Tracing the development of Afro-American music from its roots in Africa to modern day 'gangsta rap,' Drama Professor Victor Walker tackled the question, "Are Blacks Selling out?"
About 30 people attended this discussion which was the first installment in the Shabazz Lecture Series.
"Selling out is not about money, it is about authenticity and about feigned authenticity," Walker said.
Walker said he was not trying to point to rap as social deviance, but rather to what it really is -- entertainment.
Walker said the problem is rappers do not appreciate the different aspects of the African-American community, and in that respect are selling out.
"Selling out is about not identifying with the diversity in the community," Walker said.
Walker gave an extensive history of black music.
"We have a tendency to view changes in music as happening in a vacuum," he said. "Most of what you see in music happened four or five-hundred years ago, with the enslavement of the blacks."
Walker said the end of reconstruction was a turning point for African-American music.
"By the time we get to the end of reconstruction, we begin to understand why black folk have the blues," he said.
Walker said when reconstruction ended in New Orleans, "well-trained mulatto musicians were forced to move uptown. The orchestras would no longer hire them."
This change led to a "wonderful mix of music that would evolve into jazz," he added.
Jazz prompted whites to come to ethnic areas so they could listen to the new music and "slum," a term Walker uses to refer to whites reaching out to a lower class culture.
"There is an idea that the lowest common denominator in society must be blacks," Walker said. "That is the mantra we want and how we want to be viewed."
Walker said this mantra has led to, "slumming within the black community."
He said modern day rappers are only concerned with perpetuating a lower class image.
"Image in America is something you have to experience," Walker said.
