Afropessimism vs. Rhyme as Blackness Praxis

Abstract

"Afropessimism vs. Rhyme as Blackness Praxis" by Cahron Cross is a deep dive into Afropessimism in hiphop rhyme. Cross opens with a brief study of Afropessimistic poetics in Earl Sweatshirt’s verse on Black Noi$e’s “Mo(u)rning,” then pulls out all the stops on a 6-minute rap, shredding bootstrap ideologies that insist the upwardly mobile look down at the communities that made them.