Rap & Hip-Hop Panel Discussion- Jesse Stapp
In his article, Foucault’s Turntable: Hip-Hop Scholars Bumrush the Academy, Hua Hsu argues that recent scholars have changed the way in which they approach the study of Hip-Hop. For example, Hsu uses Todd Boyd, a scholar, as an exemplar for this new approach. According to Hsu, Boyd states that, “In [his] mind, a lot of universities have been behind—they wait for something to happen and then they jump on it. To [him], that’s a very old-school model. The academy should anticipate and predict situations so as to inform not only members of the academy, but society at large.” I can go about commenting on this statement in one of two ways. First is the pre-hip-hop rap panel discussion response. Before last week’s forum, I simply would have said that I agree with this comment wholeheartedly. It made complete sense to me that instead of sitting back and letting the curriculum dictate the classroom setting, it is more alive and efficient to predict the next trends of the hip-hop movement in order to learn them as they are happening. With this methodology, Boyd is staying with the movement instead of lagging behind it.
However, after the hip-hop panel discussion, I may not entirely agree with Boyd’s teaching style. Both speakers involved in the discussion stressed the importance of history in hip-hop. The past truly defined hip-hop and made it into what it is today. The new trends that are emerging in hip-hop are not predictable, but fluid, and have deep historical roots. While Boyd may have an advantage in following the many hip-hop movements because of his ability to foresee such trends, staying side-by-side with hip-hop is irrelevant if you don’t know the origins of such a culture. As Melissa Rivieré said in the discussion—“You have to know where you came from before you can get where you want to go.”