Hip_Hop Now: An Introduction (original) (raw)

A Hidden History of Oracular Hip-Hop

Redefining the Global Revolutionary Diaspora, 2018

Beginning to express the myriad roles of Hip-Hop within the diaspora of First Peoples’ communities since its inception to the present day -and even far beyond it, to the Afrofuturistic realities it often depicts- is a colossal undertaking, and as much as it is a popular trend to generalize and/or compare different aspects of this multiversal culture, such statements cannot be essentialized as empirical truths, as the categorization and differentiation of these individually interconnected parts which form the greater whole are themselves by-products of Western eurocentric standards of academic analysis. Despite this, it is still of primordial importance to distinguish the vast semantic and socio-cultural as well as politico-economic gap between the concepts of ‘rap’ and ‘Hip-Hop’ as they have emerged historically, as KRS-ONE (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone), one of the foremost founding fathers of Hip-Hop from the Bronx, aptly given the name 'The Teacha', expresses it: 'Rap is something you do, Hip-Hop is something you live': Hip-Hop is larger than the radio, larger than commercialized artists, larger than record industry branding. [...] Hip-Hop cannot be easily understood or defined. It is complex and full of narratives that would blow away even the strongest anthropologist. But as I always tell my students, we have to discuss the obvious to get to the obscure. I am suggesting we begin to deconstruct parts of Hip-Hop as a larger phenomenon in order to understand the whole (The Soul of Hip-Hop, p. 20).

Hip Hop World News: reporting back

Race & Class, 2017

Responding to the BBC 4 documentary, The Hip Hop World News, the author examines a number of debates that the programme, narrated by Rodney P, a pioneer of British rap music, and a believer in the revolutionary potential of hip hop culture, throws up. For hip hop also has many reactionary elements and has become big business for the corporations and rap ‘stars’ involved in its production. Beyond just pointing to individual rappers who have been ‘conscious’ political voices, such as Public Enemy’s Chuck D, we are shown structures embedded in the origins and ‘elements’ of hip hop that continue to make it a ‘voice of the voiceless’. Some people, like Lord Jamar, who is interviewed on the documentary, have argued that hip hop as a black art form can only be performed by black artists, yet, as Rodney P points out, hip hop has been adopted everywhere to express and transmit the situations and struggles of marginalised and oppressed groups all over the globe.