Epilogue

Abstract

The two songs above, one being traditional African American Gospel and the other some would consider Gangsta’ Rap, have their origin and ground in the African American cultural consciousness. What seems like a wide gulf separating the two forms of aesthetic expression at first is considerably narrowed, almost to the point of being obliterated when viewed through the articulation of the deep structure of African American cultural consciousness and subjectivity. There is a union of opposites that constitutes the fundamental dialectic in which the ranges of experiences play themselves out. The dialectic has been referred to as that of hope/affirmation and resignation (despair, fatalism, etc. …). In an attempt to deepen our appreciation of the dynamics involved, we applied at one-point, a semantic grid provided by psychoanalysis and made use of the manic-depressive polarity, with qualifications. The rap piece quoted in the epigraph above is of interest because it demonstrates the continuity and persistence of this dynamic structure of African American cultural consciousness and demonstrates the fact that modern art forms arising indigenously in the African American urban context still remain faithful expressions of African American being and retain at a fundamental level an undeniable continuity with the more widely “accepted” and, for some, “acceptable” forms of African American cultural production. I will try to elaborate.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen

Nobody knows my sorrow.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,

But Glory, Hallelujah!

African American Spiritual

How will I do or

How will I make it

How will I make it?

I won’t that’s how!

Everything’s going to be alright boy.

Naughty By Nature