The Poem Hip Hop By Mos Def: Critical Analysis

The poem “Hip Hop” by Mos Def is an accurate representation of the highlights and downfalls to the challenges and embarked journeys that African American’s endure. As an individual from African American descent, I understand the path that a lot of the people in our community must face trying to fit in to a world that hates among our immediate existence. Mos Def, also known as Yasiin Bey, has become a prominent figure for the African American community as he speaks volume to the different facts and truths to the plaguing issues for the Black community. Mos Def represents hip hop music as an art form embodied by strength, tenacity, and deep cultural roots. As continuous strength that our ancestors have felt as they have dealt with the obstacles and racial charges that were placed within our communities. The everlasting tenacity that our community have maintained to formulate a bond to the cultural differences and embracing our fragmentation of what is known as black love.

In Mos Def’s poem, Hip Hop, he proclaims his devotion to the African American culture and the processes of hip hop music. The overall poem is displayed to the world in the form of music. As music has become a gateway for people to express themselves and their life’s story. As previously known, Mos Def represents hip hop music as it embodies strength, tenacity, and cultural roots. He aligns those qualities of hip hop with the strength he sees in the average black body. The symbolism of how strength is portrayed is appealing to capture the audience. Mos Def states, “My restlessness is my nemesis, it’s hard.” Living the life of a black man is hard, and societies perception of how a man is viewed is not very helpful in the world of survival of the fittest. From the following verse, I could understand the sleepless nights and restless days so that work could be accomplished. Having to work 3 times as hard just to receive merely the same credibility as everyone else in society. This poem states “Native Son, speaking in the native tongue. I got my eyes on tomorrow (there it is), while you still tryna, Find where it is, I’m on the ave’ where it lives and die.” Analyzing the following verse would show the determination and drive a person has for accomplishing the end goal, no matter the results in the very end.

Mos Def’s overall delivery of this poetry piece is defined as a “song of dichotomy, of explicating the complicated specifics of a genre grown from minority and poverty finding economic and social success”, according to Oddball Magazine. One of the key issues that affects societies ability to move towards progression is their lacking ability to move pass the cultural indifferences and become allies of different issues. A vast majority of the human population has a negative connotation of the African American community. The bad perception from society wasn’t just something that was be fed into the media, it was becoming a life blueprint and model for other modern families to label something as wrong or a bad example. Not only does the black community have a disadvantage among their peers, there is also a sense of uncertainty within the financial stableness of a black household. According to the poem, “Hip Hop is prosecution evidence, an out of court settlement, ad space of liquor, sick without benefits, luxury tenements choking the skyline, it’s low life getting treetop high.” The immediate reaction to this verse made an instant connection to the social injustices that the African American community face. Examples such as police brutality, wrongful imprisonment, and the mass incarceration of our people. To address these concerns, but we find ways to start the undesirable conversation on what to do next to better serve the community. This source also implicated how Mos Def utilizes art as evidence of criminal activity. Mos def further elaborates on such issues by playing on the judicial language with a powerful and glossed over metaphor of hip hop as a sort of an “out of court settlement”

What is fascinating about the Oddball Magazine is that is expresses concerns to the opportunity cost in what we are wishing to achieve. Such that from the following source, it states that “What have we traded in return for lesser prosecution that hip hop is the settled middle ground? Equal voice? Real social representation and advancement, instead of settling for money and fame?”. From the poem Hip Hop, Mos Def explains that “Stimulant and sedative, original repetitive, violently competitive. A school unaccredited…” Based on the following stanza, the sense of urgency clouded the thinking process to truly different the indifference within the black community and the hip hop culture, while addressing the different ways in which being behind everyone else has been some form of formality. In their own way, the second two phrases contract each other, and the line concludes with the “there it is” adlib used in the first verse and referencing several performers before him. “The war-time snapshot, the working man’s jackpot, a two dollor snack box sold beneath the crack spot. Olympic sponsor of the black Glock, gold medalist in the back shot.” As many may know, hip hop is a form of different many things, an image capturing ones place in contentious time, a winning lottery ticket the right “working man”, a cheap, or greasy meal sold in a familiar but unsavory place, but just another community where of individual of African American descent has to try their best to thrive in a world that already stacks the odds against our community.

The following analysis of the poem, “Hip Hop” by Mos Def gives the world a different perspective and a more creative approach to the social injustices and hardships that our community faces. From the perspective of the outside world, the black community is given a negative connotation, but the creativity and the academic talents displayed within the African American community quickly goes unnoticed. As we move towards progression, the one effective way we can fix such representation issues is by starting a conversation in every aspect of our life.

Work Cited Page

1. “A Twist of JP Lime: Lyric Analysis – ‘Hip Hop’ by Mos Def, Verse 2.” Create a Website or Blog at WordPress.com, 5 June 2015, oddballmagazine.com/a-twist-of-jp-lime-lyric-analysis-hip-hop-by-mos-def-verse-2/.
2. Suzanne, et al. “About.” Literary Analysis S16, 26 Feb. 2016, courses.suzannechurchill.com/litanalysis-s16/2016/02/26/mos-def-hip-hop-and-hip-hop-final/.
3. Jplimeproductions.com, www.jplimeproductions.com/lyric-analysis-hip-hop-by-mos-def/.
4. “Yasiin Bey – Hip Hop.” Genius, 12 Oct. 1999, genius.com/Yasiin-bey-hip-hop-lyrics.