Rap Music and Rebellion: From Highschool Detention to the Grammys

A rapper’s biggest enemy is their K-12 teachers— or so many rap songs like to portray. 

From Biggie’s “to all the teachers that told me I’d never amount to nothin’” and Juice Wrld’s “I remember up in kindergarten, the teacher told me I wouldn’t be sh*t,” rappers have utilized their song lyrics to fight back educational oppression since the birth of Hip-hop in NYC. 

Lyric: “Man that school shit is a joke/ The same people who control the school system control The prison system, and the whole social system” … “All my high school teachers can suck my d*ck. Telling me white man lies straight bullsh*t.” 

There are countless rap songs with lyrics that mirror the ones above. These lyrics, like many, illuminate the underlying message of our education system; it’s one that profits off the oppression of Black and brown students. 

It is no surprise that the U.S. educational system, like many other of its institutional structures, has been built off the misfortune of marginalized communities. America’s educational system, in particular, reinforces white supremacy and disenfranchisement through unjust teaching styles and discipline practices. As a product of desegregation, U.S. schools have been used as a tool to condition young Black and brown students to believe they will never succeed. Black and brown students are more likely to face disciplinary action, have negative encounters with counsel, and be profiled by school police officers. These negative reactions towards minorities in education lead to an output of students dropping out, decreasing class mobility, and increasing their chance of subsumption into the carceral system. Rap music has been oppositional to this oppression. Many rappers have fought against the school-to-prison pipeline, the carceral system, law enforcement, and other institutions of white supremacy. 

Lyrics: “I got suspended, ooh you got suspended For chiefin’ a hunnid blunts // So at the school they arrested him, back seat squad car // No stars, good jobs, or excellence

The intersections of rap and education are reflected in Chance the Rapper’s mixtape 10 Day (2012). The multi-Grammy-winning Chicago rapper wrote his debut mixtape in 2012 during his 10-day suspension while he was a senior in high school. In an interview with Mic, Chance talks about the story behind his suspension and how he got caught smoking weed near his school. The rapper stated that he was always on the radar of his school law enforcement and, when they had the opportunity to arrest and suspend him, they jumped at the occasion. 

“They put me on a watchlist for people to get expelled from Chicago Public Schools,” he told a group of his fans. “My school officer arrested us and got us suspended. He took me to the school and got me a ten-day suspension and took me to the station.”   

The events that happened to Chance in his adolescence are not an isolated phenomenon. These types of interactions with school law enforcement and officials are too common for many Black students in low-income school districts. Research has been conducted by various organizations like Education Next to demonstrate how schools and teachers in low-income communities and communities of color have aided in the disenfranchisement of Black and brown students. Schools all around the country have set up students for failure at an early age, leading to a life of hardships. In many cases, K-12 teachers claim they can predict a child’s future based on their behavior as a child. Teachers and counselors utilize students’ test scores, reading levels, and behavior charts to dictate what their future occupations and wages will be. Black and brown students who demonstrate poor behavior in schools are judged more harshly than their white peers. Students are then given negative feedback which conditions them to believe they will never succeed. This feedback loop is also known as the school-to-prison pipeline. 

According to the Learning for Justice, “the school-to-prison  pipeline is the ‘discipline policies that push students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system at alarming rates.'” This pipeline has dangerous consequences that alter the lives of millions of students currently enrolled in K-12. Private prisons also profit off the number of people that fill the beds of prisons, allowing for the monetization of Black trauma and exploitation. The school-to-prison pipeline has exacerbated the mass incarnation of Black men in the United States. The education and carceral system have built a modern-day Jim Crow state that prevents Black and brown Americans from success in society. Rappers have brought awareness to the school-prison nexus in their music, their lyrics, and interviews long before academics discussed and researched the topic. 

Lyric: “For my teachers that said I wouldn’t make it here/I spend a day what you make a year/I had to drop this to make it clear” 

In an interview with NPR, rapper Vic Mensa discusses his relationship with rap, education, and the pipeline. 

“Teachers in schools are treating me differently,” he said. “And I’m put in individualized education programs, IEPs, just because I got this brand on me. I got the ‘black’ brand.”

Mensa, who is also from Chicago, stated that he never got to experience a real childhood because of the way he was treated in school and by the police.  

“Around age 12 when I was riding my bike, the police pulled me over and started harassing me,” Mensa said. “I was pushed off the bike, slammed to the ground and I realized, ‘Oh, OK. I’m black.’”

Schools have subjected Black and brown students to harsh punishments and few rewards. Education Next has stated that, “Students assigned to middle schools that are stricter are 3.2 percentage points more likely to have ever been arrested and 2.5 percentage points more likely to have ever been incarcerated as adults.” Along with this, they are 1.7 percentage points more likely to drop out of high school and 2.4 percentage points less likely to attend a 4-year college. These statistics disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic male students.

Lyrics: “I felt so inspired by what my teacher said/Said I’d either be dead or be a reefer head/Now sure if that’s how adults should speak to kids/Especially when the only thing I did was speak in class/I’ll teach his ass”

While rap and hip-hop have been seen as an oppositional force to academia, this is slowly changing with the diversification of education. In an effort to make teaching strategies more inclusive, teachers all over the world have begun to utilize rap music in their instruction. 

Texas teacher Thomas Mayfield turned to hip-hop and rap music to help students who were falling behind in math. 

“Rap music has built confidence,” Thomas Mayfield told NPR. “It helps to build a less traumatic experience, and they feel like they’re invited and welcomed into the classroom.” With this method, Mayfield stated that 90% of his classroom passed their final exams. 

Along with utilizing rap to remember formulas, educators are now utilizing hip-hop as a form of art, poetry, and creative writing. 

Lyric: “I make mo’ money than my old teachers and I’m proud of that You thought you was teaching me, well, bitch, I shoulda taught yo’ ass” 

The effort to mend the bad blood between Hip-hop and education is happening outside of the classroom as well. In 2016, rapper P. Diddy opened The Capital Preparatory Harlem Charter School in Harlem for underrepresented youth. In 2003, rapper Jay Z and his mother Gloria Carter began a scholarship fund “to help individuals facing socio-economic hardships further their education at institutions of higher learning.” And despite having a bad relationship with academia, in 2017 Chance the Rapper donated $1 million to Chicago schools and even started his own awards show to honor teachers during school shutdowns giving them “Grammys for teachers.” 

Rappers were onto something when they called out their educational instructors for their misconduct. The people who were supposed to assure and give guidance had other plans in mind (i.e. to fill in prison beds). Rap music has been a medium for rebellion against the school-to-prison pipeline and brings awareness to injustice in education. When rappers call out the misconduct of their past teachers, counselors, and school police in their lyrics they are participating in racial, economic, and political discourse. Their success despite the status quo and the negative feedback they receive in K-12 showcases their Black perseverance and excellence.

Article by Saida Dahir

Design by Geneva Bowers