“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”[i]– Franz Kafka
“I wish that I could have this moment for life”[ii]– Nicki Minaj
“The light of poetry is not only a direct but also a reflected light, that, while it shows us the object, throws a sparkling radiance on all around it: the flame of the passions, communicated to the imagination, reveals to us, as with a flash of lightning, the inmost recesses of thought, and penetrates our whole being.”[iii]– William Hazlitt
This will be my final long form post of 2023, and this will be a semi-personal essay reflecting on my writing so far, mainly for my blog. I will introduce a sneak preview of my take on the upcoming 2024 US presidential election and of my hip hop analysis, which I will start to write about for my blog in 2024, and I will also briefly discuss my fiction, as this is one of my main goals for 2024. I will introduce my novel, and elaborate on the ideas related to it further, starting with my comments on the gay sex tape scandal that rocked the US last week. I will give an overview of my goals for 2024, some reflections on my journey so far, and where I hope to be by the end of the year.
I started my blog almost three years ago, while I was doing farmwork back in Australia. My first posts were on What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era, a book by Carlos Lozada which I read as part of my literature review for my thesis project on US foreign policy under the Trump administration for my master’s at La Trobe University. I will finish my analysis of Lozada’s book next month, with a longer post documenting my final thoughts on it. I was initially going to write a post in response to his chapter on immigration policy under Trump, “Beyond the Wall”, but I have decided to scrap that and write a conclusion, so that I can review other books and from now on, I will not dedicate a long series of posts to a single book. I will instead write a book review for a longer post. I think in those first posts analyzing different chapters of his book, I was still developing my take on Trump and US politics, and now that I have a much more solid foundation of thought and analysis, as well as a long list of books that I have read or plan on reading, one post per book is enough and any more thoughts on a particular book can be saved for a reference in a later post on a related topic.
My goal this year is to publish a take on the week every Friday, and a longer post every other Tuesday. My first longer post in 2024 will be published on January 16th. It will be on why I think Trump must prevail in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, not because I support him, but because I think that four years of him and his acolytes, which would be his entire cabinet as the swamp creatures he stuffed his administration with in his first term would not dare associate with Trump again, especially after J6, and following J6, many of his officials resigned, like one of the masterminds of his China policy, Matt Pottinger, is a necessary evil for the US and the West as a whole. The current system within which the industrial world is operating is no longer functional or beneficial, except for a select few. Neoliberal globalism is obsolete, and the pundits who fear for ‘democracy’ or the ‘liberal world order’, are fearing the demise of the very system that benefits them and their ideological supremacy.
I will be covering the 2024 election closely, starting with the Republican primaries. Presently, all evidence points to Trump being the Republican nominee. All his legal troubles and the attempts to remove him from ballots, one of which succeeded in Colorado, though it will likely be overturned by the US Supreme Court, give him a massive boost in primary polls. Trump’s continued popularity despite his legal troubles and the corporate media’s depiction of him as the coming of Adolf Hitler, is confounding. Political commentators in the conservative and liberal elite are as clueless as they were in 2015/16, when Trump first rose to power and prominence. This is one point that I have constantly reflected on as I watch the Republican primaries unfold. Those who are aghast at Trump’s deranged rhetoric and the adoration of his supporters have convinced themselves that they are facing a threat to ‘democracy’. When people on NBC News or CNN tell you Trump is a threat to democracy, they mean he is a threat to their democracy, the democracy which is not a democracy, but an oligarchy, as a study by Princeton University concluded years ago. Trump did not dismantle neoliberalism, as he is a prime beneficiary of it himself. He instead symbolized all its negatives, and instead of globalist neoliberalism, he practised what Sasha Breger Bush refers to as national neoliberalism. However, this time around, Trump may do real irreversible damage to the precious liberal world order, since he won’t have the lunatic likes of James Mattis or John Bolton to ‘reign him in’. Many commentators are petrified by this.[iv] They are justified in their fear, as the end of the ‘Western alliance’ and of institutions like NATO is an end to their ideological supremacy, and the beginning of a new era. Whatever that era brings, it will be a necessary change, or at the very least, the start of a chaotic process that leads to change.
I continue to be amazed by the lengths people will go to prop up Joe Biden and the status quo that he represents, even though I shouldn’t be. The point of this post is not to be predictive, but persuasive. I’m aware that for most people, the narrative that Biden must win to keep democracy on life support, otherwise the US will slip into absolute tyranny and the world will suffer at the hands of autocracies all over, is attractive, however, I would encourage people to think about what and who Trump is a threat to, and whether a mass upheaval is a disaster in the long term. His victory in 2016 was itself a disruption, and his presidency was for the most part, standard Republican governance. With him off the neocon leash, perhaps the wrecking ball will finally be allowed to swing and topple the neoliberal system. Perhaps he will pull US troops out of South Korea, Iraq, and Germany, withdraw from NATO unilaterally despite the provision in the 2024 NDAA that attempts to block such a move, demand an end to the war in Ukraine by cutting off funding and forcing a peace deal, go even more protectionist than he did in his first term and than Biden has after him, and instead of foolishly trying to get North Korea to denuclearize, offer financial incentives in exchange for a promise to stop making more bombs.[v] This is the stuff of Washington establishment nightmare. It is no wonder that he is being targeted the way he is. Unless he is assassinated, he will likely be the next president. If you want change, that’s good, though it may not seem like it now. That is a preview of what I will be arguing not just in my post in January, but throughout my coverage of the 2024 US presidential race.
This year I had periods where I wasn’t posting, and I have been juggling many tasks and I have decided to commit to a regular schedule of posting. Reflecting on my writing process and my goals for the future in writing has helped me develop routines and plans for how I will complete projects. Next year I will not only be writing for my blog, but I will be working on op-eds and potentially book reviews.
As well as book reviews for my blog, I will try to submit book reviews to various outlets. I have several ideas for op-eds that, if not accepted, I will mould into posts for my blog. I will submit op-eds on topics like Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific, and potentially my thoughts in the US election. When I did an internship at La Trobe, part of our program was writing and publishing an op-ed. Though I tried and did submit one to a publication, I was not successful and have since been busy with completing my TEFL course and preparing for my next journey overseas. I have finished the first assignment of my TEFL course, and I am currently working on the second. I plan to complete the course by the start of February. From there I will aim to land a job teaching English in Thailand by the end of March or start of April.
Although I will be busy working and traveling around, I will be able to write and publish regularly. As well as my blog and op-eds, I will be writing a lot of fiction in 2024. My current goal is to at least finish my novel, Shudder, three novellas, and 20 short stories. There is a literary magazine, First Line, that I have been reading for a few years now, which publishes anthologies of stories that all start with the same line. They also have a magazine called Last Line where all the stories end with the same line. There are four first lines in a year, and one last line. If you want, you can submit a story that incorporates all four first lines and the last line. I have been meaning to submit the past couple of years. In 2024, I am committed to writing a story and submitting it.
I started writing my novel, Shudder, many years ago, but I never finished it. For a long time, I stopped writing fiction entirely. My initial plan when I first went to university was to pursue a degree in creative writing. I slowly fell out of writing fiction as what was prized in the university setting was ‘literary fiction’ which I like to read but for me, is boring to write.
Shudder is about a biographer who writes ‘unauthorized biographies’ of controversial figures. The novel opens with his suicide note being read by Harrod Aines, a famous pornographer who hired this biographer as a screenwriter, though he did not know he was a biographer, and it is only upon reading his suicide note that Aines realizes he was being written on. The biography, titled Shudder, is already out and Aines finds Rick, a homeless man who nests outside his mansion reading the book as he found it in someone’s mailbox. Aines stops and snatches the biography out Rick’s hands, and after flipping through it frantically, is asked to read the biography to Rick. The rest of the novel is the biography, narrated by Aines. Reality and fiction are blurred.
Shudder will be accompanied by an essay explaining its purpose. It is ultimately a critique of the porn industry, but it is not from a puritan’s perspective. There is no shying away from the depravity and sadism that characterizes the porn industry in its modern form. It is not an anti-porn book, but it does not glorify pornography. Shudder will be graphic and outrageously absurd, as it should be, since life is graphic and absurd.
Hip Hop as Literature
“Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”[vi]– Percy Shelly
As well as fiction, I will be writing more about hip hop music. Before I decided to pursue my thesis on US foreign policy, I was considering a masters in English Literature that would focus on my work in analysis of hip hop lyrics. I was going to start with an analysis of Nas’s discography. My analysis is not looking at hip hop as music, but as literature. My thesis was to be title “Nas, Man of Letters”, and I would start with his first appearance on Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ” in 1991, and then all his albums from Illmatic to Stillmatic. Instead of approaching the work of rappers as discographies, I approach their work as a bibliography, as even so-called low brow subgenres of hip hop like drill and New Orleans bounce have literary value, just as genres like science fiction and horror have literary value.
There is an elitism in hip hop commentary, just as there is in the literary world. To literary scholars, classifying hip hop as not just art, but literature, may seem preposterous, but the works of poets like Percy Shelley or William Wordsworth are not necessarily better or wiser than the works of rappers like Notorious B.I.G or Jay-Z, it is simply different. Across the genre, hip hop is incredibly varied and there are many subgenres within its canon. Looking at hip hop as a literary canon can help analysis of it move away from the purist perspective that has become entrenched in how people listen and rank hip hop albums. For many, certain works are classics, while others are trash or too commercial. Every time an outlet like Rolling Stone or a podcast on Youtube has a ranking of the all-time top hip hop albums or rappers, the same names always come up. As well as a lack of variety, there are a few other huge problems with this antiquated, elitist typification of what qualifies as real, true, or definitive hip hop. Firstly, there is the inherent elitism, as there is an enforced standard of what constitutes a good or important hip hop album, and certain sounds or voices will just never meet that standard. This leads to the second problem, which is the issue of persistent sexism and chauvinism. This is captured perfectly by F. Gary Gray’s film Straight Outta Compton, which omits JJ Fad, one of the first acts that Eazy-E signed to his then new label Ruthless Records.[vii] Though they may not have been as successful as NWA, they could have at least made a cameo when Eazy-E was starting his label. The purist perspective from self-proclaimed ‘hip hop heads’ excludes not only certain sounds but women as well. Aside from artists like Lauryn Hill or MC Lyte, both incredibly talented and landmark rappers, rankings largely exclude women as most female rappers are seen as too sexual or materialistic. The third problem is that hip hop heads tend to focus on the best of past eras, glossing over acts like Vanilla Ice, Paperboy, or Mase. There may be a lot of sludge released nowadays, but there was in the past as well. This feeds into the arguments that hip hop is dead or is dying. This debate resurfaced earlier this year as for awhile, there was not a single rap album that reached the number one spot on the Billboard 200.[viii]
Hip hop is not dying, it is just changing. As the music changes, so must its analysts. The hip hop head purist perspective is obsolete. My project is an attempt to start the necessary shift towards a more nuanced and thoughtful analysis of hip hop as a literary canon, and its artists as writers, not just mere rappers or performers.
My intention is to rebut the arguments of conservatives like Ben Shapiro and Liam Julian who posit that rap is not music and has no cultural value, and to also challenge the status quo of hip hop analysis and commentary, which focuses on seminal classics and omits other works of equal importance.[ix] This is not to say that essentials like Illmatic or Ready to Die do not merit the praise they receive, but discussions on the all-time greats of hip hop are typically limited to the same set of artists and albums.
The primary purpose of my hip hop analysis is not to rebut the claims of conservatives like Shapiro that rap is not music. Whether one considers rap music or not is secondary to its status as poetry. I am focusing on lyrics and songwriting. My main argument is that rap lyrics, even the seemingly simple or garbled lyrics, are a form of poetry and merit the status of literature. The hip hop canon is a literary canon. This canon is not exclusive or snobbish, as it includes artists like Migos and Gucci Mane as well as Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan. I am reading songs and albums as texts. Thus, the emphasis is on a literary interpretation, not a listening experience.
I will, however, contest the arguments that conservatives make about rap culture being degrading and objectifying, as well as their claims that all the lyrics are moronic. In an article he wrote for Breitbart in 2009 titled “Rap is Crap”, Shapiro says of rap that “It values the basest elements of human nature, from promiscuous sex to maltreatment of women to sickening violence.”[x] It has evidently never occurred to him that for many in America, sickening violence is an everyday reality. Aside from Shapiro’s full-throated support for sickening violence abroad, he is wrong that rap ‘values’ the basest elements of human nature. If rap values anything, it is abilities like versatility, lyrical nimbleness, charisma, and live performance. Rap is characterized by various literary devices executed in poetry, like metaphor and hyperbole. When Big L says, “I knocked out so many teeth the tooth fairy went bankrupt”, or when Ghostface Killah says “Tremendously obnoxious, no blotches/My telephone watch’ll leave bartenders topless”, it is obviously exaggeration.[xi] Hip hop is not a contest to see who can be the basest- that is preposterous. Shapiro goes on to say that “Liberals may call rap art, but they also call glazed poop art. They may praise rap as culturally enriching, but then again, they’re quick to defend human rights abuses by “culturally diverse” nations.”[xii] This is part of what Shapiro and other conservatives call cultural relativism in the arts, where obvious trash is lauded as incredible art. Some exhibits in modern art museums are literal trash, however, just because some liberals call garbage or blank canvases art, their reference to rap as art is not illegitimate.
Shapiro has also mocked the distinct grammatical structures of rappers like Future in the past, and the slang used. Rap, to conservatives and other critics, is not grammatical or even literate. Candace Owens once referred to Cardi B as an “illiterate rapper” when they were exchanging blows on Twitter/X around the time her song “WAP” dropped, featuring Megan Thee Stallion.[xiii] Contrary to this belief, many rappers are incredibly well read and educated. Nas may have dropped out in Grade 8, but he proves in his lyrics that he has a deft grasp of the English language and is able to employ it in witty and unique ways, as are other rappers, like Ras Kass, who wrote a song on his debut album, Souls On Ice, titled “Nature of the Threat”, in which he delivers an account of history from an Afro-centric perspective.[xiv]
Seeing rap as illiterate or ungrammatical belittles the intense creative process behind it. Different artists have their own creative processes. Jay-Z does not write down his lyrics on paper, he structures songs in his head after hearing the beat. Notorious B.I.G did the same, while 2pac would spend hours in the studio writing and recording endlessly. For most rappers, conceiving and writing their lyrics is akin to the process novelists or painters undertake to create their art. Rakim captures this when he writes in his memoir, “My writing starts in an empty room. It doesn’t really matter where because I have written everywhere. It’s just me and Four White Walls.”, and later when he writes that “My pen starts to flow. The lines in my notebook fill up and spill over to paint pictures on the white walls around me. The rhymes come from anywhere. They come from everywhere.”[xv] Seeing the pen as an outlet, and by extension, the studio booth, for creative expression, not mindless, violent drivel, is significant.
Rakim is a veteran of hip hop, as are artists like Nas. For them, just like much of the hip hop commentariat or hip-hop heads, they represent the prime era of hip hop, and the eras that followed became more and more atrocious. This is faulty logic at best. Contemporary artists like Key Glock or Latto may have a different creative process than their predecessors, but it is no less expressive or imaginative. What they create may be a totally different sound than Rakim, but different people, experiences, and places will inevitably produce different sounds. This is what hip-hop purists miss in their analysis. They may argue that only some rap would ever qualify as poetry, like the seminal classics, and the notion that someone like 21 Savage is a poet would be laughed at- this is mistaken. Arguing for rap to be considered a form of poetry at all is already difficult. As Adam Bradley points out, “Rap is poetry, but its popularity relies in part on people not recognizing it as such.”, and he notes that poetry is associated with hard work, not good times or vibes.[xvi] I would add that poetry has for some people a hint of elitism. My methodology of hip hop analysis contends that rap is poetry, it is a literary canon, and that this canon includes every rapper, up and coming or already established. From here I will read songs and albums as texts, and the authors of them, rappers, are authors, even if they do not see themselves that way. Rather than further the status quo of mainstream hip-hop analysis, my methodology will start a new and innovative discourse on a genre that is still hugely popular, despite the many claims that it is dead or dying.
Conclusion
I know that I am being ambitious in my goals for 2024, but since I am now out of school and free from essay deadlines and 2-hour seminars, I have been able to sit back and to ponder on what I want to write about and do with the education I have received. My time in university is only part of my education. Each day I spent scrubbing dishes taught me as much as each hour I spent writing essays and other school assignments.
When I go overseas again to teach English, I will not be bound by my job or location. From wherever I end up teaching, hopefully Thailand but I am open to other countries, like South Korea or Vietnam, I will travel all around Asia and I will be better equipped to discuss US foreign policy in the region. I will not be working so many hours that I have little to no time for writing. To the contrary, will have ample time to write and to fulfill my goals for my fiction, hip hop analysis, and coverage of the 2024 US presidential election. As well as these personal projects, I will strive to publish at least 2 op-eds, one on Taiwan and another on the US election.
I do not go into 2024 fearful or anxious, but excited and hopeful. Whatever happens in the US or in the rest of the world, I will do my best in making a worthy contribution to the US political and hip-hop discourse and hopefully getting my first novel published. I appreciate all the support I receive, and I look forward to growing the readership of my blog.
[i] Kafka, Franz. Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors. New York: Schocken Books, 1977.
[ii] Nicki Minaj. Moment 4 Life. Young Money/Cash Money Records, 2010.
[iii] Hazlitt, William. “From ‘on Poetry in General’.” Poetry Foundation, March 29, 2022. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69386/from-on-poetry-in-general.
[iv] The Atlantic. “Donald Trump.” The Atlantic, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/category/donald-trump/.
[v] Ward, Alexander. “Trump Considers Overhauling His Approach to North Korea If He Wins in 2024.” POLITICO, December 13, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/13/trump-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-plan-00131469.
[vi] Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defence of Poetry.” Poetry Foundation, 2009. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry.
[vii] Eustice, Kyle. “J.J. Fad: The First Ladies of Ruthless Records.” rockthebells.com, May 19, 2021. https://rockthebells.com/articles/jj-fad/.
[viii] Millman, Ethan. “Hip-Hop’s Chart Dominance Is Slipping This Year.” Rolling Stone, July 7, 2023. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/hip-hops-chart-dominance-falling-1234783963/.
[ix] Julian, Liam. “Bad Rap.” National Review, November 9, 2007. https://www.nationalreview.com/2007/11/bad-rap-liam-julian/, and Shapiro, Ben. “Rap Is Crap.” Breitbart, March 29, 2009. https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2009/03/29/rap-is-crap/.
[x] Shapiro. “Rap is Crap”.
[xi] Big L. Let ‘Em Have It L. Columbia Records, 1995., and Ghostface Killah. Iron Maiden. Epic/Razor Sharp Records, 1996.
[xii] Shapiro. “Rap is Crap”.
[xiii] Aniftos, Rania. “Cardi B Calls out Candace Owens for Calling Her ‘Uneducated,’ Says Commentator Tried to Sue Her with ‘No Case.’” Billboard, February 18, 2022. https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/cardi-b-says-candace-owens-tried-to-sue-her-1235033682/.
[xiv] Ras Kass. Nature of the Threat. Patchwerk/Priority Records, 1996.
[xv] Rakim, and Bakari Kitwana. Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity from the Lyrical Genius. New York, Ny: Amistad, An Imprint of HarperCollins publishers, 2019.
[xvi] Bradley, Adam. Book of Rhymes. Civitas Books, 2017.
References
Aniftos, Rania. “Cardi B Calls out Candace Owens for Calling Her ‘Uneducated,’ Says Commentator Tried to Sue Her with ‘No Case.’” Billboard, February 18, 2022. https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/cardi-b-says-candace-owens-tried-to-sue-her-1235033682/.
Big L. Let ‘Em Have It L. Columbia Records, 1995.
Bradley, Adam. Book of Rhymes. Civitas Books, 2017.
Eustice, Kyle. “J.J. Fad: The First Ladies of Ruthless Records.” rockthebells.com, May 19, 2021. https://rockthebells.com/articles/jj-fad/.
Ghostface Killah. Iron Maiden. Epic/Razor Sharp Records, 1996.
Hazlitt, William. “From ‘on Poetry in General’.” Poetry Foundation, March 29, 2022. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69386/from-on-poetry-in-general.
Julian, Liam. “Bad Rap.” National Review, November 9, 2007. https://www.nationalreview.com/2007/11/bad-rap-liam-julian/.
Kafka, Franz. Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors. New York: Schocken Books, 1977.
Millman, Ethan. “Hip-Hop’s Chart Dominance Is Slipping This Year.” Rolling Stone, July 7, 2023. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/hip-hops-chart-dominance-falling-1234783963/.
Nicki Minaj. Moment 4 Life. Young Money/Cash Money Records, 2010.
Rakim, and Bakari Kitwana. Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity from the Lyrical Genius. New York, Ny: Amistad, An Imprint of HarperCollins publishers, 2019.
Ras Kass. Nature of the Threat. Patchwerk/Priority Records, 1996.
Shapiro, Ben. “Rap Is Crap.” Breitbart, March 29, 2009. https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2009/03/29/rap-is-crap/.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defence of Poetry.” Poetry Foundation, 2009. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry.
The Atlantic. “Donald Trump.” The Atlantic, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/category/donald-trump/.
Ward, Alexander. “Trump Considers Overhauling His Approach to North Korea If He Wins in 2024.” POLITICO, December 13, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/13/trump-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-plan-00131469.
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