In DJ Cavem’s music video, he spoofs Snoop Dogg’s song “Gz Up Hoes Down” to create a new piece focusing on farming and healthy food.  By doing this he challenges mainstream black rap.  The music industry and (primarily) white listenership disproportionately supports types of black performance that serve to reinforce Euro-American stereotypes of African Americans. Thus, in expanding the scope of black musical performance, DJ Cavem and his contemporaries have their work cut out for them. The first time I watched this, the meaning of the lyrics took about 30 seconds to decode in my brain since I have been trained to see a black man in a hoody and assume his lyrics will center violence, drugs and sex.  Johnson writes, “performance must…provide a space for meaningful resistance of oppressive systems” (Black Performance Studies, 447) and in this song, as in his other work, DJ Cavem resists by challenging the mainstream assumptions of what being a black rapper means. This theme of unexpectedness can be seen across black and Native American performance as a tool for breaking down systems of oppression (Deloria).

Additionally, DJ Cavem’s use of rhyme and rhythm, common to hip hop and black performance more broadly, connects his work with that of black performers throughout history (Johnson, Black Performance Studies).