Kyle Anderson-Hip-hop Panel
I thought that the hip-hop discussion panel was really intriguing, as it brought real world perspectives on hip-hop from two people who are true experts on the subject. That being said, I thought Alexs’ response to why academia and hip-hop should be separated was especially enlightening. In the article “Foucault’s Turntable� by Hua Hsu, Boyd is quoted as saying “In my mind, a lot of universities have been behind—they wait for something to happen
and then they jump on it…Within this group of people who write about hip-hop, I find that a lot of them have a bit of a moralizing tone to what they say. It should be about the culture—this is what it is, with all its problems, all its warts. Take it for what it is. Deal with it, break it down, chop it up, and leave it for somebody else to do with it what they want, know what I'm sayin'?� The question poised to Alexs involved what validation he saw for the apparent separation between the scholarly world of hip-hop and the streets that hip-hop ultimately originates. His response was that the scholarly world “should be separate� and that academia allows us “to think about it, not what’s the hottest.� Furthermore, he said that “if someone isn’t shepparding it, it will be marketed and fade to fad.� There is a lot of truth to what he said, as academia provides a way to be skeptical and objective about the hip-hop industry, and critique which way hip-hop is heading. I disagree that scholarly thinking alone will prevent rap and hip-hop from being bastardized and marketed, because the evidence is all around us that this is happening already. Take, for instance, what the panelists said about Nelly’s Air Force Ones song, which was ultimately created by Nike to launch its shoe line. Marketing is a necessary evil in our capitalist economy, but it detracts from the art and pure essence of what hip-hop is. By working in cahoots with “the man� to make a buck, the art form loses its anti-establishment edge.