{"id":6139,"date":"2010-03-19T19:29:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T19:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=6139"},"modified":"2010-09-26T01:57:48","modified_gmt":"2010-09-26T01:57:48","slug":"%e2%80%98a-yellow-ass-nigga%e2%80%99-hip-hop-and-the-%e2%80%98mixed-race%e2%80%99-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=6139","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A Yellow-Ass Nigga\u2019?: Hip Hop and the \u2018Mixed-Race\u2019 Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018A Yellow-Ass Nigga\u2019?: Hip Hop and the \u2018Mixed-Race\u2019 Experience<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Intermix<\/a>
\nAcademic Papers<\/a>
\nFebruary 2010<\/p>\n

Dr. Kevin Searle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hip Hop<\/a> has always engaged with the politics of \u2018race\u2019 and racism. From the Black Panther Party-inspired Marxism of acts such as The Coup and Immortal Technique, to the Nation of Islam-influenced stance of Public Enemy and Ice Cube, to the black feminism of Ursula Rucker and MeShell Ndgeocello, socially conscious emcees have approached the issues from a number of angles. In the context of this engagement with the politics of \u2018race\u2019 and racism, the topics of \u2018mixed race\u2019 and interracial relationships have often featured.<\/p>\n

This article explores some of the lyrics about the \u2018mixed-race\u2019 experience in Hip Hop. It does not aim to provide an exhaustive list of songs which have engaged with issues of \u2018mixed-race,\u2019 but to serve as an introduction. The article is borne out of my longstanding interest in Hip Hop, and much of the research involved me consulting my ever-growing record collection, and songs which have come to my attention over the years.<\/p>\n

Hip Hop provides the soundtrack to the lives of many \u2018mixed-race\u2019 youth and adults. The genre is perhaps more relevant to the \u2018mixed-race\u2019 experience than any other form of music. Charlie Owen (2001: 138) has noted how \u2018mixed-race\u2019 people constitute a relatively young population. This population has been at its largest, at a time when Hip Hop has taken its greatest share of record sales. However, as many emcees have pointed out, in rhymes which engage with such themes as the division of labour on slave-plantations in the American South, this does not in anyway mean that \u2018mixed race\u2019 people somehow constitute a \u2018new racial group.\u2019<\/p>\n

The present article is structured into four main sections. The first engages with songs about the \u2018mixed-race\u2019 experience, the second looks at lyrics about interracial relationships, the third about colour\/shade and the final part focuses on tracks about women and colour. It is perhaps worth noting that a number of artists, from different musical genres, have commented on all of these themes, prior to the dawn of Hip Hop in the 1970s.3 In his book On Racial Frontiers\u2026<\/em>, Gregory Stephens (1999: 170) argues that Bob Marley was, \u2018a master of employing double-voiced lyrics,\u2019 and Marley\u2019s line: \u2018I\u2019m a rainbow too,\u2019 on the track Sun is Shining<\/em> constitutes a comment on the artists\u2019 \u2018biraciality.\u2019 Nina Simone described a woman who was the product of interracial rape in her song Four Women<\/em>. The blues artist, Big Bill Broonzy drew upon the African-American expression: If you\u2019re white, you\u2019re all right, If you\u2019re brown stick around, if you\u2019re black, get back\u2019, in the song Black, Brown and White<\/em>. And, socially conscious soul singer, Curtis Mayfield, admonished \u2018high yellow girls\u2019 in We the People who are Darker than Blue<\/em>, additionally, as Mike Rugel (2007) shows, the theme of women and colour has also been present in a number of blues songs…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018A Yellow-Ass Nigga\u2019?: Hip Hop and the \u2018Mixed-Race\u2019 Experience Intermix Academic Papers February 2010 Dr. Kevin Searle Hip Hop has always engaged with the politics of \u2018race\u2019 and racism. From the Black Panther Party-inspired Marxism of acts such as The Coup and Immortal Technique, to the Nation of Islam-influenced stance of Public Enemy and Ice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,6,394],"tags":[2540,2534,2535,1392],"class_list":["post-6139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-new-media","category-socialscience","tag-hip-hop","tag-intermix","tag-kevin-searle","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}