Just my notes and thoughts from an amazing event …
Show and Prove conference review
NYU
Dr. Walter Greason, Ph.D.
17 September 2010
Session I – “Methodology, Pedagogy, and Educational Practice”
MiRi Park (Seoulsonyk) –
Using Academic Oral History Methodology in Hip Hop Scholarship
Adding her experience as Korean suburbanite from NJ (!); good interdisciplinary context; explanation about the importance of women’s experience in b-boy/breaking culture; no recognition of intersectionality to explain the multi-layered lenses of disciplinarity and the plurality of hip hop; “Honey Rockwell – Jam on the Groove” 1st hip hop off-broadway show; musicality and subtlety of hip hop dance; ‘when the person looks like the song what do you do?’; ‘he knew every song’ – the discipline (!); theory of oral history is underdeveloped / needs to reference OHA and Donald Ritchie (post-colonialist methodology?); importance of transgression and the acceptance of social sanction (punishment) as a rite of passage into the culture of hip hop; “Fox Force Five” … .
Jen Johnson
Hip Hop in Competitive Academic Policy Debate
(cultural resistance, code-switching, and speaking truth to power)
Opening clip on in-class rap performance; incorporate the switch between formal presentation and lyrical flow … fascinating how the styles of each frame informed each other; debate as unique and informative (applications to forensics at UC … Nina LaTassa); urban debate leagues (UDLs) and their success … application through the Bridge program; impact on shaping state institutions and regional/national ideologies; “Eurocentric/heteronormative”; use of Tim Wise to establish privilege; counterhegemonic rhetoric and ideology isolates itself from the process of reform; its revolutionary orientation falls short, however, of the goals of total transformation of the opposition or its elimination; use of James Scott’s ‘public transcript’ to explain the ‘greater the oppressive/exploitative threat, the thicker the mask’ thus the mimicry of traditional norms among UDL achievers; Louisville and the Malcolm X debate program; impact on Johnson’s work in Seattle à encourage student to freestyle, University of Washington Hip Hop debate team; current moment of openness to redefine standards.
MC K-Swift
Hip Hop Contains Pedagogy
Cultural arts canon; mc/dj/grf/bboy/academy; Temple of Hip Hop (nine elements); do not use hip hop as a tool, but engage hip hop as an epistemological process; how do we learn from art? (emphasis on reading, writing, arithmetic); KRS – One as primary example (hip is to know; hop is to move … knowledge and movement are the culture); spiritual foundation and the gospel of hip hop; all discipline orientation; Afrika Bambataa offered conception for hip hop as a set of elemental expressions; ten principles of academic hip hop (relativity; plausibility; kinesthetics; spirituality; praxis/performance; integrity; critical systems theory; geography; sustainable economics); Urban word – NYC … student centered writing and learning methods; first born generation of hip hop (1973-1985) – ‘planet rock’ was a song that gave him words; immediate family access to artist was a fresh privilege; if you’re in a gang, you’re a chump; prep school v projects … identity crisis, resolved by belonging in the hip hop studio; hip hop is my leading cultural institution; rap is ‘speaking with agility and quick wit’.
Johan Soderman
Academic Rap
(incorporating hip hop culture at the university)
Swedish rhythm and pronunciation (SER-der-man); “New Swedes” v “Non-Swedes” in the political discussion of Swedish cultures; when there will be protest violence due to racial/immigration tensions throughout Europe; absence of national/regional organization to advocate for reform?; new Swedes use traditional linguistics to challenge the hegemonic norms; hip hop following the norms of gender studies to gain entrance to the academy; Madison-Wisconsin and NYU as pioneers of hip hop studies; conflict between arts (culture) and the mind (reason); authenticity as an extension of this debate; Homo Academicus as analysis of administrative and academic power in the university; neoliberal transformation of student to customer and the university as a marketplace; linking NYU, UPenn, and University of Maryland in megapolitan hip hop collaborative; discourse is about diversity … consensus involves discussion from bothe ends; jazz became a ‘high art’ as a path through the academy; can these academic approaches democratize the university and society?
Relationship, relevance, and rigor from the Gates foundation.
Session II – Engaging Hip Hop’s Global Context
Community Discussion ~ Kanene Holden
- Politics and economics of systemic growth and community revitalization
- Is there a hip hop diaspora?
- Videos … China, Arctic – Canada, Palestine
- Hip hop overcomes isolation and exploitation; self-determination at the
Heart of the process and experience
- Jamaica, Queens and Brooklyn as the foundation of hip hop, not the Bronx in the late 1960s/early 1970s
- No centralized location/organization; disseminate, categorize, critique/evaluate; ensure sustainability; cross-cultural dialogue; distribute curriculum
- Vision/mission … hip hop education center will fulfill the purpose
- Online marketplace to purchase quality hip hop media
- Online platform to upload new content and cultivate cross-cultural dialogue
- Showcase positive effects of hip hop’s globalization
- Hip Hop Odyssey Film Festival 2011
- Research and pedagogy
- Culture vultures who seek profit at the expense of the local people
- Avoid the loss of history
- Coordinating the Education Center in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland/Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC
- Global locations: Hong Kong, Manila, Delhi, Beijing, Capetown, London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, Madrid, Rio, Bahia, Mexico City, Toronto, Bermuda, Bahamas, Jamaica, Accra, Dubai, Nairobi
- Constituent populations … educators, anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists, psychologists, media contacts, politicians, curators/art admins
- CPC … daycare (7am-3pm); supplemental ed (3pm-9pm); studio/club (9pm-7am)
- Needs graduate students and volunteers to archive over 600 media units (overlap with WBL, California U., UPenn, CPC, Davey D, various YouTube archivists BVMUnderground, wgreason)
- Close with PE “Fight the Power” romanticism for the 1980s/early 1990s.
- Moved youtube plugs to BVM, Jimmy Kim, and Briana Morrissey.
- Be sure there is wireless/phone access to reach the poorest areas/families
- Steinhardt (??) Hall
- Thinktank in 2011
- Relate this conference and its proceedings to the end of the History 362 course this semester.
- Amy, artistic director street dance, … how are the resources being developed for the web? Multilingual, global scope?
- Sameena, undergrad at Columbia … the scope of global hip hop, but the commodification of international artists stymies more effective collaborations
- Use of scaffolding to inspire deep learning
- Fred Sanchez, LA – college access … student inspired him to the power of spoken word; 1st year student in graduate program at Steinhardt; emphasizing Mexican students to see education as a tool to inspire (Jesus Aldaverde?); religious fanaticism around death; hip hop as effective pedagogy … what impact does h2ed have as making hip hop wack in the underground?
- The gathering … Philadelphia Lincoln U connection on longest running continuous performance education events; quality control and stockpiling success stories – push people in new directions; theory of aesthetic adaptation
- Joe, London … developing new hip hop education practice (fresh prep program); rare opportunity to share strategies with other practitioners; avoid categorization; how wide and broad is the project and how will satellite destinations participate? Can we use the master’s tools to dismantle the house of privilege?
Session III – The Tensions, Contradictions, and Possibilities of Hip Hop Studies
Shante Smalls, MC Paradigm
Theorizing about the content and limitations of hip hop; construction of black masculinity (Jay Z) and femininity (Jean Grae) (as well as Afro-Asian connections and queer culture in hip hop); experience as an mc led paradigm to graduate school.
Dr. David Kirkland
Why is there no institutional center for hip hop? There are criticisms of hip hop that deny the problematic nature of the core assumptions and the entire global context of the art form and lifestyle (how do you deal with misogyny/commercialism/ materialism?). The cipher as transformative classroom … condemned as ignorant and illiterate. How are these young men literate? In hip hop, they are literate. Organic literacy approaches that emerged from literary analysis. Canterbury Tales and Inferno as the language of the street.
Eden Jeffries
The absence of transformative content in the study of hip hop. K-12 education does not value culture and renders it irrelevant to social discourse. Connects hip hop and space – the geography does not limit its movement, creativity, or power. The isolation from the space compounds traditional social misunderstandings and barriers.
Moncell “Ill Kosby” Durden
30 years of study rooted in the social dance of the 1970s. Danced with Rennie Harris (more academic) and Mop Top Crew (more commercial) between 1990 and 2005? Superficial nature of learning/copying instead of integrity and originality. Cross-cultural communication is essential in the dance community. New documentary – “everything we make is raw”.
Marcella Runell Hall (comment)
Hip hop is already in the academy (brought by students)
Institutional development of hip hop
? Faculty development using hip hop ?
? Disparaging traditional fields that engage hip hop – anthropology,
Education, and interdisciplinary study generally ?
Session 5 –
Engaging Untapped Resources: Oral Histories and New Perspectives on Hip Hop
Mariette “Peaches” Rodriguez
Sharing Paniccioli’s values, but rooted in the hip hop experiences of the 1980s. She presents feminist criticism of the sexualization of women in videos. Hip hop was not an umbrella description of emerging rap culture until the late 1980s. The robot played on the influences of Bruce Lee’s kung fu to create the illusion of artificiality. Misogyny made women stronger to fight for space and expression in its first two decades.
Ernie Paniccioli
Old left bonafides. Paniccioli continues to fight the anti-imperialist fight to accuse a generation of failure without the accountability to demonstrate the failure of AIM, BPP and the success of the Cointelpro. He offered a LiveAid story about the audience rejecting the political agenda about hunger in Ethiopia. His views were mostly Marxian analysis. He targets Nelly, Puffy, Jay Z, Russell Simmons, CashMoney / South. He defends Luke. His views relied on nihilistic fatalism about the failure of society and culture. He offered promos for Mos Def, Technique, and Rebel Diaz. Use hip hop to feed, instruct, and build.
Paniccioli was framed for listening devices for teaching yoga and tai chi. Reference to Ernest Withers … attempts to suborn barbers to inform on their customers. He mentioned Larry Davis and the CIA in the Dark Alliance. He documented planting evidence and illegal substances, even through Navy service. Recognizing the ways leaders are targeted. He discussed sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums.
Michael Premo
Gil Scott Heron poem, “The New Deal”
Socio-economic conditions that produced hip hop? Reference Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders. Deindustrialization typically cited, but could the consolidation of the black middle class have incited the development of hip hop? To wit, could hip hop have taken hold without the children of the black middle class in the 1980s and 1990s? Not to mention, the preparation of white working and middle class children to reject the Cosby mass media image in favor of the gangster rap mythology framed by Rakim, Naughty by Nature, Dre, and Snoop.
Session 6 – The Tensions between Hip Hop and the Academy
Michael Holman
He commends the courage to engage in a public act of self-criticism as so many programs around the country have been established (Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Yale). Most programs cannot tolerate the pioneers of the culture to test and evaluate the theorists about the emerging field. There are not enough pioneers to serve on the various faculties around the world. Hip hop will be around forever, but the pioneers will not be.
“Popmaster Fabel” Pabon
He has been part of experimental theater as an adjunct faculty member for the last 11 years. It has been a strong commitment to support and maintain the position. Universal Zulu Nation as the first hip hop academy. Afrika B. offered “Infinity lessons” as an anthology of teachings that offered ‘knowledge of self.’ These opportunities directed the inquiry about who we are as a people. Artists have to understand the importance of challenging the academic authorities through their conferences. The establishment of values was always a fundamental principle in the work. “Jam on the Groove” – 1st hip hop off-broadway musical. Artists demanded community service as part of their national tour.
“Mare 139” Rodriguez
He opened with a discussion of his privilege to experience the birth of hip hop and its growth at one of its origin points. The academy, while a healthy place to examine these processes, must abandon its arrogance about its importance to the development and authentication of western civilization. Living an expressive life as an antidote to a repressive life. He discussed the cynicism of renaming black studies as hip hop studies – the opportunism of the academy bankrupts the principles asserted by the culture. Hip hop has never been exclusively black and the hip hop academy promotes that mythology.
To DaVinci, From Imhotep 