music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly exploration

“sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it’s
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it’s done by everybody
because everybody is of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle
their bit of luck”

– Charles Bukowski, “me and faulkner”

* This post’s title is from the same poem and is not necessarily my perception of music.*

Allie’s brought us back to hip-hop, once again providing some good points. Points I very much agree with on some level. (It’s funny that this conversation is happening on/because of my blog, since it began upon my first mention of hip-hop ever and my street cred is barely worth noting.)

If you haven’t already, go read Allie’s post before you start this one, because I’m not planning on doing a lot of framing here. But I will do just a bit. . . .

You’ll all remember that Lex originally asked Allie how she could decry misogyny in hip-hop yet read (and enjoy) Bukowski. I followed that by saying that I agree that tolerance of certain themes ought to span various forms of media. Allie’s basic premise is that while Bukowski and rappers discuss the same things, they do so in very different ways. Bukowski as a broken man, rappers as glorified sex kings. It would be hard for me to disagree with that assessment.

Obviously, they are different in style and presentation. Bukowski’s got more emo in him than most rappers. (I’d even say that Bukowski’s edge is often times much sharper than hip-hop’s.) Perhaps they’re even different in intention, but we can get carried away assigning motive and intention to artists when we really have no clue.

However, this argument against hip-hop rests on the assertion that in order for art to be valuable and worthy (?) of our consumption, a) it must reflect the brokenness of humanity and b) the artist must be willing to recognize his brokenness.

If art really is about humanity, though, recognition isn’t required. A lot of us, no matter how “broken” we may be, refuse to admit it. In fact, we do our best to shout, show, et. al. the exact opposite. If art is about reflecting and exposing something within universal humanity, then hip-hop ought to count, if not for its accurate depiction of how many cultures and (American) subcultures view women and sex (not to mention its political statements, stories of broken homes, etc.), then for its accurate reflection of how many (if not most) people deal, at least publicly, with their brokenness.

Isn’t pride, after all, a form of brokenness?

(Btw, Kirk kinda wrote about this recently. Hey, Kirk, did you know I read your blog?)

As a Christian, I see the need to admit, expose, and work through sin in my life. But I don’t have the same expectation of those who may not be Christians. The need is there, yes, but I don’t expect them to show all their cards to the public. I don’t even expect them to have figured out that sin leaves you drained and desperate. Sin often comes on strong, and it feels good. Really good.

In many of his poems, Bukowski’s an old man. Who’s to say he didn’t get to that point of brokenness after years of reveling in sex and alcohol before acknowledging the pull within him to get out of the muck? The very same muck that makes him the “dysfunctional anti-hero” in his writing who keeps doing what he knows will only keep him from what he really wants? The same muck that fueled his writing through the twilight years? The same muck that keeps us reading after his death?

In a way, the work and lifestyles of authors like Bukoskwi actually do “celebrate” their brokenness, even if they don’t necessarily “glorify” it. Our reception of it — much like our reception of hip-hop — does the same thing.

(Btw, I might be wrong, but I think both are celebrations of humanity more than celebrations of their specific themes and elements.)

I’m not 100% convinced that our participation in, acceptance of, and interpretation of art ought to be connected to the artist himself. The persona usually says something about the person, but they’re not one in the same, and explicating historically (solely, anyway) can cause the receiver to miss something important within the piece, something specific to him or her that the artist could never have even envisioned. Nonetheless, the man behind the art is almost always fascinating to me, and Allie specifically mentioned reading Bukowski for the purpose of seeing the broken man behind the words.

Fitzgerald wrote over and over about the emptiness of money, yet he lived for and at the expense of it, even after writing books that clearly examine and “work through” that vice. Faulkner wrote about deception, evil, and spiritual struggle, yet lived a good chunk of his life as a poser and refused to ever admit the spirituality within his novels, much less the spiritual struggles within himself. I won’t even attempt to list the number of authors whose works examined brokenness and whose lives were consumed with alcohol, drugs, depression, and, often, suicide. All that examining got them nowhere but more depressed in the grand scheme of things. While I’m sure some readers have been influenced, even changed, by their works, in the end, they aren’t offerings of salvation or a even a slightly better plight for humankind. They’re just offerings of humanity.

We read these books and proclaim their authors as “the Greats” precisely because they are about brokenness — or as Faulkner would say, “The human heart in conflict with itself.” These are household names, required reading in our schools, nobel prize winners, inspirations for film and art — if that’s not “celebrating,” I don’t know what is.

As a Christian, I’m somewhat predisposed to see possibilities for redemption within art, but on the whole, it’s not the redemption (in those works which actually offer it — Bukowski really doesn’t) that turns us into literary rubbernecks. It’s the broken hearts, the depravity, the sin, and, ultimately, the humanity.

And they’ve lasted as literary achievements because they’ve consistently connected to something — most often something dark, sinister, or at least depressing — within us.

It doesn’t really connect with me in that way, but I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that hip-hop connects with things equally dark, sinister, and depressing within some of its listeners, specifically those who, as Allie put it, “glorify” misogyny and violence right along side the rappers. I don’t think it’s fair to say that, because the artists and their fans haven’t yet recognized the brokenness that ultimately comes from those things, the products they create, which connect and resonate with listeners in a way similar to the way Bukowski resonates with his readers, shouldn’t be regarded or listened to as art and given the same “pass” for undesirable, if not sinful, content that works by “great” authors receive.

I think there’s another connection that’s not being discussed too. Hip-hop has its roots in a subculture that I am not and never have been a part of and one that most of my regular readers do not know first-hand either. I think hip-hop is brutally honest — much in the way Bukowski is — about that subculture. They, like Bukowski, write about the same things over and over because they’re writing what they know and/or have known — what’s real. It’s not so much about glorifying misogyny, aggression, etc, as it is about accurately writing within the context of their social realities.

The rappers don’t deny their subculture. They don’t reject it. But they work to rise above it, to not let poverty and violence keep them from becoming something great in the eyes of their childhood comrades and in the world, while still holding on to their roots. I think there’s something truly admirable in that. Maybe even heroic.