An Interview with Michael Eric Dyson
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPThis interview was conducted by telephone on June 28, 2006, between Austin, Texas and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
JONES: You're a scholar, an ordained minister, a philosopher, and the author of a plethora of books exploring black expressive culture, one of which focuses on Tupac Shakur. You're also an African American. Could you speak from that perspective about who is authorized to interpret and articulate hip-hop's past, present, and future?
DYSON: Well, I think that, in one sense, there's a stable artistic and cultural matrix, and a crucible, within which black cultures are interpreted over space and time. There's a thematic consistency, in that African American humanity, and aesthetic creations, are constantly bombarded by suspicion and skepticism on the one hand and by paranoia and fear on the other hand. It's also frequently the case that many white folk—and others—receive the culture with gladness and joy, and interpret it through the prism of their own experience. They may even identify with African American culture, or other black cultures, while at the same time suffering from problems of interpretation: they might be plagued by distortions, elisions, and other forms of intellectual obstruction. That might be true even if they're deeply moved by African American culture and black aesthetic creations, especially those generated by the folk tradition. Some white brothers and sisters, and other non-African Americans, certainly feel that if they absorb the culture—if they study it, if they think about its greatest artists and listen to them and are inspired by them—then they're authorized to interpret and analyze that culture. I don't want to deny that. I don't want to assert a pigment predicate for the analysis of cultures, because some of the best insight on African American and other black cultures—and, for that matter, other non-white cultures—has come from white brothers and sisters. And, conversely, some of the most leaden, and wooden, interpretations that ring least authentically have been generated by African American people. So I'm not saying that folk on the other side of the racial divide, so to speak, can't understand, interpret, and absorb that culture. But there is something to be said for the dynamics of power, where non-African American people have been given historic leverage over the interpretation and, therefore, over the legitimization, of black folk cultures, and vernacular traditions, in ways that black folk ourselves have been denied. So I think it's not simply a matter of intellectual interpretation, or aesthetic appraisal. It's also about the power to shape a prism through which this culture is interpreted, and seen as legitimate, by the dominant culture. That is at stake as well. [End Page 786]
JONES: You mentioned "legitimization," which is "authenticity's" close cousin. Do you believe hip-hop's future depends upon a transformation within narratives of authenticity in black expressive culture, in terms of representation, performance, recording production, and distribution?
DYSON: Well, yeah, there are multiple streams and narratives of authenticity operating simultaneously. And people, interestingly enough, pivot around multiple centers of authenticity. Authenticity becomes a node through which flows arguments about who is capable, or not, of legitimately interpreting a culture—and, therefore, participating in its most esoteric goings-on. And what's interesting about hip-hop, versus other forms of antecedent oral or aesthetic culture, is that there's a big investment in hip-hop among its own artists in defining authenticity. That is not to say that previous participants in aesthetic culture, or African American music, have not been strongly invested in the stakes of authenticity. Think about the fact that be-bop was an inspired response from the streets to forms of jazz that had been co-opted by whites. The polyrhythmic structures of African American vernacular music rang out against whitened and diluted jazz music, especially by white musicians who had taken over swing and...
