INTERROGATING HIP-HOP IN TRACIE MORRIS’S LYRICS
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Abstract
The origin of performance poetry is debatable because of the several possible connections to the African oral tradition. Poetry has developed into a politically charged medium utilised by many poets to undertake in-depth conversations on major societal issues as a result of the early difficulty of overlapping subjects. African oral traditions include music like rap and hip-hop. African-Americans were able to speak out against decades of injustice and segregation by taking part in traditional African rituals. At first, the Afro-American woman was not welcome in the suffragist or feminist movements due to her race and gender, but she finally found her place there. The Afro-American diaspora might provide some insight on these types of literature. Tracie Morris's dynamic and introspective sound poetry uses echo and cumulative adjustments or replacements to probe such themes as Black identity, oppression, sexuality, and the body. Tracie Morris advocated for other hip-hop artists to utilise hip-hop as a tool for social change. This focus was rekindled during the to question long-held connections between certain words and concepts. Tracie Morris, in her poetry book Project Princess from 1998, wholeheartedly embraced the notion of infusing musical aspects into her writing. The purpose of this research is to examine how Morris's self-identification with the hip hop and hip hop movement influenced his use of intertextuality in his spoken word poetry. Power, violence, sex, and sadness are all explored in five of her poetry.
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