The following essays are based upon Grant Farred's definition of a black vernacular intellectual in his book What's My Name which identifies Muhammad Ali, CLR James, Stuart Hall, and Bob Marley as ideal black vernacular intellectuals.
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Farred's qualifications for vernacularism breaks down to the following characteristics:
The vernacular intellectual must be a public figure with influence
The vernacular intellectual must be able to communicate and identify with "the masses" (whether through organic development or otherwise)
The vernacular intellectual must speak "from below" and against hegemony
The vernacular intellectual must use popular culture in order to spread their ideas to wide audience
"I ask why am I black, they say I was born in sin, and shamed inequity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick, 'love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." - Peter Tosh
At the One Love Peace Concert on April 22, 1978, Peter Tosh drew a stark contrast between himself and former bandmate, Bob Marley, in a bizarre juxtaposition of sets. Tosh insulted the political leaders present at the event (including Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, who Marley famously brought onstage in the next set as a gesture of peace between oppositional parties) by stating, “I am not a politician but I suffer the consequences.” He continued to grill the politicians for their failure to bring equal rights to poor blacks in Jamaica and he demanded freedom from the “general oppression of Africans on the planet” (Live at the One Love Peace Concert). After the rant, Tosh brought his militant demands to the forefront with the song “Equal Rights,” whose chorus sings, “I don't want no peace/I need equal rights and justice.” At the close of the song, Tosh continues on what he refers to as a “livatribe,” or live diatribe, concerning police brutality towards blacks and the legalization of cannabis while smoking a “spliff” (marijuana cigarette), a criminal act in Jamaica, to antagonize the present officers (Griffith 12). Five months later, some of the same police present at the event arrested Tosh and beat him within an inch of his life (Steffens). Even the threat of death could not silence the man whose incisive speech earned him the nickname “Stepping Razor.” Tosh’s confrontational and brutally honest approach to his music and words, on and off-stage, earn him a place as an uniquely aggressive black vernacular intellectual.
Peter Tosh’s beginnings in Kingston, Jamaica were a challenge and spawned his self-reliant philosophy. While Marley grew up with his mother and received financial support from his absent white father, Tosh lived with his aunt without a father or mother. He claims to have raised himself without influence from his aunt (Steffens). He met Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer at the age of 15 and they soon formed The Wailers group. Tosh’s militant attitudes towards black oppression and his optimistic outlook of escape from such oppression find their way into The Wailers’ major label debut, Catch a Fire, on songs such as “400 Years” and “Stop That Train.” The Wailers’ follow-up album, Burnin’, contains a smaller volume of material from Tosh, a foretelling sign of his departure from the group soon after the album’s release. However, Tosh’s sole contribution “Get Up, Stand Up” is a forceful call (Tosh’s verse is frequently considered one of the first “raps” prior to hip-hop’s emergence) to action for blacks, particularly Rastafarians, to “stand up for [their] rights.” Despite the success of the album, Tosh left the group, blaming producer Chris Blackwell for wanting to shift focus solely onto Marley. Tosh humorously but bitterly refers to Blackwell as “Whiteworst,” shedding light on his consistent distrust of whites in any level of authority (Steffens).
In 1976, after leaving The Wailers, Tosh released his (in)famous debut solo album Legalize It. Despite the overwhelming coverage of Tosh’s “cannabis cause,” a self-induced distraction from the truly oppressive system of racism, Tosh managed to call out the abuses of colonialist leaders in “Burial.”
What a big disgrace The way you rob up the place Rob everything you can find Yes you did And you'll even rob from the blind.
Tosh addresses the abuses of whites and the systemic destruction of African culture in this song. He sings that the African Diaspora has “robbed everything” from blacks similar to the way Frantz Fanon, who Tosh cites as an influence, explains in Wretched of the Earth (Campbell 79). He elaborates in interviews that blacks are the “blind” victims of a “brain-washing shitstem (Tosh’s play on the word “system”)” where blacks are left uneducated and illiterate in order to pacify dissent and maintain hegemony (Steffens).
While Tosh and Fanon may agree on how colonialism has destroyed African culture, Tosh’s second solo album, Equal Rights, shows a slight divergence from the Martinique’s philosophy in his song “African.”
Don't care where you come from As long as you're a black man You're an African. No mind your nationality You have got the identity of an African.
Fanon advocated the assertion of national cultures while Tosh “identifies a collective African identity based on blackness” and asserts that blacks, regardless of location, should unite and use their collective identity (Wright). Tosh’s Pan-African viewpoint stems from his Rastafarian roots and the Pan-African ideals espoused by Haille Selassie, the prophet and God-incarnate according to the religion.
The Equal Rights album serves as Tosh’s thesis on the condition of blacks around the world and is arguably his greatest contribution as a black vernacular intellectual. The album sets a defiant tone with a remake of The Wailers’ “Get Up, Stand Up” which was an anthem at the time of Equal Rights’ release. Tosh proceeds to stand up lyrically to white oppression with the subsequent track, “Downpressor Man,” an indictment of the courage (or lack thereof) of the white oppressor. Tosh warns the “downpressor man” of an uprising and asks, “where you gonna run to?” Tosh’s confrontational lyricism on these tracks as well as the aforementioned “African,” the title track “Equal Rights,” and a South African protest song, “Apartheid,” criticize political, social, and economic injustices. His music also provides sources of resistance through assertion of black identity and calls for action from all black people.
Equal Rights and Tosh’s “livatribes” leads one to believe that he would become more ingrained in the vernacular. Mick Jagger, who was present at the One Love concert, signed Tosh to the Rolling Stones’ record label, which brought Tosh’s music to a broader, international audience. Despite freedom from censorship and wider distribution, Tosh’s militant message diverted from issues of blacks on Bush Doctor, Mystic Man, and Wanted Dread or Alive, all of which were considered financial and critical failures (“Peter Tosh Biography”). Tosh’s 1983 album, Mama Africa, managed to squeeze in only one song with vernacular merit, “Not Gonna Give It Up.” Tosh sings that he “will be fighting ‘til Africa and Africans are free” and reiterates his arguments concerning poverty. After the release of Mama Africa, Tosh left for self-imposed exile in Africa, trying to free himself from record contracts that distributed his music in South Africa.
Tosh returned in 1987 to record No Nuclear War, which contained numerous protest songs concerning apartheid and racism and won a Grammy for Best Reggae Performance. Tosh appeared on the path to career (and vernacular) revival. Unfortunately, a gang of three men, who opposed his militant views, murdered Tosh, on September 11, 1987 (Campbell 237). Peter Tosh’s premature death made him a martyr for his outspoken and unveiled attitudes and cut short an uncompromising vernacular career.
Works Cited
Campbell, Nicholas. Stepping Razor Red X: the Peter Tosh Story. Boston, Massachusetts: Northern Arts Entertainment, 1992.
"Who is funnier, politically smarter, and more politically agile than David Chappelle?" - Grant Farred, author of What's My Name?
"I passed the torch of comedy to Dave Chappelle" - Richard Pryor
In January 2003, Chappelle’s Show, starring Dave Chappelle, premiered under controversy with a Frontline parody sketch with a character named Clayton Bigsby, a fictional black white supremacist. Comedy Central initially rejected the skit, citing its gratuitous use of the word “nigger” and other racial epithets (over 20 instances in the course of a nine-minute segment). Neal Brennan, co-creator of Chappelle’s Show, describes the fight, “Comedy Central didn’t think it was exemplary of what the show is and that was the most vicious fight we ever had with them because we were like, ‘This is exactly what the show is’” (Haggins 222). Dave Chappelle’s commitment to racial progress through his humor and his unwillingness to censor his art makes him a strong and incisive black vernacular intellectual.
The Clayton Bigsby sketch sets the tone for the next two-and-a-half seasons of Chappelle’s Show. The skit opens with a warning from fictional-journalist Kent Wallace, “WARNING: For viewers sensitive to issues of race, be advised that the following piece contains gratuitous use of the “N” word. And by “N” word, I mean Nigger. There, I said it” (“Frontline”). Kent Wallace’s exclamation of “There, I said it,” indicates the discomfort the sketch creates for a white audience. Chappelle’s “gratuitous use of the ‘N’ word” confronts the acceptability of the term. The sketch continues to play on the absurdities and issues surrounding the white supremacist movement and stereotypes of “blackness.” Clayton Bigsby, although black, represents the wrongs in “white” behavior.
Chappelle’s Show continually pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable on cable television but it became notorious for addressing issues of race especially uncomfortable matters such as the “N” word. Through sketches like “Roots Outtakes,” “The Racial Draft,” and “The Niggar Family,” as well as recurring segments such “Ask a Black Dude” and “Negrodamus” featuring Paul Mooney, a former writer for Richard Pryor, Chappelle’s Show brought the concerns of the black community to a diverse primetime audience. Despite its multi-racial viewers, Chappelle’s Show was anything but subtle with its delivery of racial humor. In a sketch entitled “Black Bush,” Chappelle, giving an interpretation of a black President Bush and his administration, blatantly points out the injustices and overt scrutiny that blacks face compared to whites. Chappelle asserts the public would be more critical of his administration if Bush were black. The skit aired amid controversy, like many Chappelle's Show sketches, during the 2004 election. While not a factor in the end of the series, “Black Bush” would be the last Chappelle-endorsed sketch to air on Comedy Central.
Chappelle’s humor clearly draws from his experience as a black man in America. This is evident in his stand-up special, Killin’ Them Softly. Born in Washington, D.C., Chappelle returns to the Capitol years after leaving the city where he claims to have “seen some shit.” Even prior to Chappelle’s Show’s success, the predominately-black audience greets Chappelle with screams, cheers, and a standing ovation. He jokes to his hometown crowd about race relations, racial-profiling, police brutality, and life “in the ghetto.” He highlights the double standards of race by describing a white friend who confronts a cop under the influence of marijuana and gets out of a speeding ticket by saying “I’m sorry officer, I didn’t know I couldn’t do that” while blacks are wantonly killed by police and the injustice covered up by “sprinkling some crack” on blacks. Although Chappelle exaggerates, his musings point out fundamental wrongs within the law enforcement system and its treatment of blacks.
In a special, after the initial success of Chappelle’s Show, entitled For What It’s Worth, a predominately white, San Franciscan audience greets Chappelle with polite applause, a stark contrast to the overzealous response from the black DC audience. He begins by saying that he knows how they manage to get along so well because they “put the niggers on the other side of that bridge.” This hints at elements of nationalist ideology and shows that Chappelle will not restrain his material due to the demographics of the room. He addresses the injustice towards blacks since the founding fathers, referring to money as “baseball cards of slave owners.” He also riffs about racial bias in the trials of Kobe Bryant, R. Kelly, and even Michael Jackson, blaming black reaction to the OJ Simpson trial for the “black-celebrity witch-hunt.” However, Chappelle claims when he visits schools he says to black children, “You need to focus. You gotta stop blaming white people for your problems and you’ve got to learn to rap, play basketball, or something! Nigga, you’re trapped! Either that or sell crack! Those are your only options!” His joke contains the common theme of uplift and despite some negative stereotypes, it resonates with the black audience who not only understand the need to control their own destiny but also the limited options that white-oppression has given them.
Chappelle’s Show came to an abrupt and mysterious end in its third season when Chappelle left for Africa to escape the pressures of fame as well as his disillusionment with the direction of the show, wondering if he was “reinforcing stereotypes” that he was trying to combat. A “Racial Pixies” sketch, where Chappelle portrays pixies of different races giving stereotypical advice on how to act, reportedly led to Chappelle’s departure when a white crew-member laughed in a way that made Chappelle feel uncomfortable with the material. Chappelle’s “Black Pixie” is particularly regressive. Chappelle plays himself and a pixie made up in blackface. The pixie bugs Chappelle on an airline flight when he is given the choice between ordering chicken or fish, telling him to "order a big bucket" and proceeds to shingle dance. Chappelle orders fish, angering the pixie, but the flight attendant tells him they are out of fish. Chappelle asks how the chicken is prepared and the attendant replies, "fried," and the pixie exclaims "hallelujah!" The pixie summons a minstrel banjo player, played by Mos Def, “to celebrate.” A passenger offers to switch his fish dinner with Chappelle’s, which Mos Def’s pixie exclaims might be catfish and they begin to sing. Given the obnoxiously bigoted portrayal of regressive stereotypes, it is no surprise that Chappelle claims he felt that the unnamed “white crew-member” was “laughing at me instead of laughing with me.”
Filmed two years before the infamous “Pixie Sketch,” Dave Chappelle’s Block Party is anything but regressive. Chappelle is at the height of his game, having recently captured the famous $55 million dollar deal (which he later returns after his Africa departure) for Season 3 of Chappelle’s Show. Most of the film consists of music from Chappelle’s Show musical guest regulars such as Mos Def, The Roots, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, dead prez, and other artists that Chappelle believes “say what nobody else is saying and what needs to be said.” Between scenes, Chappelle jokes around with the “regular people” who he claims are the “reason [he is] in this business.” While Chappelle’s humor may be incisive, bold, or even regressive, his comedy ultimately serves to uplift the black community while building bridges to other races with his widespread appeal. As his reemergence in the stand up circuit post-Chappelle's Show illustrates, Chappelle’s humor is here to stay.
Works Cited
"Black Bush." Chappelle's Show. Comedy Central.
Chappelle's Show- the Lost Episodes. Dir. Neal Brennan. Perf. Dave Chappelle. DVD. Comedy Central, 2006.
Chappelle’s Show Season 1. Dir. Andre Allen. Perf. Dave Chappelle. DVD. Comedy Central, 2003.
Chappelle’s Show Season 2. Dir. Andre Allen. Perf. Dave Chappelle. DVD. Comedy Central, 2004.
Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Dir. Michel Gondry. Perf. Dave Chappelle. DVD. Universal Studios, 2006.
