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?