J Cole – Spark Arena December 1, 2017

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J Cole is one of mainstream hip hop’s brightest stars. Drawing comparisons to Kendrick Lamar, he appeals to his audience through his sensitive engagement with American racial issues, economic delivery, catchy hooks and forward-facing consciousness.
While Kendrick has better flows and production, J Cole’s greatest strength is his sincerity. Which is exactly what his For Your Eyez Only world tour set up to emphasize. Dressed in an orange prison uniform, surveillance cameras followed him as he was escorted by a guard through the barbed-wire laced prison gates. Under the eyes of the ever-watchful cameras he launched into For Whom The Bell Tolls– a song about his struggle to find hope. It was a moment loaded with ‘gram-worthy theatrical gravitas. However as the night wore on, it became apparent that it signified a subtext of the show- that it was a joyous respite from oppressive systems experienced by people of colour everyday.

So we were saddened to read the ill-informed and sensationalist review posted by Liana Thaggard in the New Zealand Herald this morning. Her opening lines:“Rapper J Cole’s insane prison-themed show seemed  like a great idea at first, but it soon saw the crowd riled up and screaming anti-police chants.”

This was in reference to a performance of Neighbours. The lyrics tell the story of J Cole buying a house in a ‘nice neighbourhood’ “Nice meaning white” he explained. His neighbours eventually called the SWAT team on him, suspicious that he was a drug dealer. They crashed in his door only to find him making new music “doing some of the most positive stuff you could ever do in this home.” We were then shown CCTV footage of the SWAT team breaking into his house, destroying his property, and moving J.Cole’s surveillance cameras to destroy any further evidence.

This was what started the chant of FTP (Fuck the Police). Further on in her review, Thaggard goes on to say “in an effort to calm the crowd, Cole thanked them for their support.” Her review is troubling not just because of its misrepresentation of the evening, but it also exposes shortcomings in New Zealand’s mainstream media about rap, activism and its audience. J Cole, the mixed race America rapper and activist, who was raised in South Carolina and came up in New York, who cut his teeth on Nas and Tupac, was not alarmed at the sight of a chanting, hand waving crowd. He did not feel the need to “calm” anyone. He wanted the reaction he got, and he was right to want the reaction he got. Any panic at the sight of a sea of angry brown and black faces, and any discomfort in that anger being directed at the police as the enforcing arm of a racist justice system- those emotions reside solely in the breast of Liana Thaggard. If you’re reading this Liana, I invite you consider that the only reason to find a group of people expressing anger about oppression is if you are on the side of the oppressors.

Too political? No. Because Thaggard’s review is symptomatic of the problems that crop up too often when mainstream (white) media discusses rap, and people of colour in general. We lift it out of its context, we sanitise or entirely ignore any elements of the art that point to our own complicity, and when we feel challenged we paint black artists and the emotions they engender as dangerous, violent, even animalistic.

So let’s re-contextualise. First, let’s discuss the “insane prison themed” stage show. Very interesting choice of words, Thaggard. For us they conjure images of riots, bared teeth and shankings. Images completely incongruous with the focus of the performance.

One thing the show’s visuals drew much attention to- and which drew no attention at all in Thaggard’s review- was the text on the back of Jo Cole’s prison jumpsuit: “Property of ______.” See, hip hop is often accused by the media of glorifying criminal culture, and on the surface an “insane prison themed show” could be just another example of the edgy, unrepentant thuggery it’s so easy to dismiss rappers for.

Contextually, though, Cole’s theme wasn’t criminality but the systematic imprisonment and commodification of black people. The shadow of slavery hangs over those words on his jumpsuit, and for black Americans, the prison system is the new slavery, with 2.3 million black Americans in jail, 5 times that of the white population. Thinking a little further, Cole is released from the “prison” out onto the stage to perform, the famous and rich black performer, but the jumpsuit stays on and the bars and wire loom over him the whole gig. A visual that ties directly into, say, a successful black artist moving into a white neighbourhood and still being seen as a drug dealer. America and its culture criminalises black people, and that is the “insane” theme of Cole’s stage props.

So much for Cole and America. What of the “riled up” crowd who were “screaming” anti-police slogans? The people Cole apparently felt were so out of hand they needed calming down with some songs about girls? A crowd, though Thaggard tactfully neglects to mention, with large numbers of Maori and Pasifika fans in attendance? Like the bars of J Cole’s stage prison, there were shadows hanging over them as well, shadows invoked by the sight of a SWAT team violating the home of a person of colour. Shadows of the Urerewa “terrorist” raids and Tuhoe grandparents with assault rifles against their heads. Shadows of the Dawn Raids, and New Zealand Police forces bursting into Pasifika homes to evict “overstayers.” (It’s worth noting that the label that birthed our own Deceptikonz, Savage and Mareko was named Dawn Raid- communities remember even if the wider culture prefers to forget.) Shadows of our own racist justice institutions, in which Maori make up over half the prison population. Hell, if they were Tongan they may well have had the events of the past few weeks in mind, when (coincidentally enough) the New Zealand Herald ran headlines painting their proud rugby fans as all but rioting criminals.

Finally, we can re-contextualise even farther back with the origins of “Fuck the Police,” one of the most controversial, maligned and catchiest cries to come from early gangsta rap. Let’s start by contextualising it in the full opening bars: “Fuck the police coming straight from the underground / A young n**** got it bad cause I’m brown / And not the other colour so police think / They have the authority to kill a minority!” Unlike conservative minded New Zealanders often portray it, FTP’s origins aren’t in petty criminal high school drop outs wishing the cops would just let them sling tinnys with impunity. It’s about an American police force who for decades frequently and consistently got away with the murder of young black men. That song is from 1988, and considering it has a long history of censorship and outright bannings, and that the issue it addresses was getting media attention as if it was a new phenomenon in 2016, it’s easy to see why there remains a weight of rage behind it. While it’s especially potent in the American context, if you think our Maori and Pasifika citizens haven’t experienced police profiling or racist scrutiny, you’re deluded.

It’s deeply disingenuous of Thaggard to close her review with “it’s clear to see why Kiwis resonated with every word and lyric the rapper sent across the stadium,” when in the previous breath she painted the angry chants of FTP as some unfortunate and unintentional gaffe Cole had to move past. Without the above contexts, it’s not clear to see at all. While you might not believe it to look at today’s pop landscape, hip hop as a genre was not made for white teenagers to hook up to in clubs. The strength and beauty hip hop has is that it provides an environment for marginalised communities to share in art and performance that speaks to and validates their experience of marginalisation.

We would have loved to have written more about the specific aspects of J Cole’s show that deserved praise. He was high energy, consistent with his flows, humble and appreciative of the fans, and on point with his delivery. But to see the most crucial and meaningful aspects of the show glossed over or misrepresented so badly, we felt demanded a more targeted response. We, like Liana Thaggard, are outsiders to hip hop culture. We do not share those histories of marginalisation that pervade its music and culture. So even more than others it falls to us to report on and discuss it sensitively and accurately.

Kate Powell & Cameron Miller

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Veronica McLaughlin:

 

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