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Philosophical Considerations On Rap Music in Viewpoint of Aesthetics of Media : from S. Kierkegaard, S. Kracauer and W. Benjamin

  • The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
  • Abbr : JASA
  • 2010, 31(), pp.139-184
  • Publisher : 한국미학예술학회
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Other Arts and Kinesiology
  • Published : June 30, 2010

Sun Kyu Ha 1

1홍익대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Hip hop and rap music has been one of the most widely disseminated and strongly influential popular music genres since 1970’s. However there were only few attempts to study rap music philosophically till now. The aim of this paper is to inquire into rap music as a significant art form in viewpoint of philosophical aesthetics. In a first step this paper reminds some central arguments of theories on mass media and mass culture of Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin. As we know, they regard mass media not merely as technical instruments but as a ‘historical-technical a priori’. In other words, they underline culture-historical necessity of mass media and consider their technological characteristics and philosophical importance and implications. Then I move to reflect on remarkable features of some modern mass media－telephone, gramophone, radio, photography, film and television－and their media effects from the viewpoint of aesthetics of media. Here special emphasis should be laid on their essential role which they have been played in the modification of ontological nature of music and relationship between music and reality. Based on theoretical explanations above, I want to point out and analyse four opposing aspects as precisely as possible that are inherent in rap music as a significant cultural form: first conflict between verbal and musical elements, second contrariety between music and noise or music and reality, third opposition between musical immediacy(Unmittelbarkeit) and verbal temporality (historicity), and fourth competition between vertical order and horizontal dispersion. Through the explanation of these four aspects, aesthetic basic concepts can also be made clear that we must deliberate carefully in any further study on rap music. At the same time we come to realize in which sense rap music uses media effects creatively and has critical potential to interrupt the illusory and deceptive power of dominant popular music. Finally I discuss the problem of poetic language und poetic subject in rap music. It will be showed that its poetic language is totally different from that of the traditional lyrics and its poetic subject as a particular existential individual pursues political ethos of horizontal solidarity and justice among pluralistic individuals.

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