Originally, Kubrin did not explore post-2000 music because ofdue to the increasing influence of record labels on rap lyrics and the fear that more recent lyrics would focus more on “exaggerated fantasies” than on real issues (Boyd 69 Kubrin 442-443). Secondarily, this paperI will expand Kubrin’s original thesis by examining the work of Tyler the Creator, a rap artist whose body of work has been created post-2000, and examine whether Kubrin’s original claim still holds true when it comes to contemporary more modern rap music. TheMy primary focus of this paper will be to expand Kubrin’s argument by exploring graffiti as another mode of urban artistic expression and arguing that nihilism is a theme throughout various forms of urban art, not just rap music. It is clear that there is a lack of the scholarly community lacks literature that synthesizes both rap and graffiti as modes of urban art, identifies nihilistic themes within the two, and connects these ideas to the larger context of urban artistic expression. However, within her paper and within the scholarly community as a whole,, analyses explicitly connecting nihilism and graffiti are almost nonexistent. Although Kubrin directly addresses the presence of nihilism in rap music. In this paper, I will build upon Kubrin’s research in three ways. This paper will also deal primarily with gangsta rap, although the argument presented here could potentially be applied to other forms of rap music.
Kubrin focuses her work specifically on gangsta rap, a genre of rap pioneered by gang members describing “life in the ghetto from the perspective of a criminal” (Kubrin 435).
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and Kubrin explores how the nihilistic themes in these rap songs reflect the street code that is ever-present in black youth culture in the urban environment (Kubrin 433). In her essay, Kubrin engages in an in-depth analysis of over four hundred rap songs from 1992 to 2000 (Kubrin 433). Kubrin’s essay I See Death Around the Corner: Nihilism in Rap Music provides the most relevant and comprehensive examination of nihilism in urban artistic expression within the current literature. With this basis, it will then be possible to explore what this theme can tell us about the urban environment.Ĭharis E. This paper will look at two models of urban art-Banksy’s graffiti art and Tyler the Creator’s rap music-in order to establish that nihilism is a prevalent theme in urban artistic expression. It follows, then, that we can learn about urban environments by examining the art of the urbanite. We can learn about an oppressive government from the art of the oppressed, we can learn about the insane asylum from the art of the patient, and we can learn about the jail from the art of the inmate. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all” (Anderson 1). As John Lennon once said, “My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Art acts as a collective mirror through which we can more closely examine and learn about our society, our surroundings, and ourselves.
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