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Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World It will air on WTTW Tuesdays from 8pm on January 31st and will be available to stream at the same time.
Depending on how you count, hip-hop is now 50 years old. Many cite DJ Koolherk mixing drums his break from his player songs on record at his sister’s back-to-school party in the Bronx in 1973 as the origin. In the decades that followed, the style of music became a global phenomenon, becoming a massive commercial force, a vehicle for protest, a force for social justice, and an art form capable of supporting academic research.
One indication of its importance is the presence of PBS. Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World Executive-produced by Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, the four-hour series explores the cultural, social, political and economic context of music history and its surroundings. WTTW said Hasan Kwame, an associate professor of history at Ohio State University who served as the project’s historical advisor and consultant while also appearing as a camera expert, spoke with Jeffries about the show.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Why is it important to understand the political and social context of hip-hop?
I think it’s the political, social and cultural context that gives rise to art forms. We’re thinking of New York City. Post-industrialization; economic decline of the 1970s. And with the rise of figures like Mayor Koch, who has seized political power saying he intends to reform the city and stop crime, pointing squarely at black and Latino Puerto Rican youth. This art form is not only in its local New York context, but also in response to what is happening in America. You can’t really understand or appreciate the form itself unless you have a really good understanding of what’s going on in America at that particular moment.
it remains true. You can see it in the context of hip-hop’s birth and political maturity in songs like “The Message” in the ’70s. [by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five] In 1982, Reagonomics responded and West Coast rap responded to Police Violence and Police Terror. Without understanding the wider context, it is impossible to truly understand what these young people are saying or criticizing.
Growing up in Brooklyn during this time, what was your experience with hip-hop?
As young people, we used to hear that. We watched it evolve. I graduated high school in 1990. [Hip-hop] It provided both an escape and a political message. I remember listening to “The Message”.it was something my parents I was listening. They were really taken by it too.
I listened to KRS-One and Public Enemy like Pied Pipers. On one level, they’re a reflection of our experience as young people growing up in the moment. I was there and I was like, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.”
You made an interesting point in the series that while hip-hop has a message that resonates, it can thrive with the rise of the black middle class, especially in the 80s.
Class dynamics are one of the primary ways hip-hop music spreads nationally. Because young African-Americans going to college and families who can send their kids back South or West for the summer bring the music with them. they. Much of the early hip-hop was regional. New York, South, Houston, West Coast, etc. However, it was not broadcast nationally.
Black working class and black middle class have these common experiences and have the same problems.But [the Black middle class] Platforms are different. They have access to opportunities and spaces outside of these centralized urban neighborhoods. They can put their stuff on college campuses. And from there, you’ll see a lot of it spread and a lot of the political messages coming from people who have one foot in the community and one foot on these college campuses.
You typically focus on black power and civil rights in your academic research. How does it feel to step away from that and move into the cultural and musical realm with this series?
It’s all related. Civil rights and black power are clearly considered political and challenging political powers, but they have always had a strong cultural and social component. The music of the mid-1980s and early 1990s was truly the height of Afrocentrism in hip-hop. This is a direct reflection of the Black Power era. You’ll hear sampled quotes from Malcolm X, sampled Nation of Islam songs. It was actually fun to not only see more clearly what we consider formal politics, but also to expand culturally and socially.
As someone who grew up with hip-hop, how does it feel to see hip-hop do a four-hour documentary series on PBS?
It makes you feel old, man. [Laughs.] You’re not thinking about it when you’re a kid trying to rap yourself in the basement and people say, ‘Turn it down, stop that racket, it’s not serious, it’s not even music. It makes you feel old in a good way. You’re still here, so be grateful and get to see the evolution of this art form.
Hip-hop still exists after 50 years. Because it has had a transformative impact on the way young people in particular engage with the world around them on a global scale. The voice of the oppressed, the voice of the young who want to change the world. I don’t think anyone could have predicted this. I think it’s a testament to early artists, and a testament to the art form itself.
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