Durkheim’s Mixtape on Rap

“The Mixtape of the Revolution”

On January 29th, 2012 The New York Times published an article titled “The Mixtape of the Revolution” by Sujatha Fernandes, a sociology professor, talking about the “recent wave of revolutions across the Arab world” and the effect rap music is having on these movements. Fernandes concentrates on the uprise of rap music and what they symbolize to these young revolutionary groups. Fernandes states that, “rap music has played a critical role in articulating citizen discontent over poverty, rising food prices, blackouts, unemployment, police repression and political corruption.” Rap music symbolizes just what these young people are fighting for.

One of the early founders of the field of sociology, Emile Durkheim, will help us better understand not only what Fernandes illustrates through her article, but also how rap plays a larger role in these people’s lives than what we would first gather. While it might be difficult to see what a 19th century intellectual would have in common with 21st century Arab rappers, the reality is that both have a very similar foundation. Durkheim saw that many human actions could be explained beyond that of the interior circumstances to that of exterior circumstances, he called this idea social facts. Fernandes sees rap music as one of these social facts that is influencing this young group of people to further revolt and unify, showing that the source of revolution is also influenced by forces external to them. As Fernandes states, these rappers put “political reality that was not being otherwise acknowledged, rappers hit a nerve, and their music served as a call to arms for the budding protest movements”. Rap music also brings a sense of social solidarity to these revolutionary groups across Arab nations, bringing a further cohesion to the group. As one rapper told Fernandes, “I know people have a lot to say in their hearts, but no way to convey it.”  The song acted as sluice gates for the release of anger that, until then, was being expressed clandestinely, if at all.” Durkheim explored this bond of social solidarity in his work, by questioning what were the forces that caused a social bond. Although Durkheim saw mechanical solidarity being rooted in simple societies, I believe that in some of these more complex societies, such a Egypt, Fernandes points out that rap is a mechanical solidarity.  Rap music is bringing a likeliness to these young people, because not only are they united to revolt and protest, but also have a common symbol that they share.

Another term that both Durkheim and Fernandes look to is anomie, the lack of moral regulation. You would think that to prohibit revolution we would need a stronger shared moral code. Fernandes outlines how these rappers “are most concerned with protecting a constitutional order that they see as being trampled by unscrupulous politicians,” and how they seek to restore these moral codes and regulations that they have been denied of. Although Durkheim is considered a conservative during his time he did not seek to return to the previous conditions of order, what he saw was a necessity for moral codes, a new type of moral codes that would bring back order to society. In Durkheim’s “Elementary Forms of Religious Life,” he categorizes the world into what is sacred and everything else that is profane. Here we see how this group of people take rap, something otherwise profane, and makes it sacred and part of their movement. Durkheim states that, “the social life, in all its aspects and in every period of its history, is made possible only by a vast symbolism”. Durkheim’s collective conscience is illustrated by Fernandes in an article where all these young people believe that change is necessary and have this common sentiment emphasized by rap songs to protest and seek change.

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