Week 16- Freestyle Blog- Global Hip-hop

When I lived in Dakar in the summer of 1997, so may young people asked me if I knew Tupac Shakur. His impact on Hip-hop circulated around the world. The image of the late Tupac Shakur's virtual hologram performance at Coachella 2012 posted here speaks to the transformative power of Hip-hop. As you post examples of Hip-hop from around the world this week, think about why people from around the world connect to the music and culture? How does Hip-hop function as a shared language of freedom?

Week 15- Hip-hop Politics and Activism

This week, we are discussing Hip-hop's relationship to politics. Submit a freestyle blog ( audio reference, art image, lyrics, etc.) that reflects your vision of Hip-hop's relationship to politics. Is it possible to separate politics from personal identity? How do you see Hip-hop artists present their political perspectives?

Week 14- Hip-hop's Influence on Theater, Fashion and Performance

This week we are discussing Hip-hop's impact on theater, fashion and performance practices. We can broadly understand "mainstream" and/or "Western" concepts of theater as those that adhere to a linear narrative and plot. Hip-hop Theater often disrupts this linear storytelling to employ other devices such as media, dance, politics, etc as seen in Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights. and Danny Hoch's Jails, Hospitals and Hip-hop. Fashion is also a a theatrical performance. As seen in the work of Kanye West, Nikki Minaj and other MCs, artists choose (and often design) the fashion that they wear. Their performances in videos often require them to act out characters created uniquely for a song, or to engage a character they have created for their brand. Moreover, designers create fashion lines that people can use to perform parts of their identity using particular styles of self-adornment. Theater, fashion and

performance are all tied in Hip-hop. As you blog on the words Hip-hop Theater and Self Adornment, think about the ways that Hip-hop Theater and Fashion incorporate many of the themes and subjects of Hip-hop music and culture. How do Hip-hop Theater artists use the theater space to perform personal narratives of struggle, identity, etc.? How does Hip-hop fashion sample from Hip-hop's elements to construct literal and/ or abstract engagements with Hip-hop aesthetics?

Week 13- Fine Art and Hip-hop: Aesthetics Remix

Hip-hop inspired Fine Art usually contains a particular set of social codes that can be linked to Hip-hop's larger aesthetic which includes the use of Hip-hop language (vernacular, visual, embodied),and engages the dialectic between public and private space. Hip-hop inspired art also engages in what Danny Hoch calls the "reappropriation by hip-hop creators of materials, technology and preserved culture"(2006). When you discuss Hip-hop Aesthetics and Fine Art this week, think about the culture of Hip-hop and the themes Hip-hop artists explore. How do fine artists in Hip-hop create bridges between private and public notions of "street" and "fine" in their art? How do museum and gallery curators ( those that choose what is "art")suggest a sort of "inaccessibility" of fine art works by charging high prices for these works? What contradictions to do you see arise when so called "street art" aesthetic makes it to the gallery and museum space?

Week 12- Hip-hop, Media and Television

This week's lecture and readings discuss Hip-hop's commodification in the media. How do you see Hip-hop's influence (in positive and negative ways) in popular media such as commercials, television, film and print media? How is Hip-hop commodified by artists, corporations and/or the media? As you think about defining key words of commodification and African American culture, think about the ways that corporations and artists commodify essentialized elements of African American culture through Hip-hop in the marketplace.

Week 11- Hip-hop, Race and American Film

How has Hip-hop's aesthetic shaped American film? In what ways do we see race articulated through a Hip-hop aesthetic? As you explore the readings, audio and visual references, think about the ways in which Hip-hop has influenced the cinematic and storytelling styles. How do you see particular elements of Hip-hop translated into film? How does the race of a filmmaker impact his/her vision if at all? As you watch the films Do the Right Thing, 8 Mile and Hustle and Flow, think about the ways that diverse racial and ethnic groups use Hip-hop as a platform to tell stories.

Week 10- Spring Break

Week 9- Gender and Sexuality

This week, create a freestyle blog. You can write and/or post any sound or visual files that engage the complexity of gender and sexuality in Hip-hop form your perspective. Engage ideas of genes and sexuality in Hip-hop based on previous class discussions. We will have a mini-lecture on Wednesday to make up Monday's mid-term testing class period.

Week 8- No Sucka MCs, No Swagger Jackers: Hip-hop's Urban Griots

MC's in Hip-hop music are storytellers. Whether MCs write their rhymes or improvise them on the spot, they become living archives of history that connect the past to the present. As you blog on the key words GRIOT and BATTLE, think about the ways that Hip-hop MCs use their storytelling to describe lived and imagined experiences. How can you link the MC storytelling and freestyling in the Battle to stylistic elements such as braggadocio (today called 'swagger'),'call and response,' and sampling? How does the battle in MCing relate to artistic expression in the other elements of Hip-hop?

Week 7- Physical Graffiti: Embodied Histories of Hip-hop Dance

The term "Physical Graffiti" was used by Jorge "Popmaster Fabel" Pabon as an overarching theme to describe how breakers and Hip-hop dancers write the history of Hip-hop with their bodies and movements. Many Hip-hop dancers embody many of the style elements found in MCing( such as battling) and graffiti ("getting fame,") etc. As you define your understanding of EMBODIED HISTORIES and BBOY/BBIRL(S), think about how the gestures used for breaking, popping, locking and other Hip-hop dance practices can be understood as a physical repertoire of Hip-hop history. How are particular moves connected to the history of Hip-hop? How do we identify the origins of particular Hip-hop dance moves? Can gestures be sampled physically in performance? Pabon tells us that we must consider the ways that breaking brings several parts of hip-hop history together through gestures. As we prepare for midterm, think about how the terms connect across the elements.

Week 6- American Graffiti: Claiming Public Space

This week we will discuss the artistic, social and political effects of graffiti in Hip-hop on American popular culture. Informed by our explorations of documentary film, academic writing and artist testimonies concerning graffiti in Hip-hop, how do you define the terms Graffiti and Public Space? In what ways do graffiti artists make claims to public space? It is important to acknowledge the positive aesthetic dimensions of graffiti as an art form as well as the association of graffiti with certain destructive behavior such as vandalism of property. If we think about the ways that Hip-hop's aesthetic is indebted to practices of improvisation (sampling,freestyling, breaking, etc.) how then do these terms allow us to think about the historic and social function graffiti serves? As you think about graffiti and its relationship to public spaces (buildings, subway cars, mailboxes, etc.), how does graffiti speak to power and privilege?

Week 5- Hip-hop's Relationship to Multiculturalism and Polyculturalism

In the case of Hip-hop in the United States, discussions of "race" often conflate African American identity and culture.This week in our readings, Robin D.G. Kelley argues polyculturalism, unlike multiculturalism, recognizes that there are problems with simplistically conflating race and culture. Polyculturalism acknowledges the inter-related connections and fluidity between cultures. Multiculturalism keeps cultures separated and static--allowing them to relate alongside one another. However,the history of Hip-hop culture is often separated from the people that produce it. In defining the keywords of polyculturalism and multiculturalism in relationship to Hip-hop this week,think about the ways that the meaning of Blackness has shifted since Hip-hop's inception.

Week 4- These are The Breaks: Turntabalism and DJ Culture

This week we will use the keywords TURNTABALISM and SAMPLING to guide us through our readings from Robert Karimi, Joe Schloss and Andrew Bartlett on DJ Culture and the foundations of Hip-hop culture. How can you define these terms in ways that illuminate the historical and archival practices of the Hip-hop DJ? How has the sample been used historically to created links between the past and present of African American and other music traditions? If turntabalism is a musical practice, in what way does the ethics of sampling followed by DJs impact how we understand and listen to the foundations of Hip-hop music ?

Week 3- Blackness and Hip-hop

This week, we are discussing Hip-hop's historical relationship to Blackness and African American culture. Our key word BLACKNESS and HIP-HOP guide our readings, audio selections and discussion. How can we understand these terms in relationship to the social, cultural and economic conditions that produced Hip-hop in its early stages? How do shifting ideas of race shape how we understand Hip-hop and Blackness? As you define these key terms, think about the ways that Hip-hop music and culture pushes racial, ethnic and national boundaries. How does Blackness,in relationship to U.S. Hip-hop, challenge social inequality?

Week 2- Hip-hop's Regional Sounds

This week, we will learn about the foundational elements of Hip-hop culture in the United States and the ways that Hip-hop music has been influenced by regional input and interpretation over time. As you blog on the key words of the week, Hip-hop's Regional Sounds, think about the ways that different urban and suburban spaces have influenced Hip-hop's sound. What are the similarities and differences between different regional sounds of Hip-hop? What are some of the regional influences that you can attribute to a particular geographic location? How do you recognize one regional Hip-hop sound from another?

Week 1 - Welcome to Hip-hop in Popular Culture

Welcome to the class blog for Hip-hop in Popular Culture, Spring 2012. This course explores the ways that Hip-hop music and Culture has influenced American Popular culture over the past 30 years. This blog is a site to engage the key words and theories that we will discuss in lecture and class discussion time. You will have the opportunity to post a critically engaged comment on the theory, visual and aural texts we utilize for this course. I look forward to reading your responses and guiding you on this amazing journey this semester. Best- Professor NHP