Give us one example of a current, contemporary form with an example of a song, or lyrics, a performer, spoken word poetry, or perhaps you may know of another example. You can think about the creation of genres like hip-hop and rap (and all its various innovations as there not just one form of these musical genres, but instead they splinter off into many sub-genres and sub-categories). With your example, if you can find the lyrics and/or a video to post along with it, that would be all the better. And talk about how your example represents a continuation of early vernacular forms but re-invented in the present. If your example has a social issue (examples: social justice, critique of politics, Black Lives Matters movement, critique of police brutality), then talk about how your example of contemporary African American vernacular forms represents social issues.

How does this work? I will give an example her of how this works. I will offer Childish Gambino’s song and video, “This is America.” In it, he is critiquing American violence that has existed since slavery but has continued to current society, though the way the violence is portrayed has mutated and changed throughout history and throughout the generations; but, his point is that violence underpins American history and now it underpins American culture. He uses images in his video that represent slavery, the Birmingham Church bombing, Jim Crow, the mass incarceration of black males, to name a few. In his opening, one can hear the communal voice of multiple African singers forming a chorus but that sound then mixes with electronic sound boards; the music then changes into a rap vibe as the scene turns violent. After the first act of violence is committed in the video, Childish Gambino raps, “This is America.” One can see the overlap of the violent imagery with his message that violence is a component of American life. The school dancers that join in represent the performative aspect of American culture that says “get an education” but is the education sufficient if what America promises becomes an empty promise? It reminds one a little of Ralph Ellison’s unnamed protagonist in “Battle Royale,” the young black male trying to gain an education but held back and forced into violent performance by white male society.

Then the cut to the scene with the church choir–the choir’s sounds are reminiscent of the African chorus that opens the video, showing that there is a continuation between African spirituality into the historic black church, but also it questions is “religion enough?” Is religion pretending the violence doesn’t exist? Or is religion offering hope against the violence? The message is ambiguous. The fact that the “speaker/rapper” then violently destroys the choir historicizes the bombings and terrorism of black churches from Civil Rights to the modern day massacre at the Charleston church shooting.

Immediately after the scene pans to a side view of a police car indicating the role that mass incarceration and police brutality has played against black males. The rapper keeps a smile on his face throughout which reminds one of Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s famous poem, “We Wear the Mask” about having to grin and lie to conceal one’s true emotions.

Then the scene shifts to a car on fire (representing riots) and an upward panned angle to a few men sitting with white masks on representing gangs. There is a white horse with a black hooded rider which could represent apocalyptic judgment against America’s use of violence or it could be a reversal of the klan with it’s hooded riders. After the hooded rider passes, there is a long still shot of the rapper holding his hands in the formation of a gun, then silence (the silence seems eerie after the noise), and he tags out a contraband joint and lights it.

As the rapper climbs onto the roof of a car the African chorus begins to sing, “get your money” while he dances (to get money in America means giving a performance in front of society). The black man has to perform as the entertainer of society to “get his money.”

Then the scene goes to the rapper running by himself down a long, empty, frightening corridor. It reminds me there too of Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, where the unnamed black male protagonist is told to “keep running.”

I am including the video but viewer discretion is advised (the violence I describe here is acted out in the video along with profanity) in case you have never seen the video; but if you are unable to watch violent images, then avoid watching it. It is optional.

The artist, Childish Gambino, is not trying to entertain us with his video or lyrics; he is trying to inform us and teach us about American history and its acts of violence against black males and how America has tried to “criminalize” the existence of black males.

An example of how/where in the video, Childish Gambino is trying to teach us about history is found in his very deliberate use of poses. His poses are not accidental. His poses are meant to recall the racist stereotypical presentations of the black male performer in minstrel and in Jim Crow. In vintage posters that circulated in the South during Jim Crow segregation, there are representations that mock and stereotype the black male body; much has been observed since Childish Gambino released his video a few years ago about how the dance moves and poses are deliberately used to parallel Jim Crow images/representations. Here is an example of one of the most striking uses of Jim Crow and minstrel imagery in Childish Gambino’s video, thereby linking his commentary on the violence in America to that of the violence American history has performed against the black male’s character; Jim Crow images were an assassination against the black male’s character. Thus Danny Glover/Childish Gambino is narrating the history of violence against black men in his song and in his video.

Now your task: Find your example of a current song, spoken word poetry, film, literature, etc, and post it with some visuals and/or video and your analysis of it in a way similar to what I did with the song “This is America” by Childish Gambino. Try to find one that uses the vernacular or oral tradition.