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Therapeutic Uses of Rap and Hip-Hop
In perceiving all rap and hip-hop music as violent, misogynistic, and sexually charged, are we denying the way in which it is attentive to the lived experiences, both positive and negative, of many therapy clients? This question is explored in great depth in this anthology, the first to examine the use of this musical genre in the therapeutic context. The contributors are all experienced therapists who examine the multiple ways that rap and hip-hop can be used in therapy by listening and discussing, performing, creating, or improvising.
The text is divided into three sections that explore the historical and theoretical perspectives of rap and hip-hop in therapy, describe the first-hand experiences of using the music with at-risk youth, and discuss the ways in which contributors have used rap and hip-hop with clients with specific diagnoses, respectively.
Within these sections, the contributors provide rationale for the use of rap and hip-hop in therapy and encourage therapists to validate the experiences for those for whom rap music is a significant mode of expression. Editors Susan Hadley and George Yancy go beyond promoting culturally competent therapy to creating a paradigm shift in the field, one that speaks to the problematic ways in which rap and hip-hop have been dismissed as expressive of meaningless violence and of little social value. More than providing tools to incorporate rap into therapy, this text enhances the therapist's cultural and professional repertoire.
The text is divided into three sections that explore the historical and theoretical perspectives of rap and hip-hop in therapy, describe the first-hand experiences of using the music with at-risk youth, and discuss the ways in which contributors have used rap and hip-hop with clients with specific diagnoses, respectively.
Within these sections, the contributors provide rationale for the use of rap and hip-hop in therapy and encourage therapists to validate the experiences for those for whom rap music is a significant mode of expression. Editors Susan Hadley and George Yancy go beyond promoting culturally competent therapy to creating a paradigm shift in the field, one that speaks to the problematic ways in which rap and hip-hop have been dismissed as expressive of meaningless violence and of little social value. More than providing tools to incorporate rap into therapy, this text enhances the therapist's cultural and professional repertoire.
- GenresMusic
427 pages, Paperback
First published September 22, 2011
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March 10, 2014
Anyone who has spoken with rap artists, or read interviews with them, will know that one theme crops up repeatedly: the therapeutic power of hip-hop. In this book, 20 or so music therapists relate their own experiences of working with the genre. Two common themes emerge: that they were wary of rap music until they tried working with it; and that they quickly found it to be the best genre of music for therapy work. One of the authors, Andrea Frisch Hara, goes as far as to say: "RAP music's form is about as close to perfection as one can get to a therapeutic medium!"
The book occasionally over-intellectualises its subject, using academic jargon that repeatedly stumped Kindle's on-board dictionary, which is usually faultless even with archaic terms in historic novels. It's also priced like a text book - $90 in print and $35 for Kindle - yet they haven't even bothered making the hyperlinks live in the digital version, instead putting them all in useless JPEGs.
Here are some quotes I liked:
It is not by accident that rap is centred on the activity of voicing. Rap is rooted in a long and dynamic history of orality. The concept of Nommo has been used to point out the cultural and metaphysical importance of the use of words for people of African descent. Nommo implies the power of the spoken word to change and reconfigure reality. The importance of orality within African American culture is pervasive. Rapping then, as a manifestation of Nommo, is a form of creating. As Geneva Smitherman (1999) writes: "The oral tradition, then, is part of the cultural baggage the African brought to America. The pre-slavery background was one in which the concept of Nommo, the magic power of the Word, was believed necessary to actualise life and give [persons] mastery over things".
Poets and musicians within the tribes of West Africa, also known as jalis or griots, had to possess a high level of oral skill to deliver the potency of words in a way that would evoke supernatural and sacred messages for the members of a tribe. These powerful spiritual messages were known in Africa as nommo.
RAP's forebears stretch back through disco, street funk, radio DJs, Bo Diddly, the bishop singers, Cab Calloway, Pigmeat Markham, the dancers and comics, the Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Mohammed Ali, acapella and doo-wop groups, ring games, skip-rope rhymes, prison and army songs, toasts, signifying and the dozens, all the way to the griots of Nigeria and Gambia. The griot's function is to keep an oral history of a tribe or village. The griot also sings praises and can be a wandering musician, like the troubadour. He can entertain with stories, poems, songs and dances. In this expanded role, he must also have the expertise to improvise about current issues and events. He can use wit, humour and satire to comment about local and world politics. I think it is quite striking that modern RAP artists are often serving a similar function within our society. In many ways, the function of RAP music, and its musical predecessors, and the music of music therapy are similar; they are process-oriented, improvisational, and social in nature.
I believe that one reason RAP music is so popular and controversial within our culture is because of the empowerment it represents... it can signify the triumph of the underdog and the righting of the wronged.
It has always been striking to me that so many music therapy clinicians' negative reactions to RAP have prevented them from using it in therapy. RAP music's form is about as close to perfection as one can get to a therapeutic medium! Its structure provides structure. Simultaneously, it allows freedom of expression and myriad ways to improvise. Its components are simple enough so that one needs no musical skill or competence to participate in, or master, it. It combines vocal and instrumental music. It can be easily created. It is an integration of process and product. It can serve as a gratifying transitional object.
[A]s rap became progressively more commercial, its development and direction were more influenced by record labels and music executives who promoted "gangsta rap" and all of its angry and violent content. The latter led Nas (2006) to pronounce, "Hip-Hop is dead". Rap music lives on. However, the culture of Hip-Hop is dying because so many of the voices and perspectives have been silenced. It is the death of Hip-Hop that makes incorporating rap music into therapy more challenging and awkward for therapists who are unfamiliar with the history of rap music and have only been exposed to the current diluted version of the genre.
[M]any have suggested that rap music, preaching and orating all grow out of the same heritage.
Music therapists are interested in the transformational power of music. From the earliest days of rap music, important subgenres have acknowledged the ability of music to facilitate group experiences and to catalyze personal and social transformation.
Oppressed people across the world were like, "Wait, we're gonna speak up through this art form, because it's fucking powerful. In this way, we can just deliver speeches over beats." And since we nod our heads to beats, that's instant affirmation. - Saul Williams (2001)
As more and more of the disenfranchised and alienated find themselves facing conditions of accelerating deterioration, rap's urgent, edgy and yet life-affirming resonances will become a more important and more contested social force in the world.
Some scholars believe that the role of the Black woman in Hip-Hop culture got its roots in the time of slavery. Elaine Richardson (2007) links the image of the "video vixen" to the racist characterisation of the Black woman as a "wench" or a "jezebel". Richardson defines a wench as a woman who "use[d] her body to produce wealth, labor and slaves"... She goes on to compare the stereotypical urban gangsta to the image of the enslaved male as a hypersexual brute who was used to impregnate the "wenches" to create more "slaves"... Whitney Peoples states that "the images of black male violence and aggression that dominate mainstream rap music are highly marketable in America because of already existing ideologies of racism". And this statement holds true for women as well and the images of sexuality.
Recognising that they can disagree with certain aspects of a song or artist but continue to enjoy the music can be transformative for a person who once thought that they had to agree with all of the lyrics of an artist to whom they enjoy listening. It is transformative because it becomes a lesson in cognitive dissonance, which is often an element in many close interpersonal relationships. By learning about the complexities of interpersonal relationships, clients begin to learn that relationships are not simply all-or-nothing, but have complex subtleties that must be worked through to avoid abandoning the relationship.
The book occasionally over-intellectualises its subject, using academic jargon that repeatedly stumped Kindle's on-board dictionary, which is usually faultless even with archaic terms in historic novels. It's also priced like a text book - $90 in print and $35 for Kindle - yet they haven't even bothered making the hyperlinks live in the digital version, instead putting them all in useless JPEGs.
Here are some quotes I liked:
It is not by accident that rap is centred on the activity of voicing. Rap is rooted in a long and dynamic history of orality. The concept of Nommo has been used to point out the cultural and metaphysical importance of the use of words for people of African descent. Nommo implies the power of the spoken word to change and reconfigure reality. The importance of orality within African American culture is pervasive. Rapping then, as a manifestation of Nommo, is a form of creating. As Geneva Smitherman (1999) writes: "The oral tradition, then, is part of the cultural baggage the African brought to America. The pre-slavery background was one in which the concept of Nommo, the magic power of the Word, was believed necessary to actualise life and give [persons] mastery over things".
Poets and musicians within the tribes of West Africa, also known as jalis or griots, had to possess a high level of oral skill to deliver the potency of words in a way that would evoke supernatural and sacred messages for the members of a tribe. These powerful spiritual messages were known in Africa as nommo.
RAP's forebears stretch back through disco, street funk, radio DJs, Bo Diddly, the bishop singers, Cab Calloway, Pigmeat Markham, the dancers and comics, the Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Mohammed Ali, acapella and doo-wop groups, ring games, skip-rope rhymes, prison and army songs, toasts, signifying and the dozens, all the way to the griots of Nigeria and Gambia. The griot's function is to keep an oral history of a tribe or village. The griot also sings praises and can be a wandering musician, like the troubadour. He can entertain with stories, poems, songs and dances. In this expanded role, he must also have the expertise to improvise about current issues and events. He can use wit, humour and satire to comment about local and world politics. I think it is quite striking that modern RAP artists are often serving a similar function within our society. In many ways, the function of RAP music, and its musical predecessors, and the music of music therapy are similar; they are process-oriented, improvisational, and social in nature.
I believe that one reason RAP music is so popular and controversial within our culture is because of the empowerment it represents... it can signify the triumph of the underdog and the righting of the wronged.
It has always been striking to me that so many music therapy clinicians' negative reactions to RAP have prevented them from using it in therapy. RAP music's form is about as close to perfection as one can get to a therapeutic medium! Its structure provides structure. Simultaneously, it allows freedom of expression and myriad ways to improvise. Its components are simple enough so that one needs no musical skill or competence to participate in, or master, it. It combines vocal and instrumental music. It can be easily created. It is an integration of process and product. It can serve as a gratifying transitional object.
[A]s rap became progressively more commercial, its development and direction were more influenced by record labels and music executives who promoted "gangsta rap" and all of its angry and violent content. The latter led Nas (2006) to pronounce, "Hip-Hop is dead". Rap music lives on. However, the culture of Hip-Hop is dying because so many of the voices and perspectives have been silenced. It is the death of Hip-Hop that makes incorporating rap music into therapy more challenging and awkward for therapists who are unfamiliar with the history of rap music and have only been exposed to the current diluted version of the genre.
[M]any have suggested that rap music, preaching and orating all grow out of the same heritage.
Music therapists are interested in the transformational power of music. From the earliest days of rap music, important subgenres have acknowledged the ability of music to facilitate group experiences and to catalyze personal and social transformation.
Oppressed people across the world were like, "Wait, we're gonna speak up through this art form, because it's fucking powerful. In this way, we can just deliver speeches over beats." And since we nod our heads to beats, that's instant affirmation. - Saul Williams (2001)
As more and more of the disenfranchised and alienated find themselves facing conditions of accelerating deterioration, rap's urgent, edgy and yet life-affirming resonances will become a more important and more contested social force in the world.
Some scholars believe that the role of the Black woman in Hip-Hop culture got its roots in the time of slavery. Elaine Richardson (2007) links the image of the "video vixen" to the racist characterisation of the Black woman as a "wench" or a "jezebel". Richardson defines a wench as a woman who "use[d] her body to produce wealth, labor and slaves"... She goes on to compare the stereotypical urban gangsta to the image of the enslaved male as a hypersexual brute who was used to impregnate the "wenches" to create more "slaves"... Whitney Peoples states that "the images of black male violence and aggression that dominate mainstream rap music are highly marketable in America because of already existing ideologies of racism". And this statement holds true for women as well and the images of sexuality.
Recognising that they can disagree with certain aspects of a song or artist but continue to enjoy the music can be transformative for a person who once thought that they had to agree with all of the lyrics of an artist to whom they enjoy listening. It is transformative because it becomes a lesson in cognitive dissonance, which is often an element in many close interpersonal relationships. By learning about the complexities of interpersonal relationships, clients begin to learn that relationships are not simply all-or-nothing, but have complex subtleties that must be worked through to avoid abandoning the relationship.
Displaying 1 of 1 review