Rapper YG
Five months ago when I first heard the song, “My N***a”, by local rapper YG, the first thing I noticed was the beat. Immediately, I found myself grooving to it. Initially, the lyrics weren’t too bad. I was used to YG’s subject matter so nothing came off particularly shocking.
Then came the hook.
The word “n***a” is repeated a total of eleven times. Not only is the use of the word excessive, it is also the only lyric throughout the second part of the hook. Literally, the last four bars of the chorus are dedicated solely to that word. As my shock faded away, I admit I continued to bob my head. By the time the hook repeated, I was singing along.
I couldn’t deny its beat, and regardless of the lyrical content, the song was catchy. When the song was over, I hit the replay button. By my second listen, it had made a home in my head. Throughout the next few days, the song was a constant hum in my mind.
Last week as I scrolled through the top songs on iTunes, I was met with YG’s blatant yet catchy tune sitting at number twenty-five.
I was in shock.
Questions immediately formed in my mind: How can this song have made it to not only mainstream status, but to number twenty-five as well? How can this song, with such explicit lyrics that even the title had to be bleeped out, climb the mainstream ladder? How are people of different races responding to the lyrics of the song?
Earlier this week, I decided to interview students of different racial backgrounds to get their opinion on the song by asking four simple questions:
1. How do you feel about the song?
2. Do you like the song?
3. How would you feel if you had to sing this song in public?
4. How would you feel if you had to sing this song in front of a group of people that identified with a racial or ethnic group outside of the group you identify with?
At the end of the survey, I was faced with a very different question to ask than what I had initially set out to.
First, as expected most people said they would either feel embarrassed or awkward singing it in public and in front of people of a different racial background, while some said that they just wouldn’t sing it all.
One student of Middle Eastern decent, Sarah Rahimi [a fourth year IDS major] said, “I wouldn’t sing it. It’s not my word to use.”
Another student, Aaryn O’Quinn, an Afrikan-American fourth year student said, “I wouldn’t sing this in public. It would be like making a mockery of my people.”
Nonetheless, there were a few that said they would feel comfortable singing it in public, depending on the space. Third year Afrikan-American Aerospace Engineer major, Trevon Rodney claims, “It’s all about the location. I would feel just fine singing it on the Afrikan Diaspora floor [a residential community specifically aimed at Afrikan-American students], but I wouldn’t feel comfortable singing it in Ackerman Student Union.”
As I said, all of this was expected. What wasn’t expected however, was how hard it was to talk about the lyrical content when it came to that word. While talking about the song, one thing that struck me was how awkward almost all non-black participants were when answering the questions. And it wasn’t just non-black students. In the beginning, even black students did their best to skate around the word before finally just saying it. While I definitely didn’t expect the participants to just go out and say it, I didn’t think it would be that hard to talk about. Almost all knew the song so the presence of the word wasn’t unexpected. Furthermore, they had the opportunity to read the lyrics beforehand. None were fazed until it was time to actually talk about it.
As I started the discussion, all participants that weren’t of Afrikan-American decent tensed up and almost stammered through their responses. Nobody wants to say the word, which is understandable, but it was like the word left their voices immobile. “The N-word” was obviously the replacement of choice. However, “That word” and “You know…” were often used as well. The issue wasn’t their euphemism of choice, it was the way they used it. Regardless of the word that was chosen, somehow the word they had tried so hard to avoid still got the best of them. Prior to having to acknowledge the word, they were effortless in articulating themselves. However, “That word” left them immobile. One participant of Latino decent seemed to be so stumped that I actually gave him permission to say it. He was a little awkward at first but as soon as he said it, it was as if a weight had lifted off of him. The word was the biggest elephant to have ever occupied a room.
When I asked how they would feel if they had to sing the song in public, just the thought entering their brains caused them to choke up.
For those who were embarrassed during the interview I understand that my Afrikan-American ethnicity could have been a part of the issue, but I was still taken aback.
For our one-on-ones, some students felt the need to overcompensate for their responses, and went into lengthy explanations of why it was okay for them to feel embarrassed about it.
One participant, a white female third year Political Science major says, “The song seems to be using the word in a non-historically racist way, almost as another word for friendship or brother… If I were to sing this song in public, I would hope for acceptance and to be able to convey that I wasn’t in any way trying to use it in a racist manner.”
While her response was standard enough, the amount of energy and effort put in was, in my opinion, way too much. You would have thought the participants were trying to solve the answer to world peace. In a way, maybe they were. We all know that racism is something that has plagued this country since its inception, and in my opinion something that has not been properly dealt with. Slavery and racism are always referenced as America’s dark past, and it seems like nobody is willing to shed the proper amount of light on it. We talk about it sure, but it’s always in a sugar coated politically correct way, full of euphemisms to make everyone talking about it feel comfortable, which is ridiculous because something as ugly as slavery shouldn’t make people feel comfortable.
Then it hit me. Although we as a country like to boast about living in a post-racial society, we have failed as a nation to educate each other on how to have a mature conversation about race. We haven’t learned how to be uncomfortable and learn from that awkwardness. Instead, we hide from the past and create euphemisms so we never have to really face it. We say “The N-word” because then we don’t have to truly think about the implications of it because it’s not that word, it’s the “N-Word”, and we get away with having yet another sugar coated conversation about race. Talking about this aspect of history should leave the people discussing it feeling anything, but comfortable.
I am going to say the word.
Nigga.
There.
Let the feeling of being uncomfortable sink in and deal with it. Now, with nigga aside, lets have a real conversation about race.
Are you for or against the use of nigga?
Author: Hailey Harris
Nommo Staff