe once.” There may be some parallels here to seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, who posited that all things were a part of God, which for him was synonymous with nature (i.e. the universe).

Later in the song, KRS-One gives his own thoughts on how education could be better utilised in order to create a better society:

            “If I ruled the schools, from pole to pole
            The entire judicial system would fold
            I would get rid of the books ‘cause they bogus
            And in school, knowledge of self would be the focus
            Kids would flock to the schools like locusts
            ‘Cause school now relates to them, and you would notice
            Violence in society would be a minimal
            ‘Cause the education yeah, would now be metaphysical
            Not living by laws, but living by principle.”

KRS-One frowns upon the conservatism of state-based education; instead he believes that education should be the kindling of a fire, rather than the traditional ‘filling of a vessel’ - similar to what John Dewey and Bertrand Russell advocated before him. He is pessimistic towards indoctrinating man-made laws while believing in the innate goodness of humans by insinuating that only a society of free and self-conscious minds can truly flourish ethically, echoing Taoist philosophy.

Of course, when one speaks of philosophy, one cannot speak without at least mentioning Socrates, who was famously given the death penalty by the state for refusing to give up philosophical enquiry. He had been put on trial for questioning the gods of the day and ‘corrupting the minds of the youth’.

While he discovered that the rich and powerful men he so often questioned on the most basic moral and political questions appeared to have little or no knowledge of what they were purporting to be experts on, Socrates was himself at least aware of his own limitations. In other words, he believed in a notion of self-knowledge as opposed to absolute knowledge, meaning that he was only wise to the extent that he knew that he knew nothing.

Talib Kweli, who is part of the duo Black Star, has some interesting perspectives on the importance of self-knowledge and the spiritual and intellectual freedom it can give in the 1998 song, ‘K.O.S. (Determination)’:

“At exactly which point do you start to realize
That life without knowledge is, death in disguise?
That's why, knowledge of self is like life after death
Apply it, to your life, let destiny manifest.”

Socrates, it should be noted, chose to give up his life when offered a reprieve of a mere financial penalty.  This was because he could not bring it upon himself to contemplate a life devoid of philosophy when ordered to give up his constant questioning of everything and everyone around him. Like Talib Kweli’s notion of “death in disguise”, Socrates also regarded that such an unexamined life “is not worth living.”

Closer to home, British-Iraqi emcee Lowkey expresses his existential angst in his 2009 song ‘In My Lifetime’:

“In my lifetime I learnt life is suffering
And happiness is one thing that money doesn't bring
In my lifetime, our birth right is struggling,
It must have been, but no matter what I keep the love within.”

This immediately draws parallels to Arthur Schopenhauer, who was undoubtedly the most famous of all pessimists in Western philosophical thought. Schopenhauer famously asserted:

“If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering than our existence is the most ill-adapted to its purpose in the world.”

However by acknowledging the role that love can offer, in a sense the last line brings Lowkey’s thinking closer to that of the Buddhist tradition than that of Schopenhauer’s rigid and negative deterministic philosophy. The Buddhist notion of suffering, which is the first of the Four Noble Truths, outlines that the realisation of the inevitability of suffering in life is the first stage towards overcoming it and achieving enlightenment, or Nirvana.

It could be argued that Lowkey also echoes French philosopher Albert Camus by asserting that “Our birth right is struggling.” Camus famously referred to the story of Sisyphus to give credence to his philosophy that life is absurd. Sisyphus is a character in Greek mythology who was condemned by the gods to roll a heavy boulder up to the top of a mountain, where having completed this arduous task, the boulder would fall back the earth, forcing him to begin this process again and again ad infinitum. Camus may have argued that since Lowkey - like Sisyphus - is conscious of his eternal fate in struggling, he cannot escape the fact that life is inherently absurd, despite any attempts to create meaning through its chaos.

But it may possibly be this struggling against our fate that gives some meaning to our lives. Immortal Technique attempts to provide his own answers to life in his 2011 song ‘The Martyr’ by postulating:

“The purpose of life is a life with a purpose
So I'd rather die for a cause than live a life that is worthless.”

Perhaps paradoxically, Immortal Technique sees finding a purpose as the answer to one of the biggest existential questions facing humans - the meaning of life. Camus may have disagreed, claiming that this form of ‘revolt’ was merely a way of denying the reality of the absurdity or meaninglessness of life. Another French philosopher named Jean-Paul Sartre, who was a contemporary of Camus, also dealt with questions of our existence, famously stating that ‘existence precedes essence’. By this he meant that we are not born with any pre-defined values, but maintains the opposite; namely that we are born into this world as free beings and instead we must create our own meanings.

While many people these days are turned off by the often pretentious or unintelligible poems of the past, it would be misguided to maintain that people - particularly the younger generations - do not enjoy contemplating philosophical rhymes. There are plenty of philosophers residing in the minds of ordinary people, particularly highly creative artists such as hip hop emcees – the modern day poets of today. When Nobel Prize winning poet Seumas Heaney was asked by a journalist whether there was anyone in modern culture who echoed the popular artists of the past, he replied, “Eminem. He has created a sense of what is possible.”

By V. Srilangarajah 

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open topic' Issue 39

[ed] 15 hip hop albums with philosophical themes you may wish to explore:

1.     Nas – Illmatic (1994)

2.     2Pac – Me Against the World (1995)

3.     GZA – Liquid Swords (1995)

4.     Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Forever (1997)

5.     Gang Starr – Moment of Truth (1998)

6.     Black Star - Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star (1998)

7.     Afu-Ra – Body of the Life Force (2000)

8.     Binary Star – Masters of the Universe (2000)

9.     Eyedea & Abilities – First Born (2001)

10.  Eyedeas - The Many Faces of Oliver Hart or How Eye One the Write Too Think (2001)

11.  CunninLynguists – Will Rap For Food (2001)

12.  Nas – God’s Son (2002)

13.  Canibus – Rip The Jacker (2003)

14.  Foreign Beggars – Asylum Speakers (2003)

15. CunninLynguists - A Piece of Strange (2006)