The Contribution of the Album Illmatic in Reinforcing Racist Ideologies

American rapper, Nas, released Illmatic as his debut album in April 1994. This album was highly praised due to its outstandingly vivid portrayals of the psychological impacts of the filthy settings in the ill-reputed Queensbridge Housing projects. Nas uses the album to bring out his personal experiences in the form of narratives that depict the harsh and cruel life of an urban teenager. In addition to these narratives, the album also describes and portrays people, places, and interactions that mainly focus on drug violence and poverty. Ethnic identity, primarily African American identity, and criminal violence alongside with their intricate connection with the urban space are recurring themes in the rapper's lyrics, thus affirming the contribution of the album in highlighting racist ideas. As such, this paper elucidates on how Illmatic reinforces racist ideologies by employing African American criticism in analyzing several lyrics that Nas uses in this album.

(Cummings, 2009: 499) dubbed The Hip Hop movement and the Critical Race Theory as two hotheaded movements in the US that were borne in the 70s and have since risen to become the voice of the dispossessed and beleaguered populations. Talented African American musicians from New York City founded hip-hop music to respond to the utter poverty and wavering music industry conditions. Conversely, the critical race theory was created as a rejoinder to the spluttering civil rights plan whose main aim was to uncover the racial inequalities buoyed by the US policies and laws. With narratives being one of the similarities between hip-hop and the critical race theory, Nas uses the Illmatic album to react to the prejudices and racism in the US during the post-civil rights period.

With poverty being a recurring motif in Illmatic, one term associated with most African Americans is the Ghetto. One of the tracks in this album, NY State of Mind, discloses a sequence of chaotic imageries of the inner-city life that is characterized by danger and violence. Additionally, Nas uses the term Niggas, which is a slang that refers to black lads living in the ghetto as can be seen in one of his lines in the track mentioned above whereby he says "the fucking dungeons of rap, where fake niggas don't make it" are his origins (Genius, 2018). Nas also labels his neighbourhood with a symbolic similarity to the earlier descriptions of a dungeon by claiming that "Each block is like a maze full of black rats trapped" (Genius, 2018).

In the track "The World is Yours", Nas strongly curves out the ideology of Afrocentricity. He calls for the people of Queensbridge to own the world and take responsibility for their actions (Genius, 2018). Through this, African Americans in Queensbridge can assert themselves in the White-dominated society in the US by embodying the values and morals identifiable with a civilized group. Nas recognizes the importance of African American felons dropping their violent lives by stating that he needs another nigga to be followed by the black cloud (Genius, 2018). According to Nas, this black cloud, which can be interpreted as the crimes engulfing his neighbourhood, impairs his vision for the future.

Additionally, the ideology of Afrocentricity is also seen in the track One time 4 your mind where Nas champions for better ways to make a living such as singing rather than crime among his fellow black men. In this track, the rapper asserts that there can be no way that crime will be better than music even though he labels himself as being a villain for ditching his delinquent friends. Therefore, Nas chooses to spearhead a transformation from crime to living ways that would change the ghetto mentality of Queensbridge people (Genius, 2018).

On a slightly different note, the ideology of Everyday racism is entrenched not only in the legal and political frameworks but the daily lives of American citizens (Solorzano, Daniel, Miguel & Tara, 2000: 63). With reference to Queensbridge, in the track one time 4 your mind, Nas narrates how police brutality is a nuisance to his fellow niggas. He claims that even though he has changed his ways from violence to music, the police still are chasing him down in an attempt to kill him. This exemplifies the mindset among law enforcement officers in the US that the African American race is always associated with a crime regardless of whether black citizens are caught in criminal acts or not.

Additionally, in the track memory lane, Nas brings out the Everyday racism ideology through claiming that in the dark streets, the law conspires against African Americans whereby judges sentence niggas to hanging or impose incorrect bails for the prosecuted niggas. The rapper has encounters with several brothers, some of whom succeed in life but a majority of them fail due to the racist barriers imposed by the society (Genius, 2018).

Hegemony is also apparent in the above-mentioned track beside the ideology of everyday racism. This can be seen where Nas claims that he was brought up in trife life during the era of white lines to indicate the existence of prejudice along ethnic inclinations in the American society. Therefore, it would be correct to decipher that the White race was dominant over the black race from Nas's assertion in the track. African Americans' inferiority to the Whites is seen in the way their settlements were mostly symbolized by ghettos and dungeons, such as Queensbridge, in addition to the harassment they underwent in the hands of civil officers (Genius, 2018).

The ideologies of everyday racism and hegemony are greatly intertwined in the sense that racism and capitalism from industrialized States, which are dominated by Whites, are arguably the two main reasons behind the origin and sprawling of American ghettos such as Queensbridge (Genius, 2018). If racial constraints to mobility were eradicated, it would be difficult to imagine a majority of African Americans willingly opting to continue dwelling in the poverty-stricken and fairly expensive slums as depicted throughout the tracks in the Illmatic album where the existing White lines are the main obstacle to the redemption of Black Americans' lives.

Finally, another perspective on African American criticism as seen in the track memory lane is double consciousness. Nas's brothers are continually compelled to assess their position from the heavily hostile perception of the Whites thus resulting into an endless discord between the Black heritage and US nationality. Additionally, in the tracks The World is Yours and One time 4 your mind, Nas is evidently trying to balance between the professional artist and ghetto-hardened criminal identities that are apparently contradicting one another (Genius, 2018). Nonetheless, to satisfy the commercial needs in the music industry, the delinquent identity is a prerequisite of the artist identity as exemplified by the rapper asserting his transformation from being a gangster into composing rap songs (Cummings, 2000: 510).

Conclusion

As a conclusion, from the argument presented in the paragraphs above, it would be justifiable to claim that the album Illmatic has played a significant role in reinforcing racist ideologies in the American society. Arguably, to the people of Queensbridge and African Americans at large, this album marked an enhanced expression of their ordeals through music as seen in the narratives presented by Nas. The tracks in Illmatic depict everyday racism, white privilege, double consciousness and hegemony ideologies that all revolve around the discrimination imposed on them by the American laws that favour the White majority.

Works Cited

Cummings, Andre Douglas Pond. "A furious kinship: Critical race theory and the hip-hop nation." U. Louisville L. Rev. 48 (2009): 499.

Genius. "Illmatic By Nas". Genius, 2018, https://genius.com/albums/Nas/Illmatic. Accessed 6 Mar 2018

Solorzano, Daniel, Miguel Ceja, and Tara Yosso. "Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: The experiences of African American college students." Journal of Negro Education (2000): 60-73.