Mic Checks and Balances: Politically Conscious Hip-Hop’s Engagement with the Presidency of Barack Obama

Abstract

Hip-hop subculture has long existed as an anti-establishment space that has provided some of U.S. society’s strongest and most unfiltered critiques against the federal government. This adversarial posture has been most effectively communicated by hip-hop MC’s. While far from monolithic, the collective sentiment that has most consistently been communicated to the men residing in The Oval Office has ranged from hostile to ambivalent. The presidential check and balancing inherent to hip-hop has come in a variety of forms over the years through rap music, hip-hop’s most visible element. The election of the nation’s first black president, however, has presented an interesting quandary for the hip-hop nation. On one hand, hip-hop has an obligation to stand up to power. On the other hand, there is also a long standing tradition for hip-hop to mobilize and band together when its members are under attack from outsiders. This article tries to explore the extent that hip-hop artists view Barack Obama as an outsider or an insider. A qualitative content analysis will be conducted of politically conscious rap music in an attempt to find out now that Obama is in the White House, has hip-hop gone soft in its traditional role in challenging White House orthodoxy? The qualitative and quantitative data used here makes it hard to make the case that hip-hop has not gone soft on President Obama in comparison to previous presidents, specifically President George W. Bush.