In our hip-hop class we have finished up the sections of the course titled “Hip-Hop History/Culture” and begun delving into the concepts of hip-hop politics. For our class tomorrow we were asked to define hip-hop and describe how hip-hop can be political. To me, the simplest definition is usually the best, so I define politics as the process by which groups make collective decisions. This is usually seen at the international, national, state, and city level. However, almost everything can be related to politics if it involves more than one person making a choice.
At first glance it seems like it would be hard for hip-hop to be political. After all, what does music have to do with decision making? And this is the belief I’ve held in the past, as I’ve already mentioned how little I knew/know about hip-hop outside of the music. But the readings for this week describe the politics of hip-hop in much depth. In my opinion, the best example comes out of the reading “The Challenge of Rap Music from Cultural Movement to Political Power.” Near the end it describes many of the informal connections between grassroots and commercial hip-hop. Examples of this include the many social charity organizations set up by hip-hop artists such as the Wu Charitable Foundation, Daddy’s House, and the Christopher Wallace Foundation. Many of these grew out of the limelight of hip-hop and, for that reason, may seem superficial. However, when we look at these stars and see how much work they put into their organizations we see that they truly care about the good they do.
The author goes on to make suggestions that could make the grassroots/commercial hip-hop connections more formal. These ideas include having hip-hop challenge their white listeners to work on race relations and having hip-hop artists pool their resources in order to take care of serious social issues. To me, these seem like fantastic ideas. We’ve already seen that working alone these artists can make a difference for a small number of people. However, if hip-hop were to become more political then it could affect a huge number of people. Too many people, hip-hop is currently a trend; however, hip-hop can be a social movement if the parties involved let it.
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Do you not think hip hop is already a social movement? I agree with you that increased formality would be the best decision for the hip hop culture to more in a more positive direction to impact the millions that listen to it. I was surprised by how effect the informal methods of teaching values to the African American youth was.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you thoughts on how successful hip hop as a movement towards the greater good would be? Do you think that the communities as a whole would be accepting of it? I'm curious to see how a positively forced movement would affect the freedom of speech that so many rappers use as a defense against critics. It seems that somewhere people are always unhappy about something!
One last question (good post!) Could you elaborate on your definition of politics? How does hip hop/listeners/rappers/executives make decisions? Do they listen to one another?
Thanks!!!!
I agree with Lisa's comment that "people are always unhappy about something", but I would like to further it some. Hip hop, it seems, is based on things going wrong in life and the lessons learned from those sitautions. If situations started to be more positive and less angsty, there is the possibility that much of the hip-hop culture would die. In a way, politics is what is keeping hip-hop alive today. It gives sustenance to hip-hop, something to create opinions on and something to create a message from. By taking care of the negative social situations that surround hip-hop, it could lead to the sacrifice of the art completely. With nothing to fix and nothing to complain about, where does hip-hop go?
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