Word: hops
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...next topic, feminism in hip-hop, elicits a similar sort of discourse: "Now I've been tryin' to be polite and waiting my turn, but now I gotta stand up and speak my piece as an individual. Because that's all women like Foxy Brown and L'il Kim are trying to do, express themselves as individuals. And who are you to say they can't show all of themselves? You yourself have to take what you will from them and be responsible for your own self. All-in-one, you know what I'm talking about? [I didn...
...Thoroughly disenchanted by this representation of hip-hop culture, and feeling utterly out of place, I decline to participate in the standing ovation given to the conference's keynote speaker, KRS-1. Introduced as "a manifestation of what this conference is all about," I expect him to launch into a self-congratulatory treatise about looking out for KRS-1 and eating pies. Instead, he delivers what I find to be one of the more intriguing lectures I can remember hearing at Harvard...
...Voice strained from back-to-back concerts, KRS-1 outlines the basic elements of hip-hop, from DJ-ing (the study of technology), to MC-ing (the study of divine speech), to graffiti art (the study of light, color and dimension). Initially wary of these seemingly euphemistic definitions, I am gradually won over by the speaker's authenticity and enthusiasm. I learn the history of the turntable, how the first DJ was a certified electrician combing NYC junkyards for spare parts. I learn about beatboxing, the art of using one's body as an instrument...
...years we've had Christians reading the word of God. But what these people have to do, and what hip-hop strives to do, is to eliminate the distance. You can't read the word of God, you can't follow it, you have to be it...In the past, it was enough to just identify with hip-hop culture, you could say, `Yeah, I'm down with hip-hop.' If we do that now, if we don't eliminate that distance, hip-hop is lost. You have to be hip-hop, you have to take that responsibility and recognize...
...After his closing remarks, I rise with the rest of the crowd to applaud. The next panel on social responsibility is less inspiring--when asked if there exists a unifying philosophy behind hip-hop, one record company executive states that "the one thing that I think every artist can agree on is the desire for artists to own their own masters." Rather than ruin my newfound zeal for hip-hop, I tune out and sift through the ideas in KRS-1's keynote address...