From Rhyme to Reason: This Shit Ain’t Easy

Grandmaster Flash, who perfected the craft of cuttin’ n’ scratchin’ and who united DJ-ing with MC-ing to take hip hop to a higher level, drops this gem on us: “hip hop is the only genre of music that allows us to talk about almost anything . . . It’s highly controversial, but that’s the way the game is.”¹ The same thing can be said about philosophy. It allows us to reflect on and argue about almost anything, and it too is highly controversial. As a matter of fact, philosophy was so controversial in ancient Athens that its most influential philosopher, Socrates, caught a case for “corrupting the youth” with it and was sent to death row for droppin’ science on the streets. Socrates’s intricate arguments, not unlike the much sweated lyrical technique of Rakim, frustrated his interlocutors, often tying them up in knots before they were able to reach a higher state of enlightenment. And since the haterz couldn’t understand him and the young headz couldn’t get enough of him, the government smoked the greatest philosopher of his time. Yeah, that’s the way the game is!

Philosophy is an ancient discipline devoted to the pursuit of wisdom. But how should we pursue it? Well, like Notorious B.I.G., Supernatural, and Mos Def, Socrates let his knowledge flow straight from his dome in mental battles with lesser minds. He engineered the pursuit of wisdom by asking people about the grounds of their beliefs and then dropped a strategic series of probing questions on them to test the validity of their answers. This Socratic elenchus, or cross-examination freestyle as it came to be known, suggests that true wisdom about God, love, virtue, truth, justice, or whatever, is best pursued by modifying one’s beliefs in response to interrogation and counterexamples. Fans of hip hop will peep the fact that Socrates’s steelo is similar to the call-and-response style used by talented MCs puttin’ in work to answer life’s pressing questions by engaging in epic lyrical battles that sometimes turn into beefs.

Although the release of Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” was hip hop’s first major commercial hit—introducing hip hop to a broader audience—real students of the rap game know that hip hop was in full effect long before this hit dropped in ’79. Students of hip-hop history remember when Boogie Down Productions—on their classic cut “The Bridge is Over”—made it painfully clear to MC Shan and the QB crew that hip-hop music did not start on the streets of Queensbridge. Before the rise of BDP in the South Bronx and Afrika Bambaataa and the mighty Zulu Nation before them, there was DJ Kool Herc in the West Bronx, inventor of the cut n’ scratch. Herc rocked the streets of the Boogie Down with two Technics turntables, a mixer and Herculoid speakers with his signature “Apache” mix.

So check it! Putting aside this unforgettable Bronx-Queensbridge beef on the question of where it all got started way back when, this much is clear. From project recreation centers to outdoor street parties fully equipped with DJs, MCs, fat speakers, graffiti artists, and breakdancers, hip hop came from the streets. Word up! But so did philosophy. Not from the streets of NYC or Compton but from the streets of ancient Athens—more than 2000 years before hip hop—where Socrates used verbal intercourse to school young headz on how the unexamined life was not worth living and encouraged them to develop their minds and search for the Truth, like KRS-One is still doing today.² The bottom line is that hip hop and philosophy are examinations of life on the street and the search for wisdom by those from the street. Word is bond!

But, as we all know, philosophy did not remain on the streets of Athens. It went international, traveling to the far reaches of the globe, and it is now considered one of mankind’s most esteemed disciplines. Plato, Socrates’s greatest pupil, thought that philosophy was so essential that only philosopher kings were fit to rule the Republic. And as with philosophy, hip hop has not remained on the streets of urban America. In less than three decades, its reach has extended to the entire world, and it has become synonymous with American popular culture. Back in the day, Kurtis Blow imagined what it would be like if a rapper ruled the world, and after they acquired the knowledge, hip-hop legends, Run-D.M.C., proclaimed themselves Kings of Rock and demanded that Sucker MCs call them sire, which brings us to why we—two duns born and raised in the hood—decided to drop this gem on ’em.

The aim of the Open Court series on Popular Culture and Philosophy is to use popular culture as a medium to introduce philosophy to a general audience. This is all good. But this series wouldn’t be complete without a volume that unites hip hop and philosophy, moving seamlessly between the ivory tower and the boulevard, all for the sake of the love of wisdom. No doubt some critics will characterize this mixing of philosophy and hip hop as a perverse union of the sacred and the profane. Yet our intent is to highlight the often suppressed, fifth element of hip hop—knowledge—to represent the funky-ass ways that philosophy is carried out in everyday life, often in unexpected places and using unconventional means.³ Philosophizing is something we all do, at least some of the time. True that some hip-hop artists have turned the game into a way to get paid, and some philosophers have done the same. But record companies don’t own hip hop and universities don’t own philosophy. Both belong to whoever understands, loves, and respects them.

The tracks laid down in this volume take this point of view. They show how taking both hip hop and philosophy seriously furthers our quest for knowledge. Rakim and St. Thomas Aquinas school us on the nature of God. Lauryn Hill and Plato reveal the mysteries of love. Lil’ Kim and Sartre knowledge us on the objectifying gaze. Ice Cube and Kant ponder the legitimacy of punishment. Nas and Hegel probe the depths of self-consciousness. Missy Elliott and David Hume demonstrate how one can be a feminist and yet love hip hop. Dead Prez and Frantz Fanon identify subtle challenges to living an authentic life. Underground rap and Thomas Hobbes enrich our understanding of what it means to be revolutionary. KRS-One and the pragmatists shed light on the benefits and risks of violence. Hip-hop cinema and Cornel West help us to avoid confusing race with culture. Dave Chappelle and John Stuart Mill hip us to the ethics of using terms such as “bitch” and “nigga.” Common and René Descartes investigate how the mind gains knowledge through perception. And Public Enemy and John Locke teach us how to recognize and respond to injustice.

Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan has said of rap: “To flow—that shit is not easy. Rap, to me, is slang poetry. It answers your questions: why young kids is doin’ bad, why they turn to drugs to get away from their misery. This is the shit we talk about—and how to escape it.”⁴ The same is true of philosophy. It answers your questions, but only if you have discipline and patience, like Bambaataa looking for the perfect beat. So, to accomplish our venerable mission we have assembled a Wu-Tang like Clan of highly skilled philosophers who are hip-hop fans and have infiltrated the universities of America, Shoalin style, to gangsta doctorates in philosophy. Our Ph.D. Clan is representin’ the Boogie Down, Queensbridge, Brooklyn, Philly, the West Coast, Chi-town, the ATL, the Dirty South, Jamaica, and all points in between, with one common aim, namely, to illuminate the philosophical significance of hip hop. Each one, teach one. KRS-One, Rakim, MC Lyte, Pac, Nas, and other great lyricists use rhyme skillz to teach us daily life lessons. Our Clan of philosopher kings and queens will move from rhyme to reason to take up perennial philosophical questions that have perplexed MCs and philosophers alike. And believe us, this shit ain’t easy.