What is art?

The first time I heard those enchanting lyrics, “Watch me crank dat Soulja Boy, then Superman dat ho,” I was drawn to an obvious conclusion that a lot of us see about modern rap – that it is self-righteous, nihilistic and misogynistic. But for a reason I couldn’t explain at the time the song was first released, I downloaded the song and couldn’t stop listening to it, often closing the curtains in order to perfect the moves that go along with Soulja Boy’s smash hit.\nThen, in a following visit to Brooklyn, I encountered the song again in a manner I hadn’t considered before. After meeting several teenagers from the seemingly-formidable Jamaica neighborhood on the subway, I was entranced as one of the guys we met broke into a small closet and began fidgeting with the equipment inside. Then, “Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)” blared through the train, much to the dismay of the train’s older commuters. And in the next 30 seconds before the conductor angrily ordered us to turn off the song, we stood up in the train, began dancing to the song (I placed myself conveniently towards the back of the group), and just generally wallowed in the impropriety of the moment.\nAnd that is what rap is all about. Yes, there is the occasional Ja Rule to ruin the ideals upon which rap began, but if artistically done, rap is a medium through which artists can convey ideas of protest, realism and generational unity, like the modernists of the first half of the 20th century. For every Eminem being censored for his liberal use of the English language, there was an Edouard Manet painting what he actually saw in front of him despite the shock and criticism of the art world. \nSo where is the evidence that rap can be a viable source of great art to those who claim to hold high standards of listening to “good music”? One noticeable trend is that rap is crossing cultures and genres from which even the most indie fan base is unsafe. Indie and international rappers such as Lady Sovereign, M.I.A. and The Streets have proved that they can lay down rhymes and beats in the least commercial way and still are comparable in tone, lyric and meter to “commercial” rappers like OutKast, Ludacris or \nKanye West.\nYou can scoff at my treatise on rap as a bona fide art form. In the medium, just like any other in art, there is a corruption seeking to exploit it for commercialism, but that does not negate the medium as a whole. Look not at the exact words that are inappropriately used, but how they are used, where in the song they are used, how that word relates to the entire song, and how that word cannot be replaced by any other if the song wishes to maintain its awesome, rebellious power. Always remember to look closer.