to the pedagogy of hip hop . com

To check out what this blog is all about, go to the introduction page.  It’s in need of an update, but it shows the thinking behind this blog’s birth.

To check out a recent post, read a little bit about the article and click on the link. I recommend starting with the “Diamonds Are Forever? Series,” which is listed at the bottom of this page.  I wrote it a long time ago, but I think it’s still worth a glance.   If you leave a semi-substantial comment on a post, I’ll add your website to my blogroll.

I can be reached at ehhahn2@gmail.com.

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Jay-Z Announces Death of Auto-Tune: June 8, 2009 - Jay-Z’s first released single from The Blueprint 3 (listen to it here) does so much more than take shots at the rise of the auto-tuned voice in hip hop.  It drops bombs on an entire sector of the music industry that has been producing music that betrays a recession of creativity.  Hopefully, H.O.V.A.’s new album will prove to be the stimulus package that averts a creative Great Depression . . .

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Who’s That Girl Called Maya?: Analysis of M.I.A.’s Endorsement of Euro Parli Candidate: June 3, 2009 - Unlike your humble author, M.I.A. has been busy lately.  After having a baby and gracefully getting through an interview with the man-child known as Bill Maher, the British-via-Ceylon hip hopper officially endorsed a British candidate in the European Parliamentary elections.  While the independent Jan Jananayagam promises to help get aid to the war torn Tamil people, M.I.A. offers all of Jananayagam’s supporters a free song to get them pumped for the election. . .

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First-Year College Composition and Hip Hop (Part 1): April 21, 2009 - Next fall I will start teaching a first-year composition class at the University of Minnesota.  I’ve done some private tutoring and substitute teaching before, and I’ve taught English in Thailand, but this will be the first time that I’ll be teaching a class that is somewhat regulated by the university, that involves people close to my age, and that I will do again and again during my years in Minneapolis.  So right now I’m trying to work up a game plan. . .

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Hip Hop and the Implosion of the Free Market (Part 3.2): “Whatever You Like”: April 15, 2009 - Like many Americans, T.I. seems to have embraced the multifaceted capitalist fantasy individualism.  The myth goes something like this: personal effort creates personal wealth, money grants one deserved power, and this power should be used to support the capitalist ideology that supposedly enabled this entire narrative of individual success.  The song “Whatever You Like” celebrates T.I’s ability to give his “chick whatever she wants,” as it simultaneously commands those “other broke n*ggas” to be quiet.  If we take this song literally, we would have to conclude that it indeed endorses the ideology that I outlined above.

However, the music video for “Whatever You Like” challenges this literal understanding of the song . . .

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Hip Hop and the Implosion of the Free Market (Part 3.1): Paper Trails: April 13, 2009 - A few weeks ago, President Obama discussed and answered questions about his budget proposal, arguing that it will move the economy towards recovery and growth.  The goals make sense: get people back to work and get the banks lending again.  Although most people understand that you have to spend a little money in order to make a little money, there are some politicians who want to play the “debt card.”  They claim that spending billions of tax dollars on things like public works and, yes, bank “bailouts” are unfair to both the taxpayer and the taxpayer’s children.  But who is this taxpayer?  Who in America doesn’t need banks, healthcare, and schools?  Generating a large national debt is most likely a sacrifice that we must make at this time, more so than at any other in recent history.  It will certainly anger our imaginary taxpayer—an individual so disconnected from the political and social fabric of American society that he or she seems to be living “offshore,” perhaps running a corrupt investment bank and hoping to avoid the end of Bush’s tax cuts—but it’s a sacrifice that we all make for the good of everyone.

We know the creators of this imaginary taxpayer will be theatrically angered by such progressive policies, but will President Obama’s economic plan anger hip hop too?  Mainstream hip hoppers definitely seem to live a life apart from mainstream society, in their private jets and yachts.  They might not enjoy handing over more of their hard-earned scrilla anymore than Dick Cheney would . . .

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Back in the U.S.S.A. : April 11, 2009 - So, I’m back in the unusually stressed states of America.  Au Revior “mai pen rai” (translation: “it doesn’t matter”; the national motto of tourists in Thailand and of some Thais (not including those who are protesting in Pattaya and Bangkok).  Hello/Hola “back on the grind”  (translation: I’m just being dramatic) . . .

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Who’s That Girl Called Maya? From Mohanty to M.I.A. (Part 2): February 7, 2009 - If I had to parallel M.I.A.’s artistic assault on Western representations of ghettoized “third world” women and men with the work of one academic thinker and activist, I would have to pick Chandra Talpade Mohanty . . .

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Who’s That Girl Called Maya? M.I.A. Coming Back With Power Power (Part 1): January 7, 2009 - Although I knew that M.I.A.’s creative beats and abrasive yet flowing rhymes would be enthusiastically received by a mainstream audience if she ever got any radio play, a year ago I never would have bet that I would be hearing one of her songs on national radio stations incessantly.  “Paper Planes,” featuring a sample from the Clash’s 1982 song “Straight to Hell,” revolves around a cartoonish chorus filled with gun shots and cash-register rings, wrapped with verses that boast of manufacturing fake visas, selling drugs, and “making that fame.”  Ironically, the one M.I.A. song that has hit the “big-time” is also her first attempt at mocking mainstream music’s dearth of political discourse. “Paper Planes” reveals just how ridiculous—and ridiculously popular—guns, drugs, and money can be when they are not understood within a specific context.  Unlike “Paper Planes,” most of M.I.A.’s songs derive their political message from her capacity to place apparently “criminal behavior” within a global context, which inevitably belies the idea that the “crimes” that she rhymes about are indeed criminal acts. . .

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Momentary Hiatus: October 14, 2008 - I was working on a new series of posts about global hip hop star M.I.A., when I realized that I still have a lot of packing to do before I leave for Thailand.  So, this series will be postponed for a while.  Once I’m in Bangkok, I’ll try to finish and post the series. (I don’t know why this font is appearing so big!)

Meanwhile, check out the series on the financial crisis.  Some intelligent people have made some smart remarks about the topic.  Also, many new links have been added to the blogroll.  Please check those out too, especially “The Living Consequences.”

Thanks,

Ed

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Hip Hop and the Implosion of the Free Market (Part 2): Context, Racist Economy: October 10, 2008 - Although many Americans are able to gain a piece—however small—of “the pie,” their ability to do so largely rests on the historical, racial economic exploitation of others, predominantly “minority” populations, who, no matter how hard they try, cannot find solid financial ground beneath their feet . . .

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Hip Hop and the Implosion of the Free Market (Part 1): October 8, 2008 - In 2007, a group of fiscally wise hip hop artists, including Slim Thug and Bun B, toured the nation.  Rather than performing their latest hit songs, they spit some financial advice to young African-American and Hispanic fans.  Tales of personal economic woe, illustrated by anecdotes concerning unwise purchases and the pain of debt, brought a much needed sense of humanity to their lessons on financial responsibility.  While these artists encouraged their audience to develop a critical financial literacy, they also turned their critical eyes upon themselves, discussing how some hip hop artists–at least on the surface–seem to endorse a fiscally irresponsible lifestyle . . .

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Kanye West Feels the Presence of Absence (Part 2) : October 6, 2008 - Although music critics and listeners would quickly agree that West exemplifies contemporary hip hop music, perhaps going so far as to say that he is the best producer/performer of hip hop in today’s scene, they tend to miss how West’s music is constituting a politically conscious counter-beat within mainstream hip hop.  Indeed, West’s sociopolitical syncopation often gets lost beneath a loud yet thin facade of big-label glam.  In “Everything I Am,” West attempts to set the record straight, revealing how stereotypes of hip hop are truly twisted, not to mention America’s discourse on violence . . .

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Kanye West Feels the Presence of Absence (Part 1) : October 1, 2008 - . . . With the caveat that I do not wield an extensive knowledge of philosophy or critical theory, I think that it is safe to say that Jacques Derrida, one of the “founders” of Deconstruction, was the loudest and perhaps first scholar to voice the idea that absences are always present.  And who is the only artist in the music industry, as far as I know, that has been able to creatively build on this concept and apply it to his own career and music?  Kanye West.  (Please post comments about other artists who also feel the presence of absences!) . . .

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Labor Day: Hip Hop’s Work Ethic (Part 1) : September 3, 2008 - I hope everyone enjoyed their labor day weekend. As the American summer comes to a close (it’s a strangely Fall-like 62 degrees out here in Chicago) and students of all sorts return to school, perhaps it’s a good time to reflect on what labor means to hip hop, and how hip hop’s work ethic is different and/or similar to the “American” work ethic. . .

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Hip Hop’s Work Ethic (Part 2): September 10, 2008 -In the previous post, I discussed how Jay Z’s “My 1st Song” expresses his own conceptions of the American work ethic, individualism, and merit.  Although Jay takes pride in his own accomplishments, he also gives props to the luck he’s been handed and the talent he’s been given. In other words, we could say that Jay doesn’t glorify the individual and the individual’s efforts. . .

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Quote of the Day : August 28, 2008 - “Hip-hop both produces and is produced by a cultural context that often thinks differently about questions of language, writing, identity and ownership from the mainstream discourses of the academy. … Hip-hoppers may have very different ideas about what it means for something to be real, how they relate to communities, how language operates. To the extent that this broad cultural movement influences youth in different ways across the world–always appropriated, always locally inflected–it is important that educators take this into account. Inclusion in the curicculum from this point of view, therefore, is not so much a question of using lyrics or discussing issues in popular culture as it is about engaging much more broadly with a cultural movement that has many different inflections across the globe.”

Alastair Pennycook, in Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows (p.150) (2007) . . .

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The Anniversary of the Passing of a Prophet : August 27, 2008

W.E.B. DuBois

February 23, 1986 - August 27, 1963 . . .

Check out Vibe’s tribute

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Democratic National Convention and Hip Hop : August 27, 2008 - In a recent New York Times article, Nicholas Powell discusses the ways that the hip hop community has contributed to Obama’s nomination. He discusses how while some hip hoppers have damaged Obama’s campaign by producing misogynistic and vituperative songs about McCain and the Republican party, other hip hoppas, such as Jay Z, Nas, and Russell Simmons, have successfully promoted not only Obama’s campaign, but also the vote in general. . .

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Quote of the Day : August 22, 2008 - “If we espouse the belief that each student must be able to read for understanding, think critically, problem solve and reason; if we espouse a focus on developing the literacy skills of each student; and if choose to engage marginalized students who are our most reluctant readers, then we need to incorporate hip-hop into our curriculum as a valid form of written, linguistic, and aesthetic art. Analysis of hip-hop, both critical and affirming, must become an integral part of our classrooms.”

Camilla Greene, in “Hip Hop: A Crucial Addition to the Curriculum” (2006). . .

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Diamonds Are Forever? Series : August 14, 2008 - August 24, 2008

• Part 1: Two Songs, One Song : August 14, 2008 - Although I want to talk about the remix of Kanye West’s politically conscious hit song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone,” it might be best to check out the original version too if we want to think about the pedagogy expressed by ‘Ye in these songs. . .

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• Part 2: Conflict Diamonds : August 19, 2008 - In the remix of “Diamonds from Sierra Leone,” Kanye opens the song with a couple of powerful lines: “Good morning, this ain’t Vietnam stillpeople lose hands, legs, arms for real / Little was known of Sierra Leone / and how it connects to the diamonds we own.” First, he’s not only asking his listeners to open their eyes (”good morning”); he is also asking himself to wake up from self-centered world of the original song. But he’s not just ask’n people to get outta bed; he’s asking them to see the world in a different light, to see something through a different perspective. . .

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• Part 3: Application : August 21, 2008 - Before we continue with our discussion of Kanye West’s song, I think it would be best to take what we’ve learned and try to apply it to a new context. I suggest reading the previous two posts first, in case you haven’t. Regardless, we can sum up West’s message using one of the lines from the remix of Diamonds from Sierra Leone: “Though it’s thousands of miles away / Sierra Leone connect to what we go through today.”. . .

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• Part 4: Intertexuality : August 24, 2008 - I don’t know about any of you readers out there (if there are any : > ), but I’m getting a little tired of writing about the Diamonds remix. However, I think that if I explore some other aspects of the song, I’ll be able to shake off that boringness and keep this Grammy-winning song fresh and interesting. Today, let’s talk about intertextuality. Although we can say that the Diamonds remix is one “text” (by “text” I mean one unified piece of work, or a song), we can also say that the Diamonds “text/song” is always already composed of multiple “texts.”. . .

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• More to come in this series soon . . .