Feb
2022
Criminality in Music: Jay Z’s 99 Problems
For the second installment of this Civic Issue Blog, I wanted to look at a more contemporary song that perhaps better represents criminality in music we think of today. I think the perfect example comes from Jay Z’s song “99 Problems”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YdLT0rL6L4https://youtu.be/0YdLT0rL6L4
The song, which appeared in the 2003 album “The Black Album”, has three main verses, but for the purposes of this blog, I want to place special emphasis on the second and most famous verse. In this verse, Jay Z describes an encounter between himself and a police officer after being pulled over. The scene is set in 1994, not because racial profiling was especially rampant in that year compred to 2003, but because Jay Z would have been in his early twenties. A police officer initiates a stop, and despite possessing drugs in the back of his car, Jay Z pulls over. The police officer says that Jay Z was “going 55 in a 54,” and it quickly becomes obvious that the officer pulled him over because of his race.
As evidenced from this Jay Z song as well as many others of the time, race and crime- especially in the rap genre of music- are deeply interconnected. This isn’t to say that they are connected because African-American music artists committed crimes which leaked into their music, but the exact opposite. No matter their actions, they would always be seen as criminals by the law and those who racially profiled them to be criminals. The lyrics, “License and registration and step out of the car, Are you carrying a weapon on you, I know a lot of you are,’” doesn’t reflect a single officer’s racism, but instead an entire culture surrounding the presumed guilt of young African-American males. Here, Jay Z knows he is getting pulled over for nothing (the speed limit is obviously 55), but he is still in the wrong.
While the song depicts a young Jay Z involved in crime, it also reaches a much larger and broader audience in the form of African-Americans in general. The racial profiling as described in the song affects every black person in America. As concluded by a study performed by Stanford University, black and hispanic drivers in the U.S. are more likely to be stopped and more than twice as likely to be searched after being initially stopped. (1) These statistics do not stem from minority drivers simply being more wreckless or unsafe drivers compared to their white counterparts, but instead they are manufactured by officers who see these drivers as more prone to possessing illegal contraband or doing something illegal.
(Rate at which minority drivers are searched compared to white drivers)
Another jarring aspect of this is that racial profiling is quite legal by most measures. According to the court case Whren vs. The United States, the supreme court ruled that a propensity to pull over drivers of specific races did not violate any law as long as the original apopolgia for the stop was justified (2). Keep in mind, however, that the bar for initiating a justified traffic stop is incredibly low. This decision gives credence to many of Jay Z’s complaints in the song. In an America where young African-American males are disproportionately stopped, searched, and interrogated by unjust systems and police officers, it is almost impossible for one’s life not to be impeded in a significant way. In this sense, the racial injustice African-Americans (especially younger males) face hampers them, and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that they must fall into. As Jay Z explains in a Howard Stern 2010 radio interview, “When I am faced with everyone telling me I’m a criminal, I’m gonna get by through selling and doing these illegal acts.”
Another interesting aspect of this song is the conjunction of criminality and constitutional rights. Despite having this symbolic figure of the police system pull Jay Z over for arbitrary reasons, Jay Z uses the law to help himself out. Explicitly stated, the song discusses various protections granted by the fourth amendment. In this ironic event, the system that the cops are allegedly enforcing is actually protecting the artist from unjust profiling. This certainly also highlights the intellect of Jay Z while also enforcing the common stereotype in rap of fighting the law. In this case, it is a verbal rebuttal rather than a physical altercation. Nonetheless, the song “99 Problems” sheds light on the relationship between criminality and music through Jay Z’s infusion of personal experience into the song as well as the broader relatability that African-American audiences can appreciate.
Sources
- https://www.aclu.org/report/driving-while-black-racial-profiling-our-nations-highways
- https://www.oyez.org/cases/1995/95-5841
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004736/
kbh5580
February 25, 2022 at 4:02 am (2 years ago)I agree with your stance comparing criminality in music to the constitutional right.
“[M]ost of the time I got a ticket, I deserved it. I knew why I was pulled over. But there were times where I didn’t. [T]here are a lot of African-Americans — not just me — who have that same kind of story of being pulled over. ..There’s some racial bias in the system.” The story and words stated by former president Barack Obama (Kim Soffen).
I think that a lot of the criminal behavior represented in rap music is not based on true intentions or actual events of crime, but, is simply to convey the false notion, that being black is the criminal act. Looking at statistical data, a study at “100 million traffic stops across the United States, black drivers were about 20 percent more likely to be stopped” (NYU). I wanted to highlight and emphasize the importance and meaning in your words, “No matter their actions, they would always be seen as criminals by the law and those who racially profiled them to be criminals.”
“A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists” (Sophia Kerby). Jay Z, Former president Obama, and millions of other African Americans have been pulled over (or targeted) because of pure racism.
JayZ’s song 99 problems is just one of the many songs that brings awareness to racial profiling that many minorities encounter. There is a long history of African American musicians portraying racial profiling and rasim just because of the color of their skin asserts them as criminal .
Though this is not a musical example I think it a prominent example of the racial profiling of African Americans. Aramis Ayala was the first and only elected state attorney in the state of Florida. She was stopped by Florida police while driving from Florida A&M University College of Law. While being very cooperative she asked why she was being pulled over. The sad truth is that this alteration could have taken turns for the worst if they did not figure out that she was a state official. There was no true reason for the stop except for her being black and with a confidential license plate.
To conclude this point of view, the biggest crime in history and to date, is still the false truth of the color of the black and brown skin, ultimately being deemed as a criminal action. This is clearly portrayed in modern rap music and other genres.
Sources:
Communications, NYU Web. “Research Shows Black Drivers More Likely to Be Stopped by Police.” NYU, 5 May 2020, https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/black-drivers-more-likely-to-be-stopped-by-police.html.
Cusick, Julia, et al. “The Top 10 Most Startling Facts about People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States.” Center for American Progress, 16 July 2009, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-top-10-most-startling-facts-about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/.
Grinberg, Emanuella. “Florida State Attorney Pulled over in Traffic Stop That Goes Nowhere Fast.” CNN, Cable News Network, 13 July 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/12/us/florida-state-attorney-aramis-ayala-traffic-stop/index.html.
Soffen, Kim. “The Big Question about Why Police Pull over so Many Black Drivers.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 24 Nov. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/08/the-big-question-about-why-police-pull-over-so-many-black-drivers/.
avf5619
February 25, 2022 at 7:40 am (2 years ago)This song is definitely a great example of artists highlighting police brutality and racial inequity through music. Particularly the “55 in a 54” sticks out at me as it calls particular attention to the lengths police will go to to target people of color. 1 MPH is barely over the speed limit, and a cop pulling someone over for that clearly shows an ulterior motive.
According to the director of the Harvard Archive, hip hop can be thought of as a “historical record of the nation’s racial violence and injustice” (Siliezar). Hip hop has documented social issues and inequity throughout time when there wasn’t nearly as much focus on it in the media, and when there were no videos taken of incidences of police brutality and abuse of their power. It spoke about issues that weren’t talked about, raising awareness and encouraging discussion for these topics.
Hip hop began to focus more on police brutality and Black experiences during the late 80s and 90s (Siliezar). It is important to note that there was a distinction in the experiences discussed depending on location. On the East coast many Black adolescents took public transportation to school, and wrote more about white supremacy and the social aspects of racial inequity, whereas the youth on the West coast tended to drive themselves to school, leading to the writing of songs about police interactions and issues (Siliezar). It’s clear to see that because Black people on the West drove themselves, they were individually targeted by police more often than those on the East coast, with traffic stops being an easy way for police to identify, stop, and question Black people.
In addition to topics of police though, hip hop artists also wrote about Black experiences in general like the fears of gang violence, poverty in communities of color, the differing struggles of Black men and women, and much more (Siliezar).
Hip hop songs may discuss infuriating and upsetting topics of brutality and racial injustice, but through the pain of these experiences there is a presentation and underlying theme of bravery, hope, and strength. For example, the song “Fight The Power” encourages fighting through the negative experiences, maintaining hope and belief in a better future, and resisting those that caused and enforced injustice (Siliezar).
Nowadays there is even more discussion of racial injustice, with Marcyliena Morgan, the founding executive director of the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, stating that “virtually all women in hip hop are focused on racial injustice right now” (Siliezar).
It is very obvious that hip hop’s discussion of racial inequality has inspired resilience, opposition, and a fire for change that is essential for change in a way that is not only educational but also beautiful, musical, and artistic.
Source: Siliezar, Juan. “Hiphop’s long history of exposing police brutality.” Harvard Gazette, 23 July 2020, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/hiphops-long-history-of-exposing-police-brutality/. Accessed 25 February 2022.