Talk Point # 6 : Rose

1. “How does hip-hop rise to the level of being studied at places like Brown and Harvard, of all places?”
This quote stuck out to me, because of the way it is worded. Brown and Harvard, which are Ivey league schools, have studies about hip-hop. The man who spoke this quote made it seem as though hip-hop is not worthy of being studied, especially at higher education schools like Brown and Harvard. I think that it is something worth being studied by anyone. It was almost as if he was degrading the study of hip-hop.

2. “Hip-hop is just one moment of a long tradition of African American cultural creativity made almost always under duress. And hip-hop is a very important example of this. It is both a sign of enormous creativity and hope and a crippled state of life in the post-industrial city where Black communities have just been devastated by a variety of things, some of them racially specific, some of them just about changes in urban policy at a broader level.”
Hip-hop is an African American culture and in a sense gives people hope. In a Black community, bad things may have happened and some may be because of race, but the long tradition of hope can help people who have gone through a tragedy have some sense of hope. Also, creating hip-hop involves a lot of creativity. It is something to be appreciated and looked deeply into.

3. “Now, those images - I call them in the book hip-hop's trinity; the gangster, pimp, and ho trinity - because commercial hip-hop takes over - these images take over commercial hip-hop in the mid-'90s.”
I think that commercial hip-hop has given traditional hip-hop a bad name. Some hip-hop is derogatory towards women and people of particular races. It has become “gangster, pimp, and ho” and that is what gives it a bad name to some people. If traditional hip-hop was listened to, people would be able to tell the difference between commercial hip-hop and traditional hip-hop. It should be creative, and inspiring to people. It should not be derogatory towards certain types of people.

I thought this interview was very interesting. It made a lot of good points that I agree with. I think it is something that should be studied and looked upon. I also think certain artists give hip-hop a bad name and turn people off of it. Old school hip-hop or traditional hip-hop is very different from commercial hip-hop. I think it should be given a fair chance to be listened to, because it can be poetic, creative, and send a powerful message.