Rap and Renovation:

Thayer Street Redevelopment Through the Words of Rap Artists

By Hunter Warwick
December 15, 2014

Walking down Thayer Street on the East Side of Providence is not the same today as it
was a year ago. Cars cruise smoothly down newly paved streets, wider sidewalks provide
additional comfort for strolling pedestrians, and an attractive parklet extends into the street right
outside the Brown University Bookstore, complete with painted wooden benches and beautifully
kept flower boxes. These developments are intended to improve the streetscape, attract a larger
consumer base, and promote future growth and development on Thayer. This certainly bodes
well for organizations like Gilbane Development Corporation, which recently consolidated and
cleared almost an entire block of Thayer Street to construct a new four-story residential facility
deemed 257 Thayer (Thayer Street Planning Study, 2014), but what does the redevelopment
process hold in store for the small businesses lining Thayer and the diverse groups of individuals
that make meaningful use of its space? What is to become of the tiny antique stores, local smoke
shops, hookah bars, street vendors, motorcyclists, skaters, street performers, graffiti writers, and
homeless individuals that constitute life on Thayer Street?
A genre grounded in street life and urban culture, rap music provides a unique insight
into how redevelopment works to restructure the urban environment and constrain the use of
public space. Through their music, artists like N.W.A., Jay-Z, Immortal Technique, 2Pac, and
Draze illuminate issues of gentrification, criminalization, and inequality that accompany urban
redevelopment. Their dynamic and often obscene lyricism creates a powerful message that holds
deep meaning for the artists and their listeners. Rap music provides a voice for marginalized
urban populations, and as Thayer Street redevelopment continues, it is critical these voices are
heard.
The recent changes occurring on Thayer Street began with the construction of 257
Thayer. Brown University contracted Gilbane Development Corporation to build the 95-unit
apartment complex as a high-end housing option for students. After the demolition of nine
residential structures, the foundation for 257 Thayer was laid, and the surrounding area began its
current transformation. The city funded projects to repave the streets, widen the sidewalks, plant
trees, and establish parking meters along Thayer (Thayer Street Planning Study, 2014). Seattle-

based rapper Draze describes how these developments can affect surrounding communities in a
verse from his 2014 song, The Hood Aint the Same:

Used to own our homes

Now we're all rentin
Got folks movin south
Like birds for the winter

Draze is referring to the process of gentrification, where property owners evict or

dislocate existing communities in order to attract different populations with higher economic
capital. The development of expensive housing units and luxurious retail stores results in higher
property taxes and increased rent payments. When current inhabitants are unable to meet these
rising demands, they are forced to leave the area. Thayer Street and the surrounding College Hill
neighborhood already have some of the highest rents in Providence (Azar, 2014), therefore
redevelopment is unlikely to have a significant effect on the current residents in this community;
however, small businesses such as Kind Connection Smoke Shop, Rockstar Body Piercing, and
Christinas Psychic Readings may find difficulty keeping up with the rising business rents.
Indeed, several smaller establishments on Thayer, such as Juniper Frozen Yogurt and Thayer
Street Cleansers and Launderers, have already closed this year. As redevelopment forges on,
local businesses will struggle to compete with corporate powers looking to take advantage of
growing commercial prospects on Thayer, and the unique cultural and economic niches they fill
will be replaced with corporate standardization and homogeny.
The process of gentrification unfolds hand in hand with the construction of new forms of
criminality. As Jeff Ferrell (2001) explains, when city planners and corporate developers produce
new commercial spaces, novel forms of illegality emerge in order to enforce and maintain the
constructed spatial arrangements. When certain groups, such as skaters or biker gangs, are
perceived as bad for business, authority figures establish broad criminal laws that equip police
officers with the tools to criminalize these populations simply because they look suspicious
(Harcourt, 2005). In his 2004 single 99 Problems, Jay-Z embodies this criminalization in a
verse where he describes getting pulled over by a police officer:

So I pull over to the side of the road

I heard, Son do you know why Im stopping you for?
Cause Im young and Im black and my hats real low
Do I look like a mind reader sir, I dont know
Am I under arrest or should I guess some more?
Well you was doing fifty-five in a fifty-four
License and registration and step out of the car
Are you carrying a weapon on you? I know a lot of you are

Here, Jay-Z implies that the officers identified reason for pulling him over is masking
deeper motives, namely the officers superficial reading of his outward appearance. Jeff Ferrell
(1995) describes how style is embedded in different haircuts, clothing, automobiles, and
interactions between groups of people, and authorities interpret certain styles as criminal or
threatening to the existing social order. Police officers use very generalized criminal laws to
enforce minor infractions, such as loitering, panhandling, and other miniscule crimes similar to
doing fifty-five in a fifty-four. Enforcement of these laws targets groups expressing stylistic
codes that contradict what George Lipsitz (2011) refers to as the white spatial imaginary, a
homogenized and controlled environment emphasizing social harmony and economic
profitability. In this way, law enforcement officials are not targeting crime as much as they are
targeting identity. N.W.A. encompasses the criminalization of alternative identities in a single
line from their 1988 protest song, F**k tha Police:

They put out my picture with silence

Because my identity by itself causes violence

This line expresses the reduction of a person to an image, a superficial interpretation of

ones style and appearance. N.W.A. holds that, in the eyes of the law, some identities themselves
are indicative of violence and criminality. As Thayer is continuously remodeled in accordance to
the white spatial imaginary, alternative groups like motorcyclists, skateboarders, and graffiti
writers will come to find their identities criminalized and their rights to the street restricted.

Emerging forms of criminalization and exclusion give rise to conflicts over the use of
public space. According to the Department of Planning and Development for the City of
Providence, the changes occurring on Thayer Street are intended to allow for a vibrant mix of
appropriate uses (Thayer Street Planning Study, 2014). However, these appropriate uses are
determined by government officials and business owners in the interests of maximizing profit.
The use of public space will be increasingly restricted and refined in order to fulfill the
Department of City Plannings hope to create an attractive, clean, and safe retail corridor
(Thayer Street Planning Study, 2014). In his 2008 track Harlem Renaissance, Immortal
Technique describes the gentrification process occurring in Harlem and its effects on
criminalization and the use of public space. One verse speaks especially well to the ongoing
developments on Thayer Street:

Ivy League, real estate firms are corrupt

They lay siege to your castle like the Moors of Europe
They treat street vendors like criminal riffraff
While politicians get the corporate kickbacks

Brown University, an Ivy League institution, is responsible for both contracting Gilbane
Development Corporation to construct 257 Thayer as well as funding a planning project for the
redevelopment of Thayer Street (Thayer Street Planning Study, 2014). In many ways, the
creation of 257 Thayer and remodeling of the surrounding area is imposing on the existing social
and economic fabric of Thayer Street, much like a siege to a castle. When politicians and
corporations start to define appropriate uses of public space in the name of commercialism, law
enforcement officials will begin to exclude street vendors, street performers, and homeless
individuals from the sidewalks of Thayer. Police officers will likely tell these groups to move
along because sidewalks and roads are public spaces built for the sake of transportation and
mobility. However, these same officers will walk by civilians sitting at tables set up on sidewalks
outside of restaurants, large pop-up advertisement signs placed in the middle of the pavement,
and food trucks parked on the side of the road taking orders from Brown students. In reference to
these instances of privatizing public space, Robert Azar, Director of the Department of Planning
and Development for the City of Providence, states, The city will sometimes turn a blind eye to

certain things that are illegal because theyre not that bad (Azar, 2014). Many would argue that
sleeping on the pavement, playing guitar on the street corner, or setting up a handmade jewelry
stand on the sidewalk are also cases of privatizing public space that are not that bad. As
redevelopment on Thayer continues, the city would be just in applying their relaxed approach
toward private businesses use of public space universally, allowing diverse groups of people to
occupy and interact with public space in useful and creative ways.
However, laws concerning public space have traditionally been constructed and enforced
in ways that disproportionately affect marginalized populations. Jeff Ferrell (1997) explains how
anti-cruising laws in Denver and Phoenix specifically target Latino and Latina youth,
prohibitions on public sleeping in New Orleans effectively criminalize homelessness, and
commercial districts across the country have found success outlawing skateboarders with
Skateboarding in this Area Prohibited by Law signs. Even outside of these structural
limitations on the use of public space, police officers are equipped with the discretion to choose
which individuals they stop, search, or tell to keep moving. Michael Smith and Geoffrey Alpert
(2007) have suggested that social conditioning drives stereotype formation in police officers,
resulting in the unintentional overestimation of negative behaviors associated with specific
groups. On Thayer Street, these groups include skateboarders, motorcyclists, graffiti writers, and
ethnic and racial minorities. A line from 2Pacs 1998 single Changes alludes to this bias:

Take the evil out of people, they'll be acting right

Cause both black and white are smoking crack tonight

Currently, black Americans are far more likely than white Americans to be arrested for
drug-related offenses like crack use; however, white Americans are almost equally as likely to
have used crack and more likely to have used most other types of illegal drugs, including
cocaine, marijuana, and LSD (National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2013). Then the evil
2Pac speaks of might be interpreted as the unconscious prejudice and suspicion police officers
hold toward certain groups of people, which results in the differential treatment and punishment
of populations that commit similar crimes, such as smoking crack. These preconceptions do
not necessarily put police officers at fault, but acknowledging their existence represents a crucial
step toward overcoming them and applying uniform and just law enforcement. There is certainly

concern that the redevelopment of Thayer will lead to reconstructions of crime that further
accentuate problems of unconscious prejudice toward homeless individuals, biker gangs, and
minority youth. Redevelopment introduces novel means of creating and justifying police bias,
working to perpetuate and exacerbate this evil within the law enforcement system.
Historically, Thayer Street has existed as what Karen Franck and Quentin Stevens (2007)
describe as a loose space, characterized by an absence of determinacy and an openness to
imaginative political, artistic, and economic possibilities. Graffiti writing dresses the walls of the
East Side Tunnel while street vendors transform sidewalk spaces into elaborate displays of
jewelry and sunglasses. However, redevelopment threatens to convert Thayer into a tight,
regulated, and restricted space that criminalizes these activities and the identities associated with
them. The exchange value of space will come to eclipse its use value; profitability will be
prioritized over individuality. Don Mitchell (1997) warns, The annihilation of space by law is,
unavoidably, the annihilation of people. Thayer is already seeing noticeably fewer homeless
individuals, street performers, and motorcyclists, and these trends are likely to intensify as
redevelopment continues. Thayer Street is a source of great meaning and pride to these
populations, and their presence on and interactions with Thayer constitute its unique cultural
identity. Another verse from Immortal Techniques Harlem Renaissance speaks to how
redevelopment can alter the diverse composition of urban neighborhoods:

They start deporting people off their property

Ethnically cleansing the hood, economically

Immortal Technique is referencing how gentrification and criminalization work to

displace marginalized populations from the spaces in which they find utility and meaning.
Economic and commercial processes are used to ethnically and culturally cleanse urban
environments of local businesses and alternative identities. Without these defining
characteristics, Thayer stands to lose its existing individuality, something that transcends
monetary value. The current pattern of redevelopment on Thayer Street holds the potential to
generate as much regret as it does profit. To conclude, here is another line from Drazes The
Hood Aint the Same:

I dont reminisce when I drive through this hood, I feel pain

I aint proud of these new developments, I feel shame

The voices of rap tell the story of redevelopment from the perspective of the streets,
warning of the social consequences and cultural repercussions. The music is loud and the
message is clear, but is there anybody listening?

References
2Pac. Changes. Greatest Hits. Death Row Records, 1998. MP3.
Azar, Robert. 2014. Thayer Street Redevelopment. Metcalf Research Building, Providence, RI.
November 25, 2014. Lecture.
Draze. The Hood Aint the Same. The Hood Aint the Same Single. Subnoise, 2014. MP3.
Ferrell, Jeff. 1995. Style Matters: Criminal Identity and Social Control. In Cultural Criminology
(pp. 169-181). Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
Ferrell, Jeff. 1997. Youth, Crime, and Cultural Space. Social Justice, 24(4). 21-33.
Ferrell, Jeff. 2001. Remapping the City: Public Identity, Cultural Space, and Social Justice.
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Franck, Karen and Stevens, Quentin. (2007). Tying Down Loose Space. In Loose Space:
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Immortal Technique. Harlem Renaissance. The 3rd World. Viper Records, 2008. MP3.
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Lipsitz, George. 2011. The White Spatial Imaginary. In How Racism Takes Place (pp. 25-50).
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Mitchell, Don. 1997: The Annihilation of Space by Law: The Roots and Implications of Anti
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N.W.A. F**k tha Police. Straight Outta Compton. Ruthless Records, 1988. MP3.
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Smith, Michael and Alpert, Geoffrey. 2007. Explaining Police Bias: A Theory of Social
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Thayer Street Planning Study. 2014. Department of Planning and Development for the City of
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