On September 18th, New York University hosted a conference called "Show and Prove" about hip hop academia. I try to go to any event that discusses hip hop in a manner that I may not receive at your average show or open mic. This was just that. I couldn't stay long, but the two sessions I sat through were filled with a significant amount of thought provoking information.
The first session I attended was entitled Methodology, Pedagogy, & Educational Practice where people presented papers examining the academic possibilities of hip hop in education, methodology, and pedagogy, from high school to graduate school. The presenters were:
• MiRi Park, “Using Academic Oral History Methodology in Hip Hop Scholarship”
• Jen Johnson, “Hip Hop in Competitive Academic Policy Debate – Cultural Resistance, Code-Switching, and Speaking Truth to Power, From the Streets to the Academy”
• M.C. K~Swift, “Hip Hop Contains Pedagogy”
• Dr. Johan Söderman, “Academic rap! Strategies towards incorporating the hip-hop culture at the university”
Dru Ryan was the respondent for that session. The first woman I heard speak was Jen Johnson who has worked with youth debate teams across the country. She spoke about using hip hop in the forum of debate as a tool of empowering youth and providing a comfortable place for youth to present their knowledge. For young people raised under the umbrella of hip hop, rapping knowledge could be easier than presenting a speech and if it's as compelling and thought provoking as someone else's traditional speech, shouldn't that count for something?
After Jen spoke, MC K-Swift spoke about hip hop being a pedagogy of it's own. In addition to giving his experience in hip hop, he presented examples of hip hop having "teachas" a la KRS ONE and MCs are constantly "dropping knowledge." Therefore by facilitating the education of hip hop, educators are leading students to important knowledge. Another example of hip hop being pedagogy is seen is the knowledge we gain through "code talk" when we acquire the ability to speak standard english, black english, and hip hop. K-Swift reaffirmed what we, at (Bigger Than) Hip Hop are doing. We're facilitating workshops leading students to knowledge of the elements of hip hop and by doing that, we're doing so much more.
After everyone spoke, the respondent gave some compelling questions for consideration:
-Who owns and defines hip hop?
-By "purifying" hip hop, are we impressing our education on youth? Are we creating education?
-Is it academic if we're not challenging students? How can hip hop challenge students?
The other session I experienced was Aesthetic Dimensions of Hip Hop where people presented papers analyzing rap, graffiti, popping, and performative identities and exploring the varied qualities of Hip Hop’s aesthetic dimensions. Presenters included:
• Joshua Bennett, “I Love it When You Call Me Big (Poppa)”
• Jens Althoff, “The Influence of Blaxploitation on Hip Hop Music”
• Jessica N. Pabón, “Aesthetic Liaisons: Feminism and Masculinity in Graffiti Art”
• Naomi Elizabeth Bragin, “Popping and Other Dis/Appearing Acts”
Dr. Jenny Stoever-Ackerman was the respondent.
One of the first papers presented was about the influence of blaxploitation on hip hop. Hearing the connections that Althoff made caused me to do a lot of personal exploration. He mentioned the idea that "being black and being rich means something wheras being black and being poor means nothing." As much as I dislike capitalism and the negative effects it has on society, he had a point. The truth in his statement was quite upsetting. As he continued his presentation, one question that came up for me was:
-Why is blaxploitation an acceptable cultural art form when the same elements in some facets of hip hop are chastised/degraded?
I still haven't answered that question.
I guess there's a lot of questions that I still haven't answered but sometimes it's important to remember that water's wet and that's it, so for now I'm caught in the chasm between curiosity and acceptance, but with the knowledge and need for exploration I gained Saturday, I go into this launching of (Bigger Than) Hip Hop with more of a commitment to positive change than ever.
-Alicia
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