Jay-Z: Not a 21st-Century Homer
Published: Monday, October 31, 2011
Updated: Monday, October 31, 2011 22:10
Twice per week, 134 undergraduates proceed into class to discuss the sociology on hip-hop, viewed through the lens on rap person Jay-Z. When I initially heard about the course, I thought it perhaps a clever, ironic dig at modern sociological methodology and the dismal state of contemporary musical culture. As such, I was stunned to learn that this is a genuine academic offering in Georgetown College, a school that purports to be intellectually serious and maintain a commitment to real liberal education.
The syllabus, which prudently drops the rather extravagant original subtitle of the course as "Urban Theodicy," gives a broad outline of the class structure, covering literary analysis, race relations and the "sociology of knowledge" manifest in the rapper's life and compositions. The prism through which this prospect wide and various is viewed is the work of one Shawn Carter, who goes by the stage name of Jay-Z.
Carter represents an element of modern American society that many find crude and unpleasant, so it is important to understand the viewpoint of this particular party. It is less appropriate, however, to spend an entire course on this material and pretend that it fulfills a serious academic purpose.
Perhaps, though, I protest too much. Perhaps there is some scholarly merit in this class and too much rigidity in my own conception of the liberal arts. After observing a few class sessions, however, I remain convinced that the course cannot stand intellectual muster.
The fundamental reason why we ostensibly study Jay-Z is because of his "important cultural impact," replete with an ordered hierarchy of discipline, politics and excellence. Now, his conception of excellence may or may not accord with Ciceronian virtus, but even this can be bemusedly contemplated until the claim is uttered that he is in some way an inheritor of the great Homeric tradition.
"Were he alive during the period of ancient Greece," the course professor charges, Carter "would be regarded as a god in terms of literary and poetic expression." This is poppycock. The claim is so wildly risible that it almost single-handedly discredits the entire project. The proposition that Jay-Z is in the same galaxy as — much less the heir to — the preeminent epic poet of human history represents a basic misapprehension of either Jay-Z's importance or the development of Western thought and literature over 2,500 years.
Who honestly thinks that the productions of Carter can compare in any way, shape or form with the Homeric corpus? The great bard inclines toward the divine; he brings to light much of the character of human nature and puts man in communion with higher things. Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man's wants.
Charlton Heston once read out the lyrics of a hip-hop song called "Cop Killer" at a record company's shareholder meeting. Those words have no place on these pages, and likewise no place in serious scholarship. As Allan Bloom, one of the most eminent critics and observers of modern life and education noted, this type of music has "only one appeal, a barbaric appeal to sexual desire," to inflame the base emotions, which proceeds to do nothing less than "ruin the imagination of young people and make it very difficult for them to have a passionate relationship to the art and thought that are the substance of liberal education."
The stakes of this type of class, then, are no small matter. It speaks volumes that we engage in the beat of Carter's pseudo-music while we scrounge to find serious academic offerings on Beethoven and Liszt. We dissect the lyrics of "Big Pimpin‘," but we don't read Spenser or Sophocles closely. Our pedagogical commitments are disordered, and I think that in our heart of hearts we know this.
When I asked a peer what class I was sitting in on, with a bit of embarrassment, she sheepishly admitted that it was "sociology … of hip hop." Her blush confirmed what we all know: At this ancient school, with the accumulated wisdom of the ages, we should not be spending our time in sorry endeavors.
We want to learn what is real and important to the human person, and we understand that Jay-Z is not Homer; he is not a "literary god," and he is ultimately unworthy of this place and this noble mission. If there is one benefit of this class, though, it is that it brings up the civilizational question of what we will bequeath two millennia hence to students: Presenting the majesty of the "Iliad" or the sad tale of Carter's sound and fury.
Stephen Wu is a junior in the College.
22 comments
Nothing is right with killing police, doing drugs, objectifying women, or using the N word.
There is nothing wrong with criticizing any Georgetown professor, regardless of his or her race. But Stephen Wu is not really engaging in a critical debate with Dr. Dyson on any point. Instead he refuses to consider the legitimacy of Dyson's course and his substantial research on hip-hop from the start, because he discounts hip-hop as a respectable form of expression. He supports a traditional academic cannon that privileges dead white European males and he uses derogatory slights like "crass" and "frolics in the gutter" to deride contemporary black social and political discourse.
The next article, you're gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talking about the prerevolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.
You write that the notion that Jay Z is "in some way an inheritor of the great Homeric tradition" is laughable, but you don't explain what that tradition is. Milman Parry demonstrated as far back as the 1920s that the Homeric poems were initially part of an oral tradition, and the Greeks even had a whole profession devoted to the recitation of these works (rhapsodes). If you are referring to the Homeric tradition of orally recited poetry, then hip hop is really the only modern inheritor of this Greek tradition, aside from maybe slam poetry.Or maybe you were just referring to the topics of human interest that Homer's verses address. Plato wrote of Homer: "Is not war his great argument? and does he not speak of human society and of intercourse of men, good and bad, skilled and unskilled?"Here's Jay Z from "Renegade":
"Motherf***ers say that I'm foolish, I only talk about jewels
Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?
See I'm influenced by the ghetto you ruined
That same dude you gave nothing, I made something doing
What I do, through and through and I gave you the news with a twist it's just his ghetto point of view
The renegade you been afraid
I penetrate pop culture, bring 'em a lot closer to the block where they
pop toasters, and they live with they mums
Got dropped roasters, from botched robberies n****s crotched over
Mommy's knocked up cause she wasn't watched over
Knocked down by some clown when child support knocked
No he's not around now how that sound to ya, jot it down"So conflict, human suffering, social inequality... None of this rings a bell?
"Rap music frolics in the gutter, resplendent in vulgarity and the most crass of man's wants."
"Those words have no place on these pages, and likewise no place in serious scholarship."
-from Mr. Wu's article"Pale skins I like, but honey-coloured more,
And blond and brunette boys I both adore.
I never blackball brown eyes, but above
All, eyes of scintillating black I love."
-Strato Epigram V"That ass is the metrical equivalent
of cash I discovered once by accident."
-Strato Ep. VI"Loose girls lose their grip. They wear cheap scent.
Their kisses aren't sincere or innocent.
Sweet smut is one thing they're no good at talking.
Their looks are sly. The worst is a bluestocking.
Moreover, fundamentally they're cold;
They've nothing for a groping hand to hold."
-Strato Ep. VII"Diodorus, boys' things come in three
Shapes and sizes; learn them handily:
When unstripped it's a dick
But when stiff it's a prick:
Wanked, you know what its nickname must be."
-Strato Ep. III"A twelve-year-old looks fetching in his prime,
Thirteen's an even more beguiling time.
That lusty bloom blows sweeter at fourteen:
Sexier yet a boy just turned fifteen.
The sixteenth year seems perfectly divine,
And seventeen is Jove's tidbit, not mine.
But if you fall for older fellows, that
Suggests child's play no more but tit-for-tat."
-Strato Ep. IVAll from Puerilities by Daryl HineThere are two points, among many others, which I will address: Mr. Wu's highlighting of a course on Jay-Z and his tone.Mr. Wu should be careful in his singling out of Rap music as "lacking intellectual muster," "frolicking in the gutter," or any other judgment without fully considering the varied spectrum of the human experience. When we begin to discriminate based on values and do not apply them equally, we make the mistake of (sometimes accidental) racism and harmful discrimination. Mr. Wu does not consider the pedophilia of the ancient Greek poems above worth mention, only what he saw in a few classes on Jay-Z. A. Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard in the 1920s, tried to exclude Jews because "Jews cheat." When others objected saying Christians can cheat as well, Lowell replied, "You're changing the subject, I'm talking about Jews." Mr. Wu, intent aside, has committed a similar crime of ignorant discrimination here. He does not attack courses on Harry Potter or Star Trek, prominent in "White" culture, Mr. Wu only attacks those on the contributions of a Black artist using a predominately Black medium. Mr. Wu levels claims of vulgarity without applying his undefined definition of "vulgarity" to ancient Greek or even modern literature.Mr. Wu wrote in another article: "True pluralism doesn't comes (sic) from merely acknowledging differences, but trying to order those differences in accordance with some conception of the good society, a concept basically unknown to those who would engineer an omni-tolerant utopia."Putting aside Mr. Wu's claim that he knows what is known or unknown to others, it is important, as Mr. Wu states, to order the world with a conception of "the good society." However what is Mr. Wu's good society? Is it one in which an over-confident college student applies his undefined definitions to make value judgments unevenly against different art forms? Is it a society in which someone who hasn't even graduated from college determines what "stands intellectual muster?"Socrates schools us in the Euthyphro to trust only those who are experts in their art. I think Jay-Z would reply, "Au contraire n***a, I am here 'cause I earned the s**t / by ridin' out, when n****z had learner's permit." (from "Some People Hate")Mr. Wu, you still have your learner's permit.
N****; you ain't live it you witnessed it from your folks pad
You scribbled in your notepad and created your life
is a member of the 
