The Public Intellectual You Didn’t See Coming

To claim that we’ve all heard some version of the quote, “only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it,” at some point in our lives, would not be an overgeneralization. It is famously touted in everyday conversations and circles, and arguably, holds some truth. For the sake of this disquisition, the veracity behind this statement will be examined within the context of the contemporary public intellectual. What does it mean to be a public intellectual in the 21st century where mediums for public discourse are digitized, democratized, and formulated for rapid and excessive consumption? In a time where colloquies regarding the societal contributions of the Chomsky’s and the Finkelstein’s of the world are often relegated to academic circles, who is the millenial and Generation Z version of the traditional public intellectual? What kind of contributions are they adding to current public discourse?

Professor Mack states in his text entitled, Are Public Intellectuals A Thing of The Past, that “ if public intellectuals have any role to play in a democracy—and they do—it’s simply to keep the pot boiling. The measure of public intellectual work is not whether the people are listening, but whether they’re hearing things worth talking about.” Through this astute observation, it is clear that just because the way in which we create and consume the contemporary public intellectual’s contributions to public discourse is wildly different than it used to be, does not mean that the presence and role of the public intellectual in the 21st century is unnecessary and/or obsolete. There will always be someone keeping the pot boiling. However, I’d argue that the way in which today’s public intellectual goes about boiling said pot, is much more inconspicuous than the practices of their more traditional predecessors.

Just as power should be given to the one who does not actively seek it, such is the power of bearing the title of “public intellectual.” Having the role of shaping public discourse, coupled with the ability to rapidly influence the encompassing culture of the surrounding world and community through intellectual achievements, is a prodigious responsibility and is clothed in immense power. If placed in the wrong hands, this kind of power could be polarizing and detrimental to the health of a democracy. In modern society, where independent thought and radical expression of views are catalyzed by social media and codified by its facile accessibility, anyone with a smartphone has the capability to share their views and ignite discourse through diverse and multifaceted mediums; in which traditional public intellectuals achieved solely through extensive texts and academic dissertations. With this ease, and the multitude of platforms for expressing one’s opinions available at our fingertips, it is often challenging to discern who is merely an influencer and who is influential.

An influencer, in the contemporary context, is a person with a substantial following who makes a living by promoting different trends and fads, whether in the milieu of fashion, video games, pop culture, music, etc. In contrast, a person who is influential is the one who is driving and creating said trends through original work and intellectual contributions. I would argue that the influential person is today’s public intellectual in disguise. When examining traditional public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, Michael Eric Dyson, Daniel Dennett, Richard Allen Posner, and their respective peers, we see that they are (and were) substantially overt in their roles and their contributions to public discourse, often being both self-proclaimed and publicly revered as being “public intellectuals.” In contrast, those who are boiling the pot of public discourse today (the influential), do not actively seek the title nor blatantly identify with it. Those who truly hold the power of being the millennial and Generation Z’s public intellectual, did not originally set out to be one. This involuntary nature of obtaining such power and influence is the derivation of the contemporary public intellectual.

The individual who will be the subject of our examination and identification of the contemporary public intellectual is one that profoundly embodies the unobtrusive nature of what it means to be influential in the 21st century. This individual has resided in the public eye since the early 2000’s. Their career began on the compelling and hit teen drama entitled, Degrassi: The Next Generation, where they first showcased their talents as a thespian of the arts. Their career later transitioned into the musical side of entertainment in which they truly began to resonate with the public and capture the attention, loyalty, and reverence of millions of people worldwide. Though their title is most famously known as “rapper,” it is clear that through their lyrical manipulations, consistent usage of melodious double and even triple entendres, and emotionally driven narrative and rhythmic expressions, they deservedly earn the label of “poet.” As the Shakespere of modern society, they have single-handedly altered the often suppressed and stripped narrative surrounding the vulnerability of the Black man in America, as well as completely reconstructed the traditional definition of “rapper”and transcended international boundaries of music. Rapper, poet, singer, songwriter, and multi-threat, Drake , is undoubtedly the public intellectual of the 21st century.

In 2013 Jon Issitt and Duncan Jackson, two educators and scholars at the University of York, a research institute in England, published a paper entitled, ‘What does it mean to be a public intellectual?’ in which they present their extensive observations and findings after exploring the subject of the public intellectual for two years. In their essay they describe the first position of the public intellectual as being “a dissenter.” The text explains, “one powerfully articulated position from a social scientist was that in order to analyse the world we live in... we must ourselves be dissenters from that spirit. We have to be outsiders in order to apprehend the foundations of dominant ideas. We have to be uncomfortable with the world and a stranger to it... As such the public intellectual exists as a political radical...” In this depiction of the public intellectual as being in the world but not of it in order to accurately critique it, we can connect a very distinct and defining trait that Drake has showcased consistently throughout his career. His very existence in the rap and hip hop worlds is a dissension from both his peers and the traditional culture of these spaces. In his peer group of rappers like Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Meek Mill, Travis Scott, and others, the common denominator within their lives and careers is their humble beginnings and tumultuous upbringings, reinforcing the widley perpetuated “rags to riches” narrative within the community. Many artists in this space also share roots in some of the most infamous Black communities and urban cities in the United States, including Brooklyn, South Central, South Philadelphia, and the South Side of Chicago. This is an important aspect to the culture of hip hop as artists’ upbringings most often shape the style and the content of their work, making it the backbone of the genre. Though Drake’s childhood was far from perfect, when juxtaposed to his peers, there is an apparent dichotomy. Drake was raised in a wealthy neighborhood in Toronto, Canada and his father was an accomplished musician. Being a Black and Jewish rapper in the U.S with both an international and an interracial background Drake is clearly an anomaly in the American hip hop community. His unique positioning and background shape his distinct perspective and intrinsically make Drake an “outsider” and a “stranger” to the world of hip hop, deeming his analytical views innately radical and othered as articulated by Issitt and Jackson.

Drake has also framed himself as a radical in his field not just through his very existence in this industry, but also through his lyrical narratives. Drake is often known to be divinely in tune with his emotional side and often articulates this through his songs. His infamous vulnerability and general openness not only showcase a unique and rare version of rap, but also speak to the wider fallacious representation and preconceived notions of the Black community being incapable of experiencing this kind of sensitivity and softness, especially publicly. This ideal is rooted in offensive tropes forced upon Black individuals by way of systemic oppressions and macroaggressions that are then perpetrated within the Black community, serving to strip them of their humanity by first detracting them of their sensitivity and emotions. This all works to reinforce the historic image of strength, aggression, and the overall hard and tough persona attributed to the community. Drake addresses this narrative by tackling it head on, dedicating entire bodies of work to his emotional sensitivity in a radical attack on societies’ traditional ascriptions of Black impenetrability.

A 2013 BBC article entitled, ‘Is Drake the first hip hop star to make weakness cool?’ credits Drake for doing something that was “seemingly impossibly in mainstream hip hop: making vulnerability cool.” The article explains that, “for decades, vulnerability was often interpreted as weakness. The notion that an MC could have feelings was often reason enough to put the rapper’s manhood in question.” In his hit album, and arguably his most emotional one, “Nothing Was the Same” Drake blankets his songs in a conversational tone, as if he is confiding in the listener. In a song called Connect, on the album, he reminisces on the toxicity of a past relationship. He croons, “I’d show up knowing exactly who I was and never leave as myself. But when it falls apart, I'm always still down to pick a million tiny little pieces off the ground. I wish you would learn to love people and use things. And not the other way around.” Lyrically lamenting his anguished emotions after a tough breakup runs directly against the current of hip hop that we are used to and that's what makes it compelling. In the midst of his captivating vocal tone, his catchy chorus’, and his urbane aura, his deepest anxieties and insecurities are interlaced within the fabric of his music in a way that hip hop has never seen before. In this same song he goes on to ascribe two juxtaposing meanings to the repetitive verses,“I'm on my [expletive] way swangin'” and “swangin', eyes closed just swangin.” In one verse he uses the word “swangin” as a proclamation of hustling and grinding, and in the other he uses it to articulate that he is struggling to hold on and metaphorically swerving in and out of lanes. The BBC article states, “Drake is selling millions of albums not by acting tough, but by revealing who he is when the spotlights dim and his guard drops.” Through his music, Drake restores the complexity of Black humanity that has been violently stolen from the community both in historical and contemporary contexts. Through media, governmental policies, institutional practices, and systemic oppression, the Black community is constantly reminded that they are not allowed to live multifaceted lives. They are labeled as being this or that, but never fully complex and thus never fully human. By showcasing both the highs and the lows of life and the vicissitudes of what it means to be alive, Drake counters this narrative with one that is holistic, heterogenous, and most importantly, vulnerable, working to drastically reconstruct the representation of the Black community in mainstream hip hop. Therefore it is clear that Drake not only closely aligns with the position of the public intellectual as a dissenter but also as a political radical.

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