Featured Presenter

Steven T. Lessner, Assistant Professor of English, Northern Virginia Community College

 

“Explosion When My Pen Hits”:  Writing Process Elements of Hip Hop in First-Year Writing 

This presentation focuses on designing and teaching a curriculum for a basic first-year writing course that implements elements of Hip Hop artists’ writing processes in order to open contributive spaces for African American undergraduate male writers in college writing classrooms.  As evident in published texts such as Paul Edwards’ How To Rap and Bradley & DuBois’ The Anthology of Rap, Hip Hop is studied for its complex written and performed lyrics, as well as its in-depth socio-political commentary on topics such as police brutality or the prison industrial complex.  Calling on this recent research, this presentation extends rappers’ varieties of writing into a basic first-year writing course that studies the writing process components of invention, arrangement, revision, delivery and style.  First, the presenter will discuss these five elements of the writing process and offer examples of how recent rappers have reflected on or engaged in each of these in relation to their own work.  For example, a brief interview will be shared from J. Cole discussing his freewriting invention process behind creating and writing lyrics to Born Sinner.  Also, interview quotes from Tech N9ne will be discussed to highlight how the rapper speaks about getting over writer’s block.  Additionally, a clip featuring Kendrick Lamar’s vocal delivery of “Alright” at the 2015 BET Awards will be examined to consider how Lamar’s emphasis of certain words, as well as his stage presentation, add to his song’s overall message and its connection to audiences.  Next, the presenter will offer in-class writing activities and short writing assignments to engage in with first-year writers concerning rappers’ writing processes, as well as having students trace their own experiences with writing.  Finally, the presenter will share community college first-year writers’ responses to this curriculum in hopes of highlighting strengths, and future revisions for the course.

   

Biography

Steven Lessner is an Assistant Professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College, where he teaches first-year writing courses that invite undergraduates to explore how their diverse music literacies, including Hip Hop, can be used to effectively transition to writing in higher education.  He has taught undergraduate writing previously at Elon University and Michigan State University.  In his research, he focuses on how African American male students’ literacy and language practices can be invited, included, and learned from in first-year writing pedagogy, and how Hip Hop artists exhibit specific characteristics of organic intellectuals.  He has presented his research at the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, College Composition and Communication, Hip Hop Literacies Conference, and Circling the Elements: Hip Hop Conference.  He has published his research on writing pedagogy in a book chapter co-authored with Collin Craig entitled “Finding Your Way In: Invention As Inquiry Based Learning In First Year Writing.”  He enjoys working with and mentoring first generation college students.  In his free time, he loves visiting radical bookstores in Baltimore and DC, writing poetry, visiting family, and listening to lots of Hip Hop.  His favorite Hip Hop artists include Nas, Method Man, Kendrick Lamar and Lupe Fiasco.  His favorite albums are Method Man and Redman’s Blackout and Nas’ Illmatic.

 

 

 

Facilitator/artivist- Blak Rapp Madusa

Hip Hop Artivism Workshop &Performance
 

Summary: To Introduce Hip Hop Artivism as an intergenerational organizing tool for social change
Goals: EDUCATE- By providing basic terminology for base building and leadership development
DEMONSTRATE-Showing how these terms apply to this campaign and movement

ACTIVATE-To engage participants in a display of Hip Hop Artivism through performance
 

 

Biography

Blak Rapp Madusa the Hip Hop Artivist and filmmaker, whose name is an acronym for Making A Difference Using Skills and Activism is originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Shebegan her career as a Spoken Word artist at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas in 2002. After transferring to the University of Pittsburgh and becoming a Community Activist in 2003 she would move back to Houston in 2007. Under the guidance of the late Zin of All Real Radio and Trickle Down Entertainment she would hone her skills as a "conscious lyricist" In 2011 her career would flourish as she returned to Pittsburgh, teaming up with the Hip Hop Collective 1hood and Jasiri X, as well as continuing her work with grassroots organizations and social justice activists. In 2013 she began a campaign for Hip Hop Artivism seeking to build a platform for impactful art making.
 

 

 

Featured Presenter

Ngozi Okidegbe, Graduate of McGill University, Faculty of Law 

“A 'Bad Rap': The Implications of Rap Lyrics Being Admitted as Evidence in Criminal Trials”

The admission of rap lyrics by young black men as evidence in American and Canadian criminal proceedings raises serious concerns. In terms of the law of evidence, the admission of rap lyrics runs afoul of the rule against hearsay. Its admission despite this fact can only be understood from a critical race theory perspective. The interpretation of rap lyrics as evidence of criminality as opposed to creativity demonstrates the presence of unconscious racial bias in the criminal justice system. I argue that racial sensitivity training and the enforcement of the rule against hearsay evidence are potential solutions to this problem.

 

Biography

Ngozi Okidegbe is a former law clerk to Justice Madlanga of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. She holds a BCL/LLB degree from the McGill Faculty of Law. Her areas of research are in procedural law and human rights. Her work has been presented at several conferences including the 2014 International AIDS conference, Melbourne, Australia.

 

 

Dr. Erica DeCuir, Assistant Professor, Department of Teacher Education College of Education

Albany State University

“How hip-hop saved my teaching career: Songs in the key of classroom management”

Title:  How hip-hop saved my teaching career: Songs in the key of classroom management

Format: Roundtable Discussion

 

This roundtable discussion will focus on the challenges of managing student discipline in both K-12 and higher education classroom contexts. Drawing upon my own experiences as a high school teacher and college professor, I will discuss ways to incorporate hip-hop music as an effective strategy for classroom management. Hip-hop music can be included in daily classroom routines to signal instructional transitions, encourage productivity, and increase student engagement. Additionally, students benefit from exposure to a variety of hip-hop genres such as underground hip-hop, international hip-hop, and cultural diversity throughout the country (i.e. New Orleans bounce). To engage participants in the roundtable discussion, they will be encouraged to identify hip-hop genres or artists that best align to specific instructional activities—thereby maximizing the effectiveness of hip-hop music as a classroom management strategy.

 

Biography

Dr. DeCuir is an assistant professor of Teacher Education in the College of Education. She is a former K-12 teacher and supports culturally-responsive teaching in schools, particularly the inclusion of music in African-American classrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Essentials,

Khalil Thomas, Lucien Wall, Eljay Williams, Parris Drake, Kedric Barrett

 

In today’s climate of false representation, false accusations, and false personification with regards to representing one’s true self, some may argue that the Hip Hop culture is merely a poor rendition of a glorious past, gone the way of the turntable, boom box, and fat boy shoe laces.  In addition, this ideological, well traveled thought; although looming in the minds of many, dies a slow patriarchal death as the machine continues to roll over the bones of many who may be desirous of an authentic hip-hop experience.

 

Synopsis

The Essentials in a panel discussion comprised of several hip hop aficionados with lasting credibility in various hip hop circles around the country. The panelist will openly discuss a wide array of topics that range from the ordinary to the extreme with regards to hip hop culture.  The participants will be orchestrated by a moderator who will also give his or her opinion on the subject matter. 

 

Topics to be discussed:

 

   1. The rift between Hip Hop and Rap: Is there a difference?

 “Rap is something you do. Hip Hop is something you live.”

KRS-1

   2. Hip Hop vs. Commercialism: Who protects us from you?

“Verses serve a purpose like workers. Yet there's clowns making Hip Hop a circus.”

O.C.

   3. Urban radio: Myth versus reality.

“In the daytime radios scared of me, cause I'm mad, plus I'm the enemy.”

Chuck D

   4. Who stole the soul: Examining the fight for the soul of hip hop culture.

“Can I ask you is it too late, now who’s going to take the weight?”

 

 

 

Biography

 

Khalil Thomas

Khalil Thomas, is the founder and co-owner of i AM Classic Hip Hop, Raw Radio, and Intelligent Movement.  Born the son of a radio deejay, Khalil was exposed to music at a very young age, especially during the 1980’s hip hop craze.  As a teen, Khalil would get mix tapes from New York that further exposed him to artist not known in his native Georgia.  It wasn’t before long, as his interest in mastering the elements of hip hop grew, he threw himself into MCing, DJing, Break-dancing, and Graffiti.  “As a kid, everyone in Georgia thought I was weird, but I knew there was something in me that other folks in my area truly didn’t understand.” Upon graduating high school Khalil joined the Navy and moved to Oakland, California. It was there that he continued to manifest his artistic ability and became well known for his skills as an incredible MC.  Upon returning back east, he moved to Atlanta and graduated from Georgia State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Rhetoric and Composition. He would later earn a Master’s Degree in Education.  It was during this time in 2007 that he founded the social media group, i AM Classic Hip Hop, with houses various platforms (Raw Radio, Intelligent Movement, etc.) devoted to preserving the true essence of hip hop music and culture. Shortly after, Khalil and his partners ushered in Atlanta’s first classic hip hop radio station Raw Radio. To date, Khalil has interviewed such revered artist as Rakim, Camp Lo, Big Daddy Kane, Dead Prez, Rass Kass, M.C. Shan, Wise Intelligent, The Beat Nuts, Monie Love, Dougie Fresh, D.J. Red Alert and many others to date.

  

Lucien Wall

Lucien L. Wall, born in Brooklyn, New York was exposed to music at an early age. Exposed to different types of music being raised within the West-Indian culture (Jazz, Blues, Calypso, Reggae, Latin) he took those musical tastes with his passion of the Hip-Hop Culture to pursue his dream of achieving success as an Entrepreneur in the Music Business environment. He was under the wing of DJ EFN and DJ N.V (NVS Styles) in Miami, and played an instrumental part of the Hip-Hop Radio Show “Sewer Series” that was syndicated throughout the Armed Forces Radio Network from 1996-1999, originally conceived as a mixtape series focusing on exposing independent artists and hip-hop music to a worldwide audience throughout the network.

Throughout this tenure, he attended Florida International University while acting as a resident DJ for infamous underground radio stations in Miami such as “Mixx 96” with DJ Khaled, 104.7- The breaks, and often on the “Hip-Hop Shop” on WVUM, one of Miami’s longest running Hip Hop Outlets to date.

 

After years of experience in New York, he decided to resign and attend school Full-time again, this time at one of the most prestigious Multimedia Schools in the country, Full Sail University, in Orlando Florida in 2006. Throughout his time at Full Sail, he acted as the Vice-President for the MEISA Chapter at Full Sail as well as an acting member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) contributing to many events in the Music Scene in Orlando most notably, the Florida Music Festival through his time in Orlando.  Obtaining an Associates of Science Degree in Recording Arts and Bachelors Of Science Degree in Music & Entertainment Business with Honors, he decided to relocate to Atlanta, GA, to strengthen his ties and gain more exposure in the Music Scene in Atlanta in 2008.

He currently operates his business as an independent consultant and also is a co-owner of ICHH, LLC, better known as “I am Classic Hip Hop”

 

Eljay Williams

Eljay Williams is the creator and owner of The New Content, which provides content for the channel on the media streaming platform Roku. Originally from Ohio, Eljay Williams has become a fixture at many hip hop events across the country.  Debuting in 2005, Eljay created one of the first true hip hop shows in the city of Atlanta.  Eljay’s The Stand, is a testament to true hip hop and the culture which it embodies. The Stand featured countless MC’s, events, and festivals with regards to the movement of hip hop.  In addition, Eljay hosts a monthly event called Wax Addiction. This event pays homage to the selective stylings of the DJ, as many turntablist are encouraged to bring their favorite vinyl editions of the songs we hip hop enthusiast yearn to listen to. When he’s not at home making mix tapes for his close friends and associates, Eljay can be found in rummage sale or record stores searching for records long thought to be forgotten. Eljay currently works as a producer and editor for NBATV in Atlanta, Ga.

 

Parris Drake

Parris Drake aka "Flowbacks P" is the creator of FLOWBACKS, a social media group that's dedicated to keeping the legacy alive of classic hip hop. The company which was formed in 2006 noticed that there was a disconnect with the younger generations as to the pioneers that paved the way for hip hop culture today. Also seeing that the voice of the generation that started hip hop was severely misrepresented. With that Flowbacks set out on a journey to be "The Brand" that embodied that spirit of all things classic hip hop and the culture it spawned. Growing up in early stages of hip hop, and watching the growth of it, allowed me to immerse myself into the cultures founding elements of MC'ing, DJ'ing, B-Boying, and Graffiti Art. Having this knowledge, I feel its FLOWBACKS duty to pass on this information to the masses, and to continue the legacy of the culture that changed the world....HIP HOP!

 

 

Kedric Barrett

Kedric Barrett is a native of Memphis, TN and has lived in the Atlanta, GA area since 2007. Kedric grew up during the golden era of hip hop and cites Melle Mell of the Furious Five as his first influence into the realm of hip hop. He began to get involved in the media side of music first by starting his own podcast with a friend on Podomatic aptly titled 'Old School Hip Hop 101'. They did 11 shows together and this set the pace to move the show to internet radio station, WRUG Media. During his tenure at WRUG Kedric began covering events in Atlanta which included writing and artist interviews with a focus on classic hip hop. During that time Kedric met Carolyn Grady while covering the Legends of Hip Hop show and shortly after that a partnership was formed and they created Mic Check Media. Covering events and artist interviews was done on a major scale. Kedric created the Pioneers of Hip Hop series and it covers interviews with artists such as Positive K, Wise Intelligent of the Poor Righteous Teachers, Brother J of X Clan, Granddaddy I.U., Play for Kid n' Play, and Masta Ace just to name a few. All of which can be found archived on the Mic Check Media website. Currently Kedric has gone back to radio. Through a partnership formed with Khalil Thomas of I Am Classic Hip Hop, Kedric can be heard on Monday evenings from 7pm-9pm on his new show aptly titled The G.O.A.T. Show. Classic hip hop is spun in heavy rotation along with humor, commentary, and artist interviews.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Khalilah Ali, Assistant Professor of English and English Education, Clayton State University

“How to Pimp a Butterfly: Using Rosenblatt’s Transactional Theory to Read Rap as Critical Race Counter story”

 

 

In line with critical race theory and critical race feminism’s use of narratives to counter the hegemonic discourse, I contend that an alternative type of analysis can yield understandings about the world that are too often ignored or all out silenced. Specifically, I use Kendrick Lamar’s How to Pimp a Butterfly as a complex and often problematic counterstory to demonstrate how Womanist Performance Pedagogy (WPP) can function within the English language arts classroom to rhetorically evaluate texts with popular culture authority. Rhetorically interrogating Lamar’s work through this lens provides the reader the ability to question pop culture performative texts’ relativity to the intersections of race, class and gender in the public sphere. Using a predominant theory of literary analysis, reader response, through the lens of critical race feminism, I argue that pedagogies of literary interpretation need a more holistic framework in which to evaluate the educative merit of non-sanctioned literary texts. As a result, I make the case for an alternative theoretical model--Womanist Performance Pedagogy (WPP) (Ali 2011) in that it insists on evaluating performance as a means for viewing intersectionality, commits to equality, and interrogates what constitutes an academically valid text. Therefore, WPP, as a lens, upholds literature's ability to serve as a politically, socially and culturally relevant mechanism to facilitate readers' liberation.

 

Biography

Khalilah Ali received her Ph.D in Educational Studies with a focus on Literacy, Pedagogy, and Culture from Emory University, M.Ed. in Middle and Secondary Instruction and B.A. in Literature and African Studies from Georgia State University. Realizing that education can come from inside and outside the classroom, she is dedicated to ensuring that her students’ education comes in a multitude of forms.

Dr. Ali’s primary interest is multicultural education, but Khalilah has a particular interest in mentoring youth. The self-proclaimed culture worker has worked with NSAA, from the Adinkra symbol representing excellence of workmanship.

Dr. Ali integrates arts and activism in the form of student centered collaborative projects, wherein students see the impact of the projects they create.

As a child of the hip-hop generation and conscious lyricist, artist-educator-activist Khalilah Ali works with poets, musicians and emcees in projects designed to expose positive hip-hop to a wider audience. Her interest in postcolonial and feminist studies allows her to envision a world that deals with the effects of hegemony and how dealing with that inequity can help devise steps to afford the world’s children an equal playing field.

 

Sidney Jones, The Ohio State University

 “Empire and Black Masculinity”

     Lee Daniels’ Empire is a cultural powerhouse that became a hit with viewers as soon as it first aired in 2015. As a hip hop soap opera, Empire, shows the tribulations Lucious Lyon and his family face in trying to secure control over his, and his ex-wife Cookie Lyon’s, brainchild, Empire records. In many ways, Empire is a by-product of mainstream hip hop politics, as the currency that will get you far at the record label (and in Lucious’ good graces) is the invocation of a stereotypically black hyper-masculinity, grounded in authenticity. Hip hop, and its pre-occupation with being hard and even at times anti-establishment, has historically contributed to the standard of authenticity that so many black men are defined, measured, and policed by.

    

Through the lens of masculinity studies, my paper will analyze Lucious and his eldest son, Andre, as two seemingly different representations of black masculinity. Lucious at first glance, comes across as the ultra-real and down patriarch, and Andre exists as the perpetual outsider as he imitates a white, hegemonic masculinity. In using bell hooks’ theorization of black male cool as a framework for my paper, I will argue that these two masculinities are just as similar, as they are different. I will assert that both characters not only contribute, either directly or indirectly, to white capitalist patriarchy, but neither can seem to fully escape the stereotypes about black masculinity (hyper-sexuality, coolness, performance etc.) that white patriarchy has projected onto them. Furthermore, if we can connect iterations of hip-hop centered authenticity or black male cool, like Lucious to white hegemony, is there any way of severing the two? What would black male cool look like without the prostration to white patriarchy?

 

Biography

Sidney Jones is a third-year PhD student at the Ohio State University, specializing in mid to late 20th century African American literature and gender and sexuality studies. He recently received my MA in English Literature at OSU and prior to that, He received his BA in English Literature at California State University, Northridge. His research interests include representations of black sexuality and disability studies.

 

Featured Presenter

Dr. Melinda Mills, Assistant Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies and Sociology

Castleton University  

“Considering Nicki Minaj: On Beauty, Body, and that Superb(ass)”

 

When we consider the ways in which black women have had to manage marginality in order to shift the center, we can both appreciate and question Nicki Minaj’s moves.  These “moves” are literal and figurative ones, including Minaj’s initial migration from the island of Trinidad to the bustling metropolis, New York City, and the actual moves she makes, in her career, in her videos, and in her everyday life.  With such huge popularity and success, Minaj enjoys and arguably encourages great visibility.  This hypervisibility reflects and reinforces the spectacularity of her body, a site of much attention.  As a result, Minaj can be read as a complex figure who troubles the following: notions of respectable black femininity, understandings of black sexuality, and autonomous yet potentially disidentificatory expressions of self (Munoz 1999).

 

In his book, Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities, Professor Mark Anthony Neal (2013:9) introduces and advances the idea of a “cosmopolitan hop-hop masculinity that deftly challenges the prevailing tropes of (black) masculinity that exist in much of mainstream hip-hop culture.”  Following Neal, I argue that Nicki Minaj has emerged as a contemporary figure embodying cosmopolitan hip-hop femininity.  By employing a black feminist perspective, I contextualize my analysis of Minaj within a framework of black sexual politics. 

As a means of exploring how Minaj complicates black sexuality through her myriad performances of music, as well as gender, race, class, sexuality and nationality, I take up a set of questions: How do we make sense of these performances as reflective of play and the persistence of larger patterns of contradictory images and messages that circulate in the global mediascape?  Does Minaj shift the discourse of hip-hop from one focused on cosmopolitanism, following Neal (2013), to one curious about the carnivalesque, following Bakhtin (1941, 1929)?  Does Minaj simultaneously uphold and challenge stereotypes and ideologies about black women, and more specifically black women from the Caribbean?  Does her engagement with the Caribbean reflect the tracing of roots back to those of hip-hop, or the routes Minaj has traveled to fashion new dimensions of the diaspora?  Is this diaspora the kind that “you could carry around with you”? (see Neal 2013:39).

 

I consider the productive tensions between Minaj creating or embracing the space for self-definition and empowerment, and effectively endorsing controlling images of black womanhood (Collins 2008) by examining the ways she constructs and presents her beauty and body in her music videos.  I ask, “Is Nicki Minaj dancing toward her own liberation or does she become complicit in her own oppression?”  In this paper, I consider the multiple ways of reading the performative, if not provocative, and compelling contradictions of Nicki Minaj as an emergent example of cosmopolitan hip-hop femininity.

 

Biography

 

Dr. Melinda Mills is the Coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies program, and an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology at Castleton University in Vermont.  Much of her research focuses on the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality.  She is currently working on a manuscript on multiracial identities, More than Multiracial.  Professor Mills teaches courses on popular culture and media representations, including one centered on hip hop.  This allows her to introduce her students to scholarship by some of her favorite thinkers, including Mark Anthony Neal and Melissa Harris-Perry.  Melinda enjoys adventuring through the Adirondacks, running through new neighborhoods, reading books or listening to them during her commute to Vermont.  She also shamelessly loves cupcakes, Fetty Wap, and Hello Kitty, in that order.

 

 

 

 

“HYPHY AS PROTEST”

Dr. Andrea L.S. Moore, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies Department, California State University- Sacramento

 

“Hyphy” (pronounced HIGH-fee), is a genre of rap and lifestyle that is associated with Bay Area hip hop culture. The hip hop elements and aesthetics in Hyphy represent a response to social, economic and cultural tensions on a local and national level from Bay Area youth. Marginalized youth created Hyphy as a means to release tension from structured authority and to celebrate life and freedom of expression, while the rappers in Hyphy helped foster the movement as a response against the commercial hip hop industry for not acknowledging the region as a trendsetter in the overall hip hop culture. Hyphy evolved into a social movement for marginalized youth, it emerged in early 2000 and peaked in 2006. My research on the Hyphy Movement considers a theoretical pedagogy in relation to Black identity politics and the role of socio-cultural production within social movements, through the exploration of the California Bay Area hip hop. I am interested in discussing how the movement fostered direct action amongst youth uniting them during pivotal social upheavals in 2009, such as the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, and the continuance of lack of legal sanctions against police violence directly in relation to the unjust murder of Oscar Grant.

 

Biography

 

Andrea L. S. Moore is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies Department at California State University, Sacramento. She received her B.A. in Sociology and Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from the University of California, Davis.  Her academic brand focuses on Ethnic History and Socio-Cultural Production.  Areas of expertise are situated within Pan African History, Cultural Studies, Sociology, and Popular Culture. Moore has been teaching in higher education for over 10 years serving concurrently as a lecturer in Sociology for the Department for Behavioral Social Sciences at Sacramento City College and the University of California, Davis for the African American and African Studies Program.

 

 

Matthew Joseph, Columbia University

“Punk Rock Rap" : Hip Hop, Punk, and the Integration of the Downtown Manhattan Arts Scene, 1977-1983”

 

In the early 1980s, legendary DJ Afrika Bambaataa changed his look. The Bronx-native found his inspiration downtown and began emulating a style, which he felt evoked “the wild punk look.” Bambaataa’s change came when he had a “vision… I’ve got to grab that black and white audience and bridge the gap.” To realize his “vision,” he would routinely invite the predominantly white audiences that he played for at downtown clubs to visit Bronx joints. While he admitted that initially black audiences “didn’t see what I was trying to do” and thought he was “crazy as hell,” eventually, blacks and whites appreciated and engaged with each other’s cultural scenes. This paper will explore a brief moment in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when downtown Manhattan was consumed by what the Bronx hip hop group the Cold Crush Brothers called, “Punk Rock Rap.” In an increasingly segregated New York City, hip hoppers and punk rockers would not allow race, class, and genre to divide them socially or musically.

This paper is an intervention into the histories of two musics that have traditionally been narrowly studied along racial lines. While hip hop pioneers like Bambaataa, Grandmaster Caz, and Fab 5 Freddy, and their punk counterparts like Blondie, the Tom Tom Club, and the Clash have all emphasized how the two genres are inseparably linked, music historians and journalists have neither stressed, nor, in most cases, mentioned hip hop and punk’s many connections. Yet while the punk and hip hop scenes influenced each other, I maintain that punk rock wielded greater influence over hip hop. After all, in order for hip hop to expand its fan-base, and allow hip hoppers to make money off their craft, hip hop had to come downtown. This paper explains how coming downtown did much to commercialize hip hop, changed the Bronx music scene, and helped create modern hip hop culture by bringing together the previously disparate art forms of graffiti, b-boying, DJing, and MCing.

 

Biography

Matthew Joseph is a second-year PhD student in History at Columbia University, specializing in twentieth-century U.S. cultural history with a focus on popular music. Prior to graduate studies, Joseph has presented and published on Mississippi Hill Country blues music, antebellum slave songs of the U.S. South, New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indian tradition, and Cuban son and hip hop. The paper he will present at the conference is based on research on the intertwined histories of punk and hip hop in 1970s and 80s New York City.

 

Walter Sistrunk, Assistant Professor,  Education and Language Acquisition Department

LaGuardia Community College

 

“Every Rhyme I write is 25 to Life": Violence as a redemptive aspect of Hip Hop”

 

Representations of violence in Hip Hop are generally perceived as the perpetuation and glorification of caste/class sectarianism and misogyny (black-on-black crime). In this paper, I argue that depictions of violence in Hip Hop are not merely clever braggadocios "shock and awe" rhythmic couplets, but form a body of work that is both reflective and analytical. Depictions of violence in Hip Hop are reflective in that they capture the mental state of those who resort to and are subjected to the violence that is a direct response to the effects of abject poverty. Second, it is analytical in that it provides a vivid description and explanation of the violence that takes place within the ghetto slum. Specifically, as a critique, Hip Hop narratives analyze the causation of violence and poverty in the black community to be an instance of domestic colonization.  Writing off expressive violence in Hip Hop as simply pathological, misogynistic and self-hating, we fail, on a grander scale, to realize that in sanitizing and minimizing Hip Hop into "conscious rap," ultimately mirrors white patriarchal mores. What is perceived as "conscious rap" often parallels and propagates racist rationales that correlate extrajudicial killings with "Black-on-Black crime," as opposed to recognizing racial profiling, the criminalization of Black bodies, and a militarized police culture as the source of the problem. By closely examining of the catalogue of various Hip Hop artist such as Reks, Joey Bada$$, Ab-soul, Dej Loaf, Rapsody, Nas, Tragedy Khadafi and more, we will not only see how violence is contextualize from a psychoanalytical and post colonial perspective, but also as a corrective to intersectionality as a method of analysis. Although both intersectionality and Hip Hop narrative analysis take place at an interpersonal level, they differ in that intersectionality begins by looking at systematic oppression and how it affects the individual. Narratives in Hip Hop, on the other hand, begins with the individual to show how oppression is systematic and how the White ruling class and the Black underclass are interconnected (antithetically).  In other words, Hip Hop narratives provide an analysis that telescopes the structural relationship between those who colonize and those who are colonized.  However, unlike Hip Hop, intersectionality does not telescope structural relationships between the proletariat and the bourgeois class, rather it creates and exacerbates hierarchies between the proletariat (working class) and the lumpen proletariat (underclass). In other words, Hip Hop narratives do not create levels of hierarchy amongst the oppressed.

 

 

Biography

Walter Sistrunk in an Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Education and Language Acquisition Department at Laguardia Community College. He is also a HBCU graduate of Tuskegee University earning a BS in Language Arts Education, a MA in Linguistics, and a PhD in African American and African Studies from Michigan State University. His research interests are in the study of African American English and other African Atlantic Languages (such as Gullah, Jamaican, and African Seminole Creole), syntax, language acquisition, and Hip Hop Linguistics. 

 

 

 

 

Manny Faces

“Bad Raputation"

 

Utilizing specific examples, historical narratives and observations based on years of independent study, this essay explores ongoing discrimination against hip-hop by individuals and organizations through mass media, how this bias has affected the public perception of hip-hop, the damage that this can cause, the need for respectable, reputable and effective counter-narratives and who, if anyone, is doing it right.

 

Biography

 

Manny Faces is an award-winning new media journalist and digital strategist based in the New York area. He is the founder and executive director of The Center for Hip-Hop Advocacy, a think-tank styled advocacy group working to improve the public’s perception of hip-hop music and culture. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Birthplace Magazine, a thriving online entertainment and lifestyle destination focusing on hip-hop music and culture in the New York metropolitan area. In addition, Manny is creator and host of The NY Hip Hop Report, a popular weekly, talk radio program and The Manny Faces Show, a bi-weekly, long-form audio magazine show that features conversations with creatives from many different disciplines.

 

Manny is the co-author of a research survey project, The Reputation of Hip-Hop 2015 , that studied the public perception of hip-hop music and culture, along with Dr. Joy Sever, Ph.D, an independent researcher/consultant with more than 20 years of reputation research experience. Manny is also an accomplished DJ/producer/remixer, event/TV/radio host/personality, an outspoken media critic and a die-hard advocate for hip hop music and culture.

 

Carolyn Grady, Rhythmic Images

 

Artist Statement

 

Preserving moments in time and capturing the essence of everyday life are two ways in which I approach photography. I am a storyteller. To me, the thrill is anticipating the second before the moment happens. I am constantly seeking opportunities to showcase the beauty and energy of my extensive body of concert photography. It's my belief that photography should be shared. My photos are engulfed with the raw, unsuppressed energy delivered by live performance artists. Through my photography I attempt to draw forth an emotional connection and I want viewers to feel as if they are reliving those moments.

 

Biography

 

Carolyn Grady is an Atlanta based photographer. She is a Philadelphia native with a degree in Business Administration from Temple University. Her love for the Arts is shown in her portfolio which is packed with images that emotionally connect audiences with live performance art. She uses her lens as a vehicle; not only to ‘Preserve moments in time’ but to draw au diences back into those moments, allowing the experience to be revisited. Her artistic knack lies within her ability to anticipate the movements of her subjects, adapt to various lighting situations, and capture the raw energy delivered by artist.

 

 

Rhythmic Images

 

Photographywww.RhythmicImages.com@RhythmicImageso an accomplished DJ/producer/remixer, event/TV/radio host/personality, an outspoken media critic and a die

 

Biography