Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. (Common)

• born March 13, 1972, Chicago, Illinois, US
• American hip-hop artist, actor, and activist who became a mainstream success in the early 21st century, known for intelligent and positive lyrics that were performed in a spoken-word style.
• He was the first rapper to win a Grammy Award, an Academy Award and an Emmy Award
• Net Worth: $45 Million
•  launched ‘Think Common Entertainment, a record label in 2011

13th (2016)

• American documentary film by Ava DuVernay
• explores the “intersection of race, justice, and mass incarcentration in the United States;”

Key Concepts:

• Cultural resistance
• Cultural hegemony
• Subcultural theory
• Race relations
• the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined
• The Idea of Resistance and Political Protest
• Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change
• Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony with regards to power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means
• https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/media23al/wp-content/uploads/sites/58/2022/01/Music-as-Political-Protest.pdf

‘Slavery’s still alive, check Amendment 13
Not whips and chains, all subliminal
Instead of ‘nigga’ they use the word ‘criminal’

Highlights the fact that racial injustice is still very prominent within society, even though it isn’t entirely obvious – it has been masked by

‘For America to rise it’s a matter of Black Lives’

Post Colonialism Under the Shadow of Slavery

 The historical period or state of affairs representing the aftermath of Western colonialism and  the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. 

Edward Said – Orentalism

• the stereotyping of the East – exaggerates religious and cultural differences causing their humanity to be overlooked and the culture misunderstood
• justifies the assertion of Western power over the East
• when the West views the East in this way – it creates policies which marginalises them
• ‘In this view, the outlying regions of the world have no life, history or culture to speak of, no independence or integrity worth representing without the West.‘ – Said, 1993

Jacques Lacan – ‘The Other’

•  the recognition of the ‘Other’ – the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not
• To link this to postcolonialism would be to suggest that the West uses the East / the Orient / the ‘Other’, to identify and construct itself. How it sees itself as the ‘West’ as opposed to . . . in other words, it acts as The Other, a mirror by which a reflection of the self can be measured out and examined