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Hip-Hop: The Politics of Morality
Posted on October 4, 2008 - 3:16pm — djbobbydrake
Does Hip-Hop reflect or create reality? Is Hip Hop transforming many of America’s youth into an image of its own making? What is that image? Does Hip Hop have a mind and soul of its own that intends to change the hearts, minds, and behavior of young Americans? Hip-Hop: The Politics of Morality is a symposium that will explore Hip Hop’s mounting influence on America’s middle and working class youth. This symposium specifically targets teenagers, young adults and educators who are interested in the impact Hip-Hop has on middle class values and expectations.
Over the past 30 years a cultural phenomenon has gradually taken place across America. Beginning with black urban youth in the early 1970’s, this movement has crossed over from the streets of New York City into the homes of middle class families in the heartlands of small- town USA. This phenomenon is called hip-hop. Robert Anderson, communication studies expert, states that hip-hop “falls into several realms of youth cultural expressions inclusive of rap music, break dancing, graffiti, fashion, video, crime, and commerce . . . African-Americans, Caribbean, and Latino Americans have been prominent in its development and have been greatly influenced by the music and its surround culture. Thus, it is notably seen as ethnic music. However, it has more rapidly grown in terms of broad-based mainstream acceptance”.
The explosive growth of hip-hop culture can be traced to its unprecedented use and manipulation of media. In fact, the commercialization of hip-hop through music videos, popular black films and television programs have earned billions of dollars in revenue for the multinational corporations that package and produce these images. Rap music is the top-selling musical format in American music and can be heard in advertising from Coca-Cola commercials to NBA theme music. Even Shaquille O’Neal of the Miami Heat basketball franchise recorded a rap album. Cornel West, noted cultural critic, referred to this cross-over appeal as the Afro-Americanization of white youth.
The Afro-Americanization of white youth has been more a male than female affair given the prominence of male athletes and the cultural weight of male pop artists. This process results in white youth-male and female-imitating and emulating black male styles of walking, talking, dressing and gesticulating in relations to others. The irony in our present moment is that just as young black men are murdered, maimed and imprisoned in record numbers; their styles have become disproportionately influential in shaping popular culture.
While this influence may not appear on the surface to have a significant effect on society as a whole, many communication experts believe media is a purveyor of cultural norms, especially to our nation’s youth. The Universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication recently announced the creation of the Annenberg Institute On Youth and Media which is purposed to specifically explore the “impact that television, movies and video games have on children and teens”. Other scholars such as Marcyliena Morgan, Associate Professor of Communication, Stanford University, have also founded institutes such as the Hip-Hop Archive at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University (and now housed at Stanford University to recognize the impact of hip-hop on urban youth). The Hip-Hop Archive project (http://www.hiphoparchive.org) is also a research program and resource center that serves as a clearinghouse for a variety of resources. A search through their archives and a review of hip-hop courses taught at various institutions across the United States shows that the research focus is primarily on the social, artistic and historical roots of hip-hop and/or its impact as an urban phenomenon on urban youth worldwide. While several scholars and other social commentators have bemoaned the rapid rise and appeal of hip–hop across America and in most parts of the world, little work has been done to explore the reasons why youth have adopted a hip-hop worldview.
Hip-Hop: The Politics of Morality specifically looks at media (including technology) and its variant forms as a communicator of hip-hop culture, economics, identity formation and role modeling to young people and the resultant impact on mainstream middle class family values.
1 Quoted in The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture, Bakari Kitwana.
Time /Event
8:00 a.m.- 10:00 Registration
10:00 – 10:03 Welcome and Introduction
10:03 – 11:30 Session One: Hip-Hop, I AM a Cultural and Economic Explosion – Bakari Kitwana (author, lecturer and co-founder of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention), William Branch, aka The Ambassador (President, Cross Movement Records), Lisa Ellis (President, Sony Urban Music), John Esposito (President and CEO, WEA/Warner Music Group; former general manager, Island Def Jam Music Group), Roland Fryer (Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard Society of Fellows, Harvard University), Marcyliena Morgan (Professor, Department of Communication, Founder and Director of the HipHop Archives, Stanford University)
11:30 - 12:00 p.m. Break
12 – 1:30 Catered lunch with speakers and invited guests
1:30 – 2:00 Break
2:00 – 3:30 Session Two: Hip-Hop, I AM Image, Identity and Moral Choices – Bakari Kitwana, Michael Geer ( President, Pennsylvania Family Institute), Ronald Jackson (Professor, Department of Communication and author of Negotiating the Black Body Intersections of Identity, Culture and Communication, Pennsylvania State University), Akiba Solomon (Senior Editor, Vibe Vixen Magazine) Karen Stevenson, MD (Board Certified Psychiatrist, Lewisburg Hospital)
3:30 – 5:00 Break
5:00 – 6:30 Reception and Dinner – Speakers and invited guests
6:30 – 7:00 Break
7:00 – 8:30 Session Three: Hip-Hop, I AM Media Influence and the Voice of Hip-Hop - Jeff Johnson (Political expert and host of The Jeff Johnson Chronicles, BET)and nationally known Hip Hop Artist
8:30 -8:35 p.m. Concluding remarks
College/University:
Clarion Univeristy
Event/Conference Website:
Over the past 30 years a cultural phenomenon has gradually taken place across America. Beginning with black urban youth in the early 1970’s, this movement has crossed over from the streets of New York City into the homes of middle class families in the heartlands of small- town USA. This phenomenon is called hip-hop. Robert Anderson, communication studies expert, states that hip-hop “falls into several realms of youth cultural expressions inclusive of rap music, break dancing, graffiti, fashion, video, crime, and commerce . . . African-Americans, Caribbean, and Latino Americans have been prominent in its development and have been greatly influenced by the music and its surround culture. Thus, it is notably seen as ethnic music. However, it has more rapidly grown in terms of broad-based mainstream acceptance”.
The explosive growth of hip-hop culture can be traced to its unprecedented use and manipulation of media. In fact, the commercialization of hip-hop through music videos, popular black films and television programs have earned billions of dollars in revenue for the multinational corporations that package and produce these images. Rap music is the top-selling musical format in American music and can be heard in advertising from Coca-Cola commercials to NBA theme music. Even Shaquille O’Neal of the Miami Heat basketball franchise recorded a rap album. Cornel West, noted cultural critic, referred to this cross-over appeal as the Afro-Americanization of white youth.
The Afro-Americanization of white youth has been more a male than female affair given the prominence of male athletes and the cultural weight of male pop artists. This process results in white youth-male and female-imitating and emulating black male styles of walking, talking, dressing and gesticulating in relations to others. The irony in our present moment is that just as young black men are murdered, maimed and imprisoned in record numbers; their styles have become disproportionately influential in shaping popular culture.
While this influence may not appear on the surface to have a significant effect on society as a whole, many communication experts believe media is a purveyor of cultural norms, especially to our nation’s youth. The Universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication recently announced the creation of the Annenberg Institute On Youth and Media which is purposed to specifically explore the “impact that television, movies and video games have on children and teens”. Other scholars such as Marcyliena Morgan, Associate Professor of Communication, Stanford University, have also founded institutes such as the Hip-Hop Archive at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University (and now housed at Stanford University to recognize the impact of hip-hop on urban youth). The Hip-Hop Archive project (http://www.hiphoparchive.org) is also a research program and resource center that serves as a clearinghouse for a variety of resources. A search through their archives and a review of hip-hop courses taught at various institutions across the United States shows that the research focus is primarily on the social, artistic and historical roots of hip-hop and/or its impact as an urban phenomenon on urban youth worldwide. While several scholars and other social commentators have bemoaned the rapid rise and appeal of hip–hop across America and in most parts of the world, little work has been done to explore the reasons why youth have adopted a hip-hop worldview.
Hip-Hop: The Politics of Morality specifically looks at media (including technology) and its variant forms as a communicator of hip-hop culture, economics, identity formation and role modeling to young people and the resultant impact on mainstream middle class family values.
1 Quoted in The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture, Bakari Kitwana.
Time /Event
8:00 a.m.- 10:00 Registration
10:00 – 10:03 Welcome and Introduction
10:03 – 11:30 Session One: Hip-Hop, I AM a Cultural and Economic Explosion – Bakari Kitwana (author, lecturer and co-founder of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention), William Branch, aka The Ambassador (President, Cross Movement Records), Lisa Ellis (President, Sony Urban Music), John Esposito (President and CEO, WEA/Warner Music Group; former general manager, Island Def Jam Music Group), Roland Fryer (Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard Society of Fellows, Harvard University), Marcyliena Morgan (Professor, Department of Communication, Founder and Director of the HipHop Archives, Stanford University)
11:30 - 12:00 p.m. Break
12 – 1:30 Catered lunch with speakers and invited guests
1:30 – 2:00 Break
2:00 – 3:30 Session Two: Hip-Hop, I AM Image, Identity and Moral Choices – Bakari Kitwana, Michael Geer ( President, Pennsylvania Family Institute), Ronald Jackson (Professor, Department of Communication and author of Negotiating the Black Body Intersections of Identity, Culture and Communication, Pennsylvania State University), Akiba Solomon (Senior Editor, Vibe Vixen Magazine) Karen Stevenson, MD (Board Certified Psychiatrist, Lewisburg Hospital)
3:30 – 5:00 Break
5:00 – 6:30 Reception and Dinner – Speakers and invited guests
6:30 – 7:00 Break
7:00 – 8:30 Session Three: Hip-Hop, I AM Media Influence and the Voice of Hip-Hop - Jeff Johnson (Political expert and host of The Jeff Johnson Chronicles, BET)and nationally known Hip Hop Artist
8:30 -8:35 p.m. Concluding remarks
Date(s):
October 18, 2006
