This book takes its subtitle from the debut album by dead prez,¹ but in it I aim to show that the phrase succinctly encapsulates the general principle of Hip Hop² as a cultural movement, as well as the most fundamental and enduring lessons offered by G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy of art. To be more precise, I argue that Hip Hop’s early history charts a course remarkably similar to the one offered for artistic creation in general in Hegel’s Aesthetics.³ The parallels, of course, will not be exact; as Hegel notes, “on account of its nature, at once material and individual, the work of art issues essentially from particular conditions of the most varied sort, amongst them especially the time and place of its origin” (34/I, 55), implying that “every work of art belongs to its own time, its own people, its own environment” (14/I, 30). Such differences in context must always be attended to in efforts at the philosophical comprehension of artistic movements, and this is particularly true for a movement as unique and contested as Hip Hop. Nevertheless, I hope to show that the resonances between the trajectory Hegel traces for art in general and the early development of Hip Hop in particular are both numerous and substantial enough to make us rethink not only the nature and viability of Hegel’s much-maligned,⁴ and until recently much-ignored,⁵ philosophical aesthetics, but the origin, nature, and enduringly vital lessons of Hip Hop as an aesthetic culture.

While the early history of Hip Hop has been frequently celebrated by academics and journalists,⁶ there remain questions concerning precisely why (a) the culture developed in the precise time and place of the South Bronx in the mid-1970s; (b) it developed as a series of artistic, rather than more directly political, forms of expression; (c) these forms cohered into a complete and self-determining culture, replete with its own ethical order and one which expressed itself in novel, interrelated forms of painting, dance, beat-centric music, and oral poetry; and (d) this culture undertook the specific historical shifts and developed the specific internal tensions that we have seen and continue to witness as it spread beyond the confines of its geographic origin. In this book, I argue that Hegel’s philosophy of art can aid us in understanding the Hip Hop community’s transition from total social alienation to some form—even if extremely limited, and eventually systematically repressive—of social inclusion via the specific mediation of an artistic culture grounded in its distinct and novel forms of sensible expression. Moreover, while scholars of the Aesthetics have sought to revive its relevance in recent years, few have given any consideration to popular art, let alone populist artistic cultures like Hip Hop, in their work.⁷ Unfortunately, “gallery” art still governs most of the discourse in philosophical aesthetics, and it dominates Hegel-inspired scholarship to an even greater degree.⁸ In what follows, I aim to show that this arguably elitist tendency is precisely what Hegel objects to in artistic creation, as well as in the philosophical comprehension of it; moreover, I argue that Hip Hop’s community base and immediate appeal not only align it with Hegel’s aesthetic Ideal, but help clarify the latter’s nature to a greater degree than Hegel’s own examples and history can. Thus, the fundamental thesis of this book is that Hegel’s Aesthetics and Hip Hop culture are mutually illuminating.

This is, to say the very least, an unorthodox pairing; in fact, there’s good reason to be deeply suspicious of it, and from both sides. Given the intensely marginalized position of its pioneers, there has long been concern within Hip Hop that theoretical inquiry into the culture signifies the “appropriat[ion of] its indigenous knowledges and practices merely in order to annex them to academic modes of knowledge”.⁹ Because the artistic practices forged by the citizens of the South Bronx were quickly arrogated for the economic and cultural benefit of others, there is justifiable concern that inquiries such as this one do little more than “raid hip-hop for ideas to fuel […] academic careers, while giving nothing back to the culture”.¹⁰ Put more bluntly, when a white scholar suggests that we can grasp a cultural movement now nearly synonymous with Black resistance through the lens of a philosophical edifice as canonically Eurocentric as Hegel’s, it frankly should raise suspicion among those who quite rightly seek to ensure that the question posed to the culture “is not: ‘Of what significance could I (or the ubiquitous academic ‘we’) declare [Hip Hop] to be?’” but rather “What are [Hip Hop’s] own modes of signification, intelligibility and reference”.¹¹ Even in the academic field of Hip Hop studies, where Continental philosophers are often invoked in the process of unpacking the culture’s aesthetic and political import, given his infamous and often brutal anti-Black racism,¹² there has been understandably little interest in possible insights from Hegel.¹³

On the side of Hegel studies, there is also good reason “to be skeptical that anything of value can result from trying to project Hegel into the future”,¹⁴ and not only because of the failings of his perspective noted above. As everyone with even a cursory knowledge of his Aesthetics knows, Hegel infamously declares that art “is and remains a thing of the past [ein vergangenes]” (11/I, 25). While much recent work on his lectures has emphasized the possibility of art’s enduring importance, it has also largely reflected Hegel’s own comments about the varied forms of “fine” artistic creation and appreciation within leading modern states, after the decline of art’s classical peak.¹⁵ In focusing on the forms of modern painting or scored music, most scholars typically accept Hegel’s diagnosis about the irreducible pastness of collectively lived aesthetic cultures; but as I hope to show, it is precisely as a collective and self-determining aesthetic culture that Hip Hop must essentially be grasped.

As suggested above, I wholeheartedly agree that concerns about the appropriation of Hip Hop culture are valid in every academic attempt at articulating and explaining it, and are thus certainly and obviously warranted in a case as counterintuitive and contentious as the one proposed in this book. While only the full argument which follows can address this charge, I would simply note from the outset that I agree with Nelson George that there can be “no single organizing theory for understanding hip hop”,¹⁶ and merely seek, here, to add what I believe is a potentially quite illuminating voice to the fray. While Hegel has long been my focus academically, my use of his aesthetic framework, here, is primarily dedicated to elucidating the arc and import of Hip Hop’s early history. I aim to show not only that Hegel’s account of the conditions that compel the emergence of communal, aesthetically focused cultures, as well as of their historically unfolding trajectory is remarkably similar to the context and progressively developing stages of the original Bronx culture, but that his understanding of art’s guiding principle and essential purpose strongly resonates with the self-understanding expressed by Hip Hop’s pioneers and organic intellectuals. On the Hegel side, my reading of his Aesthetics is also unique, but, as with Hip Hop, the complexities and tensions within that text, as well as his broader thought, are deep and serious enough to validate diverse schools of interpretation; in fact, the version of Hegel I present here could arguably only have been revealed by examining his thought in the light of a living aesthetic culture like Hip Hop.

Correspondingly, I do not seek here to “refute” the work of Hip Hop studies scholars, and certainly have nothing whatsoever to teach either the organic intellectuals who emerged from the movement or its pioneering and/or contemporary practitioners; nor do I seek to explicate and defend each aspect of Hegel’s theory of art against every possible criticism, or even to fully defend the somewhat heterodox reading I offer against all challenges from within the literature.¹⁷ However, I do hope to both convince Hegelians, Continental philosophers, and philosophers of art that there is much to be learned about the nature and explanatory power—as well as the fundamental limits—of Hegel’s account of art’s essence and destiny by drawing him into Hip Hop’s orbit, and to convince scholars working on Hip Hop that a compelling, unifying, and in some ways revelatory account of the culture can be found in at least the core of Hegel’s account of the emergence, achievement, and dissolution of the aesthetic Ideal.¹⁸

Of course, only the full text below can justify these claims; however, I want to begin by briefly sketching the argument that will be made in their defence by confronting the most glaring problem with this pairing from the side of Hegel’s text: the purported “pastness” of art.