For the Dead Homie: Black Male Rappers, Homicide Survivorship Bereavement, and the Rap Tribute of Nipsey Hussle

Authors

Melvin L. Williams, Pace UniversityFollow
Justin K. Winley, Pace UniversityFollow
Justin A. Causey, Independent ResearcherFollow

Abstract

Ermias “Nipsey Hussle” Asghedom’s murder represented a cultural cataclysmic event that startled the Hip Hop community and triggered previous memories of Black men’s homicidal deaths in the world. Nipsey Hussle’s death inspired touching rap tribute songs by Black male rappers, who sought to commemorate his cultural legacy and express their bereavement as homicide survivors. Rap tribute songs occupy a significant history, as rappers historically employed them to honor Hip Hop’s fallen soldiers, communicate their homicide survivorship bereavement processes, and speak about social perils in the Black community. Framed by critical race (CRT) and gender role conflict theoretical frameworks, this study investigated twenty-six rap tribute songs, which were authored by twenty-eight Black male rap artists in commemoration of Nipsey Hussle’s life and legacy. We sought to understand how the examined Black male rappers use their music to grieve and communicate their bereavement experiences as homicide survivors.

The findings yielded complex, yet contradictory themes related to existing scholarship on Black men’s homicide survivorship bereavement strategies, rap’s homicide-related lyrics, and the sociocultural functions of rap tribute songs as rhetorical expressions of Black men’s homosociality and as laments of deceased friends and rappers. The examined rap tribute songs advanced three dominant themes in relation to the Black male rappers’ articulations of their homicide survivorship bereavement of Nipsey Hussle, which were 1) Black men’s grief, homosociality, and complex vulnerability narratives, 2) fear and paranoia declarations, and 3) and resolution of internal conflict and grief with vengeance. This investigation was significant to Hip Hop studies, for it illustrated how twenty-eight Black male rap artists leveraged the rhetorical power of rap tribute songs to articulate their complex homicide survivor bereavement processes, advance vital counternarratives concerning Black men’s mental health experiences with repeated exposure to homicide deaths and violence in rap and urban communities, and offer rich criticisms of gun violence, internalized racism, poverty, and systemic oppression.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.34718/x4j2-vq30

Volume

8

Issue

1

Recommended Citation

Williams, Melvin L.; Winley, Justin K.; and Causey, Justin A. (2021) "For the Dead Homie: Black Male Rappers, Homicide Survivorship Bereavement, and the Rap Tribute of Nipsey Hussle," Journal of Hip Hop Studies: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 7.
Available at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/jhhs/vol8/iss1/7