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.