Harry (H. A.) Nethery

ABSTRACTA number of philosophers within critical race theory use phenomenology to describe the way in which their identities are always already constituted as delinquent within the consciousness of white people, and how their own identity fractures in relation to this white gaze – a fracturing that creates unspeakable ontological, and ultimately physical, violence. Though these philosophers are already doing phenomenology in their work, there is a deeper level of analysis that has yet to be given. Specifically, an account has not yet been provided as regards the production of the white gaze within the consciousness of white people. That is, how is an already racialized world of experience produced prior to any active reflection? In this essay, I engage George Yancy’s famous elevator example, using Edmund Husserl’s concepts of apperception, internal time consciousness and passive synthesis to give a phenomenological description of the production of a pre-reflective racialized world.

This essay undertakes a phenomenological inquiry into the ‘experiential structure of hip-hop’ – a structure that hip-hop artist Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) gestures towards in his text Decoded. In this book, Jay-Z argues that hip-hop has a particular power to act as the vehicle for the communication of a specific type of experience, i.e. contradictory experiences, or those which do not seem possible under the principle of non-contradiction. For instance, Tupac Shakur says of his mom that “…even as a crack fiend, mama / You always was a Black Queen, mama.” The way in which hip-hop is a powerful vehicle for this communication lies, according to Jay-Z, in its very structure, which he describes using two sets of terms: rhythm/flow and music/rhyme. Using Jay-Z’s general outline, this essay attempts to complete a phenomenological analysis of hip-hop, in the effort to (1) isolate the experiential structure of hip-hop and (2) isolate, within this structure, the way in which hip-hop is able to communicate contradictory experiences. In the final analysis, the author isolates the experiential structure of hip-hop and shows how its multiple layers work to draw listeners in and induce them to experience-with the artist.