Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, by a single mother and despite the fact that they had not much money Tracy Chapman learned how to play the guitar as a child and started writing her own songs by the time she was fourteen. She published her first album entitled Tracy Chapman in 1988 and instantly became an international celebrity, something she never really wanted.

Success has hit Tracy Chapman as fast as the “fast car” she's craving in the eponymous song featured in her first album. Despite the fact that she is widely known for her great voice and the smooth sound of her guitar, Chapman is also famous for being politically and socially active. Her strong lyrics and her refusal to become part of the harsh world that is the music industry made her a strong figure of cultural resistance.

 

In her blue jeans, and sleeveless black shirt,Tracy Chapman has always been loyal to her own simple dressing style and that since the beginning, the same way the prominent rebel icon James Dean has been. The link between their dressing style is no coincidence. The simplicity of their style is what connects them as it can be a symbol of counterculture and cultural resistance. To conceptualise simplicity in clothing as a symbol of cultural resistance is not difficult as it just shows that the extravagances of our contemporary society have no effect upon the people concerned. To find more representative examples of Chapman’s cultural resistance, one have to look at the lyrics of two of her most popular songs : Fast Car and Talkin' Bout a Revolution.

 

In Fast Car Chapman is describing the desire of leaving that lifestyle, a life of struggle for poor people who are suffocating under the weight of society's norms. The song illustrates a vain pursuit of happiness, more similar to a pursuit of hegemony with the wish to “Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs” or to “save some money”. Nevertheless, Chapman reminds in the chorus that this need of becoming like everybody else is fruitless, for the song's protagonist only feels that she “belongs” and “could be someone” when she is driving away from the city : “City lights lay out before us”. Hence we understand that according to Chapman some will never fit in the utopia of the “City” and its hegemony. Furthermore, by using this road motif, she is referring to a whole family of outcasts that took the road in order to escape society in both popular culture (Easy Rider) and real life (Woody Guthrie).

Talkin' Bout a Revolution is a much more explicit song, from Chapman's first album, in which she is criticizing inequality and injustice towards poor people. The revolution she's talking about will be their revolution : “Poor people gonna rise up / And get their share / Poor people gonna rise up / And take what's theirs”. Even though the lyrics are more violent and threatening than in Fast Car, she is still criticizing the system for the same problems. By describing, in her song, people touched by poverty as “standing”, “crying”, “wasting time” and “waiting”, she is exposing a system that prevents poor people from becoming part of it, a system she will also try to avoid according to her career choice. As a matter of fact, Tracy Chapman after becoming famous decided not to be a part of the music industry with all its interviews, its fans and its producers' requests – indeed only her very first album has been produced by and for commercial interests. All her albums have been produced or co-produced by herself. 

 

After all, personalities such as Tracy Chapman, rebel icons of counterculture and cultural resistance have become those figures, Lorie Burns and Mélisse Lafrance have said in their book entitled Disruptive Divas :  Feminism, Identity and Popular Music, who “ignite us, educate us and infuse us with a sense of oppositional solidarity”. Unfortunately the effect of time upon many of  these icons is sometimes negative as they usually become examples for youth culture and therefore automatically attract fashion industries, brand marks and consumerism. Happily, this is not what has become of Chapman.