Amanda Kennedy- Hip-hop discussion
In the article “Foucault’s Turntable: Hip-Hop scholars Bumrush the Academy,� Hua Hsu reviews the work of Professor Todd Boyd. On of his remarks was that, “Hip-hop was easier to legitimize then [10 years ago in the 1990s] because it was ‘better’-more well rounded, more political, more purposefully angry� (Hsu 3).
This got me thinking, has hip-hop lost its meaning and if so, how would we define today’s version of hip-hop? But before I could answer that, I needed to know exactly what hip-hop is. Professor Pate and Professor Riviera were able to answer that. They said that hip-hop is a culture meant to be an opposition to the main stream culture. Hip-hop is the whole package: fashion, rap, graffiti, break dancing, publications, etc. Rap is particularly important because it acts as the literature of the culture.
Professor Pate talked specifically about rap and how a lot of the reason that hip-hop has lost some of its edge is because of all the “bad rap� that gets circulated into the main stream. Professor Riviera adds to this saying that modern rap and hip-hop is being re-sold to you as a way to tone down the rebellious aspect. By making hip-hop common, it lowers its influence; it is commercialism used to control the masses.
Both professors emphasized that hip-hop is still very much alive and powerful, but that you need to be looking in the right places. Professor Riviera emphasized the power of hip-hop on the global scene. She says that hip-hop is ever changing because changing politics will lead to changing forms of hip-hop. She says that repression leads to artistic expression, so hip-hop is all about what’s happening politically at the time.
