Video Below:
Hip-Hop is ubiquitous; there are places without running water and electricity that hip-hop has touched. The culture and its expressions have become the dominant influence on popular youth culture over the span of the past four and a half decades. That is a significant statement considering the culture emerged from a back to school party hosted by two teenagers in the cramped recreation room of their housing project forty-seven years ago.
The video below contains portions of a conversation between Timothy Welbeck, Civil Rights Attorney, and Jacob Bender, Executive Director, both at the Philadelphia chapter of CAIR. The two discuss Timothy’s courses at Temple: “Hip-Hop and Black Culture” in addition to “No City for Young Men: Hip-Hop and the Narrative of Marginalization.”
The two then discuss hip-hop as a cultural expression, as well as the relevance of hip-hop’s role as the definitive cultural expression of this generation. They also address a foundation for understanding the relevance of hip-hop’s role in the modern African American experience, its representation and misrepresentation of African Americans, it’s connection to contemporary protest movements, as well as its role as a vehicle of expression that articulates cultural norms translated into socially acceptable sounds.