The Shakespeare Phenomenon (Jan, 2023)
‘The Shakespeare Phenomenon’ is a term used to describe the continuous Shakespearian allusions, interpretations and retellings that permeate into mediums beyond their original transmission. This phenomenon can also be employed as a sociocultural term used to describe how cultures, traditions and individuals refer to Shakespeare in order to conjure new, alternative meanings. Whilst this manifestation is more prevalent in visual adaptations - the star-crossed lovers embattled by familial and gang rivalries in Romeo and Juliet (1597) and West Side Story (1961) , or the thematic and characteristic similarities in Hamlet (1599-1601) and Disney’s The Lion King (1994) - I will make the case that ‘the institution of Shakespeare’[1], as Eaglestone ( 1968 - ) writes, ‘stretches well beyond the world of literature’[2] and is active across all streams of art.
More particularly, I will discuss how Shakespeare has been adopted within the guild of contemporary hip-hop music as a vehicle to address contemporary, critical issues such as: race, class and gender, whilst bringing new meaning to the text. I will then briefly touch upon the two warring schools of thought - the ‘traditionalists’ and ‘cultural materialists’ - to provide a balanced overview of how the playwright is viewed as both a ‘pure genius untrammelled by art’[3], and one who, through his pre-eminent status in our society, has often found himself accused of being a ‘baffling, tiring, frustrating and downright unpleasant’[4] individual to study, for those belonging to the latter party.
I will also discuss how the embedment of Shakespearian allusions, interpretations and references within the subculture of hip-hop (through analysis of three hip-hop songs) constructs new meaning to an individual, often deemed ‘elitist’ and archaic, through the implementation of theorists such as Barthes’ The Death of the Author - which argues that it is through the active role of the reader, and not the author, that extracts meaning from the text - and Julia Kristeva’s (1941 -) theory of intertextuality.
I will then turn my attention to the subculture of hip-hop and its pedagogical potential within classrooms. More so, I will explore how this genre is making palatable the complexities of Shakespeare as a way of introducing a new generation of students to the work of the national playwright.
Although four-hundred years following his death, William Shakespeare continues to hold an almost deific status over societies, cultures and generations. His texts have been translated into more than one-hundred languages and, despite a fierce, competitive market, he still remains as one of the world’s bestselling poets with more than two-billion copies of his work having been sold worldwide.
In his ‘Ted Talk’ on Shakespeare’s omnipotence in society, actor Chris Gaze echoes the work of Bernard Levin’s ‘Quoting Shakespeare’ - a British journalist who, in one of his best-known pieces, illuminates how much of our everyday discourse is accredited to the playwright. “If you’ve been played fast and loose”[5], Gaze begins, “if you’ve been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle. If you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance on your lord and master [...] you are, as good luck would have it, quoting Shakespeare.”[6]
This revelation not only shows how much of our everyday discourse is attributed to England’s national poet, but how, within the field of academia, Shakespeare continues to be viewed as the ‘crucial inaugurator of modernity’[7]; an esteemed playwright who has expanded beyond his original footing in traditional literature and the theatrical to go on to influencing hundreds of contemporary film and theatrical adaptations. However, the ‘spirit’ of Shakespeare transcends even these traditional modes. Intertwining itself within the culture and ‘black expression’ of hip-hop music. This relationship should not be viewed as a ‘one-way’ sort but one that is mutualistic - a harmony between the two where both Shakespeare and hip-hop prosper.
Through this marriage, the archaic language of Shakespeare is revitalised through the form, cadence and delivery of hip-hop’s versatility and is one where the parallels between the two become apparent. ‘One of the main things that is shared [...]’[8], states the British author and artist Akala, ‘is rhythm’[9] and with the rhythmic structure of iambic pentameter, the lines of Shakespearean sonnets (‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day...’) can, as demonstrated in Akala’s lecture, be seamlessly inserted onto traditional hip-hop beats composed of seventy to eighty beats-per-minute. This parallel between the two highlights both Shakespeare’s versatility within forms and the pedagogical potential of this musical genre.
Notably, it addresses how the fusion of these two cultures, one which is often viewed as ‘elitist’ and the other often marred by ‘negative connotations of [...] mistrust, alienation, misogyny and violence’[10], can exist in conjunction with each other.
Within hip-hop songs, The ‘Shakespeare Phenomenon’ can be identified within ‘Heavy is the Head’, the second studio album, by British rapper Stormzy who draws upon the cultural authority of Shakespeare in both the title, lyrics and album cover (which illustrates the artist’s head wreathed in a royal crown as he looks solemnly down upon a cushion of the Union Jack). All of which are allusions to Shakespeare’s historical play Henry IV, Part II.
‘Crown’ is the third song to feature on the album and, melodied by a gentle piano score and a choir, can be interpreted as a polemic against the criticism the artist has faced in recent years in light of his philanthropy work (his collaboration with Penguin books to help young writers get published and his yearly scholarships which have helped more than one-hundred young, black-British disadvantaged children attend University[11]). The song opens with a candid statement by Stormzy (‘Searchin’ every corner of my mind / lookin’ for the answers I can’t find) which, when paired with the music video, is possesses a soliloquy-like nature, a dramatic device popular throughout English renaissance dramas and a device present within the third act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet when Prince Hamlet considers the act of suicide (“to be or not to be”).
Beyond its titular reference to Shakespeare’s sixteenth-century drama, the song also draws upon thematic similarities with its text of influence. Thematically, the song can be viewed as the ‘psychological burden’ one must endure when juggling the burdens of responsibility (‘Brothers want to break me down, I can’t take it / I done a scholarship for the kids, they said it’s racist) - a theme reminiscent with the struggles of kingship; of facing mortality, of facing the expected criticism that Shakespeare’s titular character - King Henry IV - is forced to face throughout the play.
Stormzy’s ‘Heavy is the Head’ is a direct homage to the four-hundred-year-old playwright and, beyond its thematic, structural similarities, is one that demonstrates the shared ‘linguistic malleability’[12] between an African-American cultural movement and ‘the work of a white playwright who, in the eyes of many, symbolizes English power and cultural authority’[13].
Shakespeare is increasingly being scaffolded as a cultural reference point within hip-hop texts (Shakespeare by Akala, Funeral Parlour by Nas, Act III Scene II [Shakespeare] by Saul Williams...). This relationship between the two is giving artists the autonomy in producing new interpretations of his work, thereby creating a ‘bridge linking the seemingly vast span [of] the streets and the world of academics’[14]. The fusion between these ‘seemingly disparate strands of culture’[15] can prove useful in initiating discussions of critical and contemporary issues facing urban youth and to engage otherwise disinterested students with the canonical study of Shakespeare.
Since its inception, the pedagogical potential for the subculture of hip-hop within English-teaching classrooms has often been side-lined or, as H.Bernard Hall writes, ‘relegated to the margins of English education policy and practice’. This apprehension towards the inclusion of hip-hop as a legitimate carrier of the canonical texts (Jeremiah, 1992; Powell, 1991) could be one fuelled by a lack of understanding of the culture’s educational origin as an art-form that adopted a ‘voice of resistance and liberation’[16] through artists such as Nas, Lauryn Hill, Tupac, Public Enemy and De La Soul.
Just as Shakespeare used his voice to speak on the societal issues within the Jacobean and Elizabethan era, hip-hop has often been used didactically so artists can address critical issues, such as race, discrimination, poverty and social injustice, which is facing their communities. One such example of this is in Nas’ ‘stay-at-school’ conscious hip-hop single ‘I Can’ (2003) which took reference from another cultural giant, Beethoven, to speak out on issues such as education deficiency, sexual exploitation and female empowerment.
The NME award-winning black-British artist, ‘Little Simz’, draws upon the cultural authority of Shakespeare in her twenty-nineteen single ‘Offence’ through a small reference to the playwright in the second line of the third stanza. She writes: “I’m Jay-Z on a bad day / Shakespeare on my worst days”. Although her comparison to notable, literary figures may be beheld as an act of pretentiousness, her identity as a young, Black-British female, succeeding within an industry traditionally dominated by men, holds deeper meaning.
Until the mid-sixteenth century, it was illegal for women to act on stage in both a commercial and professional manner. This means that in Shakespeare’s lifetime, no women ever acted on the English stage. In ‘Offence’, Little Simz is challenging the patriarchal model by reversing the power dynamic and reclaiming the right to her own voice. One could then perhaps argue that her citation of Shakespeare isn’t one that applauds, but challenges the connotations of elitism, of the exclusion of women, that shadows him.
‘Something Wicked’ is the seventh track on Tupac Shakur’s debut album ‘2Pacalypse Now’ [1991] and is one that, through the song’s title, holds a direct citation to a line spoken by the second of the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1623). Beyond the direct reference to the playwright’s tragedy, Tupac’s delivery of the phrase is repeated in similar fashion, reminiscent of an incantation, that perhaps foreshadows the extent of the local gang warfare that will eventually result to his death five years later.
These examples, I hope, demonstrate how the genre of hip-hop has been used as an ‘effective performance culture’[17] for revitalising the archaic nature of Shakespeare’s texts and introducing the work of the playwright to a new audience. The marriage of these two disparate cultures also illuminates how the auditory and performative nature of hip-hop shares similarities with the original, auditory and performative mode of Shakespeare’s plays.
However, although each of the artists referenced in this essay have used Shakespeare as a fount to draw inspiration for their work, they do so only to curate their own meaning and not to stay rooted and bound in the playwright’s original intention. In the last one-hundred years, schools of thought and literary critics have theorised on the meaning behind texts and if, despite the original intent of the author, meaning is a construct that exists independently from its ‘author’. This multiplicity of meaning - which is evident in how Shakespeare has become the most adapted playwright of all time - may offer us an insight into how the ‘spirit’ of the playwright continues to surround us.
When we listen to ‘Heavy is the Head’, ‘Offence’, or ‘Something Wicked’ we are, as Graham Allen would state, ‘plunging ourselves into a network of textual relations[18]. Entering a text that is created by the expressions, thoughts and components of that which derived before them. Although some critics would credit certain components of these songs (such as the titles or verses) to Shakespeare, critics belonging to the theory of intertextuality would challenge the notion of Shakespeare as not the creator of these values but rather, a vessel in which these values and ideas have also passed through. Further down the passage, Allen’s statement supports this claim. He writes: “...Works of literature, after all, are built from systems, codes and traditions established by previous works of literature. The systems, codes, and traditions of other art forms and of culture in general are also crucial to the meaning of a work of literature”[19]. Allen’s statement alludes to the notion that a direct lineage of meaning exists, a lineage that Shakespeare himself would have been part of.
The theory of intertextuality, therefore, refutes the typical traditionalist arguments which proclaims that Shakespeare is the ‘highest form of literature’[20] and Ben Jonson’s (1572-1637) claim that Shakespeare is ‘not of an age, but for all time’[21]. Rather, this theory reduces Shakespeare to an almost mortal level, toppling him from the meritocracy from where, some may argue, he has comfortably resided to now mingle amongst the work of other writers. As Akala said in his lecture, “the language used, and subjects spoken about [in hip-hop and in Shakespeare’s text] are similar and the distinction between them becomes opaque when context is taken out and we [are forced] to look at the art-form”[22].
The Bulgarian French critic, Julia Kristeva, who is credited for coining the term, also solidifies this claim in her essay, ‘word, dialogue and novel’ in which she states that all text exists in relation to each other ‘through processes of parody, allusion and pastiche’[23]. Shakespeare, Kristeva may then argue, is not the curator of the human spirit - as some traditionalists would argue - , but merely a vessel in which these values and ideals pass through.
The theory of intertextuality informs us that, just as Shakespeare flows into the work of Stormzy, Lil Simz and Tupac, elements of their work will, undoubtedly, influence and flow into the workings of others.
This is a sentiment echoed by the French theorist, Roland Barthes, whom in his poststructuralist essay ‘The Death of The Author’, challenges the established placement of the author’s role by stating that an author can ‘only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original’[24]. How does this change our relationship with the idea of ‘The Shakespeare Phenomenon’? Firstly, it correlates with Barthes belief that no texts, take the case of Hamlet, is purely original, or exists as a singularity, but is derived from a constellation of other texts. In relation to Shakespeare, the theory of intertextuality also supports the school of cultural materialists who’s concern would be on locating the historical context of a text in order to apply it to current ideas and values (Sara Upstone, Literary Theory: A Complete introduction, 2017). By this logic, a cultural materialist reading of Othello may look at deconstructing the historical elements of this Elizabethan / Jacobean tragedy, alongside its theme of race, as a way of helping us understand the critical issue of race today. This offers not just autonomy in how artists choose to ‘use’ Shakespeare in their own retellings of his work, but offer, as Sara Upstone states, ‘alternatives to [the] dominant ways of thinking present at the time of [Shakespeare]’[25].
Bibliography
Akala. ‘Hip-Hop and Shakespeare?’ YouTube. 20:24. Posted by TEDx Talks, December 7th, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSbtkLA3GrY&t=149s
Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London: Routledge, 2000.
Barthes, Roland. ‘The Death of the Author’ in Image, Music, Text (1977): 146.
Bates, Jonathan. The Genius of Shakespeare. United Kingdom: Pan Macmillan, 2013. Accessed January 7th 2023, https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Genius_of_Shakespeare/tzm7FWxXTvYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
Beech, Peter. ‘Much Ado about Nothing Much’, The Guardian, 14th April 2009, accessed 4th January 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/apr/14/shakespeare-theatre
Ben Jonson. ‘To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare’. Accessed January 8th 2023. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44466/to-the-memory-of-my-beloved-the-author-mr-william-shakespeare
Eaglestone, Robert. Doing English (United Kingdom: Routledge, 2000), 62.
Emery, Andrew. ‘Shakespeare: How do I compare thee to hip-hop’ The Guardian, 15th April 2009. Accessed 5th January 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/apr/15/shakespeare-hip-hip-rap
Gaze, Christopher. ‘Shakespeare is everywhere’. YouTube. 16:27. Posted by TEDx Talks, March 21st, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsESSyMnwmU&t=364s
Grady, Hugh. Shakespeare and Modernity: Early Modern to Millennium. London: Routledge, 2000.
Hatfull, Ronan. Last modified May 21st, 2021. https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2021/05/21/hip-hop-when-rappers-cite-shakespeare/
Jim Waterson, ‘Stormzy gives £500,0000 to fund scholarships for disadvantaged students’. The Guardian,17th August 2020, accessed 4th January 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/17/stormzy-continues-philanthropy-with-gift-to-student-charity
Morrell, Ernest, and Jeffrey M.R Duncan-Andrade. Promoting Academic Literacy with Urban Youth through Engaging Hip-Hop Culture. The English Journal 91.6 (2002). Accessed 28th December 2022. https://www.jstor.org/stable/821822
Upstone, Sara. Literary Theory: A complete introduction. Great Britain: John Murray Learning, 2017.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Robert Eaglestone, Doing English, (United Kingdom: Routledge, 2000), 62.
[2] Eaglestone, Doing English, 62.
[3] Jonathan Bates, The Genius of Shakespeare (United Kingdom: Pan Macmillan, 2013), accessed January 7th 2023, https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Genius_of_Shakespeare/tzm7FWxXTvYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
[4] Peter Beech, ‘Much Ado about Nothing Much’, The Guardian, 14th April, 2009, accessed 4th January 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/apr/14/shakespeare-theatre
[5] Christopher Gaze, ‘Shakespeare is everywhere’, YouTube, 16:27, posted by TEDx Talks, March 21st, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsESSyMnwmU&t=364s
[6] Gaze, ‘Shakespeare is everywhere’, 2012.
[7] Hugh Grady, Shakespeare and Modernity: Early Modern to Millennium (London: Routledge, 2000), 38.
[8] Akala, ‘Hip-Hop and Shakespeare?’, YouTube, 20:24, posted by TEDx Talks, December 7th, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSbtkLA3GrY&t=149s
[9] Akala, ‘Hip-Hop and Shakespeare?’, 2011.
[10] Ernest Morrell and Jeffrey M.R Duncan-Andrade, ‘Promoting Academic Literacy with Urban Youth through Engaging Hip-Hop Culture’. The English Journal 91.6 (2002): 89, accessed 28th December 2022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/821822
[11] Jim Waterson, ‘Stormzy gives £500,0000 to fund scholarships for disadvantaged students’. The Guardian,17th August 2020, accessed 4th January 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/17/stormzy-continues-philanthropy-with-gift-to-student-charity
[12] Ronan Hatfull, last modified May 21st, 2021, https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2021/05/21/hip-hop-when-rappers-cite-shakespeare/
[13] ‘I’m Jay-Z on a bad day, Shakespeare on my worst days’,
[14] Morrell, ‘Promoting Academic Literacy’, 89.
[15] Andrew Emery, ‘Shakespeare: How do I compare thee to hip-hop’ The Guardian, 15th April 2009, accessed 5th January 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/apr/15/shakespeare-hip-hip-rap
[16] Morrell, ‘Promoting Academic Literacy’, 89.
[17] Emery, ‘Shakespeare: How do I compare thee to ‘hip-hop?’.
[18] Graham Allen, Intertextuality (London: Routledge, 2000), 1.
[19] Graham Allen, Intertextuality (London: Routledge, 2000), 1.
[20] Eaglestone, Doing English, 62.
[21] Ben Jonson, ‘To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare’, accessed January 8th 2023. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44466/to-the-memory-of-my-beloved-the-author-mr-william-shakespeare
[22] Akala, ‘Hip-Hop and Shakespeare?’, 2011.
[23] Sara Upstone, Literary Theory: A complete introduction (Great Britain: John Murray Learning, 2017), 117.
[24] Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’ in Image, Music, Text (London: Fontana, 1977), 146.
[25] Sara Upstone, Literary Theory: A complete introduction (Great Britain: John Murray Learning, 2017), 199.
