Thanks

Dear THR 380-
What a privilege it has been to be your guide through this course on Hip-hop in Popular Culture at The University of Kansas. I have had the pleasure of watching your growth over the past semester. I will be posting video and PowerPoint's (as you submit them) to the blog for you all to share comments and ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all of you and hope that you will take more courses with me in the future.

I was blown away at the amount of research, work and creativity you put into your final projects and exams. The reward for me is that you not only do well, but that you find something that inspires you to facilitate change.

I love what I do every day. I figured out a way to remix all of the things I love to do and to create opportunities for myself to do them. If you don't see an opportunity out there for yourself, make one. If there is no job or major that fits what you want to do--make one. If kids in the Bronx could make Hip-hop out of nothing, you can make whatever you want happen.

I only hope that taking this course will open up new ways for you to imagine your lives as blueprints for something great. You make a plan, build it, work hard and smart--the rest will come.

Thanks for a wonderful semester- Nicole Hodges Persley

Freestyle Blog: Global Hip-hop

This week is a freestyle blog. You can blog on whatever you like. Think about the global impact of a music genre that started in a low income community in the Bronx. Can you think of any other music genre has had as siginificant an impact on people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orination, class or disability? Love it, or hate it, Hip-hop has created social change for both the postive and the negative. As KRS-One says: Freedom is where the work is.." Think about it. Free speech- NHP

Hip-hop and Fashion

This week we are blogging on Hip-hop Fashion and Self-Adorment. In what way do you see Hip-hop influencing the way people present themselves? How has Hip-hop shaped your style? Self-adornment is the practice decorating yourself. Using hairstyles, clothing, jewelry, etc. Think about the ways that Hip-hop has impacted all of these styles in fashion and the media.

Hip-hop,Politics and Identity

My apologies for the late post. As you blog on key words POLITICS AND IDENTITY in relationship to Hip-hop music and culture this week, think about the intersections, overlap, contradictions that occur when presenting one's political views. Some prompts to consider are as follows: In what ways are identities inherently political? Is it possible to separate politics from personal identity? How do institutions and individuals present political perspectives? What types of direct actions do individuals and collectives take to assert political ideas? Think broadly about Hip-hop's impact on the construction and performance of identity in our everyday interactions. How do Graffiti, Mcing, Breaking, DJing shape/reflect expressions of identity?.

Hip-hop Theater and Performance

This week we are discussing Hip-hop's impact on theater 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 circular storytelling, abstract characters and the incorporation of inter textual references and artistic devices such as media, dance, politics, etc. As you blog on the words Hip-hop Theater and Performance, think about the ways that Hip-hop Theater incorporates many of the themes and subjects of Hip-hop music and culture. Some prompts that may help you craft your response are: How does African griot storytelling shape Hip-hop Theater if at all? How do Hip-hop Theater artists use the theater space to perform personal narratives of struggle, identity, etc.? How do Hip-hop Theater performers sample from Hip-hop's elements using their voices and bodies?

Hip-hop and Fine Art

Hip-hop 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), addresses themes of polyculturalism, engages the dialectic between public and Private space and 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 and notions of "street" and "fine" in their art? How is Hip-hop Arts inaccessibility to the urban working class a contradiction of the street art aesthetic?

Media, Commodification and Hip-hop

This week's lecture and readings discuss Hip-hop's commodification in the media. How do you see Hip-hop's influence in popular media such as commericials, television, film and journalism (print media)? How is Hip-hop commodified by artists, corporations and/or the media? Think broadly about the different elements of Hip-hop. Do you see Hip-hop music and culture as a product that the media often disassociates from the artists that produce it? Why or why not? Where does the notion of "blackness" figure into this equation? Try to remember to give specific examples in your responses.

Gender and Sexuality in Hip-hop

This week's readings and lecture cover representations of masculinity and femininity in Hip-hop and the gender stereotypes that circulate in the music and culture. As you blog on key words GENDER and SEXUALITY, think about the ways MCs and the media manipulate some of the Hip-hop stereotypes we discussed last week (thug, wannabe, gold-digger, etc. Some questions that may aid you in developing your responses are as follows:
How are particular gender stereotypes disrupted by male and female MCs? How does Hip-hop circulate images of "normative" heterosexuality in Hip-hop? How are stereotypes used by the media to construct particular images of African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups who engage Hip-hop? How do these stereotypes of gender and sexuality associated with African Americans in Hip-hop translate across racial, ethnic and national lines?

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. Soem prompts that may help you in developing blog entry may include but are not limited to the following questions: How can you link the MC process of story telling in the Battle to stylistic elements such as braggadocio (today called 'swagger'),'call and response,' and sampling? What historical connections do you see between the Griot and the MC? How does the battle in MCing relate to artistic expression in the other elements of Hip-hop?

Physical Graffiti: Breaking and Hip-hop Dance

The term "Physical Graffiti" was used by Sally Banes to describe how breakers and Hip-hop dancers embody many of same style elements of battling such as braggadocio, "getting fame," etc. that are part of Graffiti and MCing. She argues "breaking is a way of claiming the streets with physical presence, using your body to publicly inscribe your identity on the surface of the city..." (Banes 14). This week you will read articles and view films that speak to the history and progression of breaking and its evolution into a global Hip-hop dance practice. As you define key terms this week, EMBODIED HISTORIES and BBOY/BBIRL, think about how gestures of breaking and Hip-hop dance practices can be understood as a physical repertoire of Hip-hop history. As we prepare for midterm, think about how the terms connect to one another as well as other elements in Hip-hop such as graffiti and MCings.

American Graffiti: Claiming Public Space

As you think about the key words for this week (deleted accidentally from the revised syllabus) GRAFFITI and 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,free styling, 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 issues of power and privilege?

Hip-hop's 'Multiculturalism' and 'Polyculturalism'

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 and their intersections. Multiculturalism keeps cultures separated and static--allowing them to relate alongside one another. In the case of Hip-hop in the United States, discussions of "race" often conflate African American identity and culture. However,the history of culture of Hip-hop 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.

These Are The Breaks: Turntabalism and DJ Culture

This week, we broadly discuss DJ Culture and the role sampling has played in creating the foundation of Hip-hop music and Culture. As you write about the readings, listen to various remixes and watch the film "Scratch," in what ways has sampling grown with Hip-hop if at all? How has it shaped the music and culture?

Key Words: Blackness and Hip-hop

To date, we have discussed the four elements of Hip-hop, (MCing, DJing, Breaking and Graffiti) and their relationship to the music and culture. We have also began to trace Hip-hop's dominant links to African American culture. As you write about the key words BLACKNESS and HIP-HOP this week, think about the multiple ways that each if these elements are interpreted across categories of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. Here are some prompts for you: Is Blackness only expressed by African Americans? Only in Hip-hop?

Welcome to KU Theatre Department's Hip-hop in Popular Culture

Welcome to Hip-hop and Popular Culture, a new course offered by the KU Theatre Department. My name is Nicole Hodges Persley and I am an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department. This course blog offers students an opportunity to respond to course readings, music, performance and other course related topics. Each week, you are required to post a response using the key words of the week on your syllabus as a prompt. Your posts should be considered a virtual "reaction paper." You should probably draft your comments in MS Word first and then cut and paste them on the blog comment. Your responses must be an engagement with the topics we discuss in a particular week and should analyze your take on critical themes in a succinct manner (not more than a half-page single spaced). This is an exercise in writing your critical perspective in the same way that MCS do,every word counts. You must post your responses no later than Thursday at 12midnight. Late posts are not acceptable.

This blog becomes an archive of your growth and experiences during the course. Your work also prepares you for essay questions on exams. I hope you enjoy this process and begin to see Hip-hop music and culture as an expressive form that shapes perspectives around the world.

Keep Striving-

Nicole Hodges Persley, Ph.D.