Cole Storer Hip Hop Panel
"Blood Brothers" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a provocative interview done on Albert and Allen Hughes with regards to "Menace II Society." It follows what happened to the two of them after the release of their box office hit and their fight to get to the top of their drama by showing the difference between "good" violence and "bad" violence. When we were in the discussion someone asked if where you were from or what your educational background was was a big deal within the hip- hop community? When Gates questions them about where they grew up the Hughes brothers get a little up in arms about it. They ask him another question. "You don't ask Spielberg that shit. You don't ask Tim Burton where he grew up." (Gates, 166). In the discussion the speakers believed that it does have to do with where you are from popularity wise. People might not respect you if you are rapping like you are from the ghetto when really you went to school for performing arts or grew up in a predominately white community like Tupac. Pate said that there is a place for intellectuals in hip hop and that it is necessary for someone to have a birds-eye view of the genre. He argues that there needs to be someone watching out, making sure these artists realize what they're putting out there or else they might lose focus of what they are trying to accomplish.
Another thing we focused on in the lecture was the importance of a 'hood or the place where an artist calls home. You hear all the rap artists talk about their different regions like East Coast, West Coast or "The Dirty," but they may not necessarily live there. They move out when they get rich. I thought it was awesome to here these brothers talk about how they still live in Pomona because that's who they are and that's where they shot their movies. They learned to direct from that culture.