If Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” is one thing, it is a damn sure success. Though it took an entire year, Harry Rodrigues has singlehandedly dethroned “Gangnam Style,” reached number one on the Billboard and created a single that rose from the ashes of SoundCloud obscurity into being purchased over 250,000 times in a week. And the arguments… so… many… damn… arguments.
With the journalistic hip-hop head power vested in me, I solemnly swear that I shall not reappropriate (giggle) the endless amount of columns written on this damn song already. With that said, there’s some clarity to be shed that on what we’re all missing.
I initially felt like white people essentially hijacked yet another cultural staple from black people. I am black. Where I’m from, Harlem shaking looks not a goddamn thing like what I have seen these past few weeks. There is a technique to it—a coordinated flair that originates in basements at the age of six or seven. I’m sickened by the thought of yet another piece of my culture, no matter how miniscule or insignificant in pop culture, being snatched in the name of good fun. I called it a byproduct of the new context of “trap music” spawned from the depths of EDM hell. No matter how damn good the song is, or the music from this new wave, it feels like black folk are, once again, the center of another joke.
But wait, there’s more to it. A specific debate through text message last week spawned my best friend’s assertion that the Harlem shake isn’t that much of a cultural staple. It is credited as our parents’ generation’s “Soulja Boy,” and that no one actually cares about the cultural appropriation of a dance that lived and died in the ’90s. All of the anger spawned from this argument is essentially rooted in the fact that Harlem is included; if this wasn’t the case, no one would care and it would essentially Kanye shrug its way back to acceptance.
I argued him down about what I summarized in that last paragraph… but my best friend is right about a lot. Would anyone have given a crap in the world if it was all named something else random and inconspicuous?
As I contemplate it now, white people definitely shot videos of themselves collectively Soulja-Boying (is that a verb?) across schoolyards and fast-food parking lots and no one moved a single character in protest. Granted, I couldn’t spell “appropriation” in seventh grade, but I digress. I sure enough wasn’t mad. If the Harlem shake circa 2013 was merely named “The Shake”, it would mean absolutely nothing and appropriation wouldn’t even be in the forefront. Also, I’m sure Soulja Boy is just as much of a black cultural icon as Jesus is to America.
Yeah, I said it.
The issue at hand is much more than the fear of white kids in dorm rooms pelvic-thrusting their way to millions of views at a time. It is the fear that the African-American platform of hip-hop culture is currently under siege at the hands of these white kids in dorm rooms. This is only justifiable on a limited level once we explore the exploitation of common tropes such as masculinity, stereotypes and other monolithic ideas behind the genre. Once one reconsiders perspective on how this fear applies in the frame of the fad’s surge, it is simple to conclude that the new breed of Harlem shake has absolutely nothing to do with it at all.
This immediate and immense criticism of its track and involuntary meme attests to the reactionary variable within hip-hop spheres that immediately damns anything to hell if it dares come near even the most obscure components of the genre. With this said, anyone within the culture of the oppressed can sample the dominant culture ceaselessly without penalty or threat because of what has been culturally established. Simply put, J. Cole or J Dilla can sample anything from any culture and never be charged with appropriating cultures like anthem rock or country, but the inverse applies to Baauer or anyone making a video in his image.
Harlem is an epicenter of blackness. Hip-hop is an epicenter of blackness. Baauer, by monolithic standards, does not fit these criteria, thus continuing the struggle for acceptance of white artists in all genres and subgenres spawned from hip-hop. White fans are subject to challenge as well, with their authenticity being brought into question. This is a reactionary principle in motion no matter what the art may be or how harmless it actually is. Hip-hop heads like me have been bred to reinforce it.
And the disconnect continues.
I met Baauer backstage when he came to Madison a short while ago, (that best friend I mentioned previously was the opening act for the show.) He stood alone with his Macbook in a jacket and beanie, quietly surveying the drink bar and using his words sparingly with us. We asked him about his Ableton set and how his Boiler Room performance left the Internet frenzied about the death of DJ culture and how laptops are the culprit. He smirked at how people gave him a lot of trouble for it.
I wonder if he smirks now when he reads columns about how he doesn’t belong, how he’s forwarding the zeitgeist of white people destroying hip-hop. All I hope for is that he doesn’t read this one the same way. It is time to bury the impulse to react in the shadow of racism and appropriation in a culture that is supposedly founded with the intention of being purely open for anyone to remix, recreate and prosper. However, the subjectivity must stay for when artists like Baauer actually cross the line and violate upon the culture in ways that transcend audio or 30-second clips of people in sleeping bags gyrating underwater with a college swimmer on a table. I don’t see the harm in that anymore. Not on this one.
Still not convinced on Penn’s argument about taking “Harlem” out of the “Harlem Shake?” Let him know at mdpenn@wisc.edu.
