Hip Hop Activism
Encyclopedia
Hip hop activism is a term coined by the hip hop
intellectual and journalist Harry Allen
. It is meant to describe an activist movement of the post- baby boomer
generation.
The hip hop generation was defined in The Hip- Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture as African Americans born between 1965 and 1984. This group is situated between the passage of the Civil Rights Act
and the assassination of Malcolm X
on one end and hip hop's explosion during the 1970s and 1980s. But the hip-hop generation can be more loosely defined to include minorities born between 1965 and 1984 who have grown up within a culture of hip hop music, dance, fashion and art.
http://www.alternet.org/story/28118/
Some of the issues of social justice
the movement addresses are minority
and immigration
rights, educational access, prison reform and transportation policy. In recent years California
's Proposition 187
and Proposition 21
have also been a focus of hip hop activism. The movement also addresses a broad range of social change practices like youth organizing
and development, cultural work, and intercultural exchanges.
told a Senate
panel that the hip-hop generation, "coaxed by gangster rap,' would "trigger a crime wave of epidemic proportions that we have never seen the likes of." And then added, "Regardless of the number of jails built, it will not be enough."
In his book Can't Stop Won't Stop
http://www.cantstopwontstop.com author Jeff Chang traces the evolution of the hip hop activist movement noting that it was initially mostly grass roots and locally focused. But as movements against the prison-industrial complex
and police brutality
emerged simultaneous to movements against corporate globalization
, many young hip hop activists began to organize nationally.
As hip hop has become a globalized art form, hip hop's progressive, activist agenda has traveled with it around the world. Organizers in Paris, Cape Town, Sweden, New Zealand Chile and in countless other countries have employed the tools of hip hop to work for change in communities, empower youth and give voice to unchecked issues. While gangster rap has been blamed by cultural critics for triggering crime waves, hip hop activism has stood up against the prison industrial complex, addressed environmental racism
(many went on to encompass green politics
) and corrupt systems that cause poverty around the world. Global hip hop activism does not only employ rap music, but also works within the other pillars of hip hop, such as creating youth empowerment projects by teaching graffiti art or break dancing. In the favelas of Rio De Janero, a movement called Afro-Reggae was started by former drug dealers to help keep favela children out of the drug trade by teaching them to be emcees and break dancers. The movement gained international fame in the documentary "Favela Rising"
The Anti-Injustice Movement (aka The AIM) is a rapidly expanding international hip-hop activist movement composed of political emcees (aka 'raptivists'), protest poets, DJs, street dancers, graffiti writers and activists who are fighting many forms of global injustice via peaceful and creative means.
and South America
. This legislation included Proposition 187, which ended affirmative action
and bilingual education
in California, and Proposition 21, which demanded tougher sentencing and longer incarceration for juvenile offenders. Opponents like Paul Johnston claim that Proposition 187 has only served to increase political, cultural and class factions while marginalizing specific minority populations.
In his essay The Emergence of Transnational Citizenship Among Mexican Immigrants in California Johnston notes the cultural tensions created by the new legislation. He explains,
Despite criticism the measures were passed and are supported by many Californians and their politicians. The discontent the legislation spurred, however, continues to be a focus of hip hop activists throughout the United States.
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
intellectual and journalist Harry Allen
Harry Allen (journalist)
Harry Allen is a hip hop activist and journalist affiliated with the group Public Enemy, and is the director of the Rhythm Cultural Institute. He grew up in Freeport, Long Island....
. It is meant to describe an activist movement of the post- baby boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
generation.
The hip hop generation was defined in The Hip- Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture as African Americans born between 1965 and 1984. This group is situated between the passage of the Civil Rights Act
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
and the assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
on one end and hip hop's explosion during the 1970s and 1980s. But the hip-hop generation can be more loosely defined to include minorities born between 1965 and 1984 who have grown up within a culture of hip hop music, dance, fashion and art.
http://www.alternet.org/story/28118/
Some of the issues of social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
the movement addresses are minority
Minority rights
The term Minority Rights embodies two separate concepts: first, normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or sexual minorities, and second, collective rights accorded to minority groups...
and immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
rights, educational access, prison reform and transportation policy. In recent years California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's Proposition 187
California Proposition 187 (1994)
California Proposition 187 was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal aliens from using health care, public education, and other social services in the U.S. State of California...
and Proposition 21
California Proposition 21 (2000)
California Proposition 21, known also as Prop 21, was a proposition proposed and passed in 2000 that increased a variety of criminal penalties for crimes committed by youth and incorporated many youth offenders into the adult criminal justice system...
have also been a focus of hip hop activism. The movement also addresses a broad range of social change practices like youth organizing
Youth activism
Youth activism is when the youth voice is engaged in community organizing for social change. Around the world, young people are engaged in activism as planners, researchers, teachers, evaluators, social workers, decision-makers, advocates and leading actors in the environmental movement, social...
and development, cultural work, and intercultural exchanges.
Evolution and Context
The mid-1990s were a particularly active period for the hip-hop agenda. In 1994, C. Delores TuckerC. Delores Tucker
C. DeLores Tucker was a U.S. politician and civil rights activist best known for her participation in the Civil Rights Movement and stance against gangsta rap music.-Early life:...
told a Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
panel that the hip-hop generation, "coaxed by gangster rap,' would "trigger a crime wave of epidemic proportions that we have never seen the likes of." And then added, "Regardless of the number of jails built, it will not be enough."
In his book Can't Stop Won't Stop
Can't Stop Won't Stop
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation is a book by Jeff Chang chronicling the early hip hop scene.The book features portraits of DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, and Ice Cube, among others, and is based on numerous interviews with graffiti artists, gang members, DJs,...
http://www.cantstopwontstop.com author Jeff Chang traces the evolution of the hip hop activist movement noting that it was initially mostly grass roots and locally focused. But as movements against the prison-industrial complex
Prison-industrial complex
"Prison–industrial complex" is a term used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is analogous to the military–industrial complex that...
and police brutality
Police brutality
Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer....
emerged simultaneous to movements against corporate globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
, many young hip hop activists began to organize nationally.
As hip hop has become a globalized art form, hip hop's progressive, activist agenda has traveled with it around the world. Organizers in Paris, Cape Town, Sweden, New Zealand Chile and in countless other countries have employed the tools of hip hop to work for change in communities, empower youth and give voice to unchecked issues. While gangster rap has been blamed by cultural critics for triggering crime waves, hip hop activism has stood up against the prison industrial complex, addressed environmental racism
Environmental racism
Environmental racism is a sociological term referring to policies and regulations that disproportionately burden minority communities with negative environmental impacts....
(many went on to encompass green politics
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
) and corrupt systems that cause poverty around the world. Global hip hop activism does not only employ rap music, but also works within the other pillars of hip hop, such as creating youth empowerment projects by teaching graffiti art or break dancing. In the favelas of Rio De Janero, a movement called Afro-Reggae was started by former drug dealers to help keep favela children out of the drug trade by teaching them to be emcees and break dancers. The movement gained international fame in the documentary "Favela Rising"
The Anti-Injustice Movement (aka The AIM) is a rapidly expanding international hip-hop activist movement composed of political emcees (aka 'raptivists'), protest poets, DJs, street dancers, graffiti writers and activists who are fighting many forms of global injustice via peaceful and creative means.
California Propositions 187 and 21
A significant factor in the national organizing of hip-hop activist in recent years can be attributed to legislation passed in response to waves of migration and immigration from CentralCentral America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. This legislation included Proposition 187, which ended affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
and bilingual education
Bilingual education
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
in California, and Proposition 21, which demanded tougher sentencing and longer incarceration for juvenile offenders. Opponents like Paul Johnston claim that Proposition 187 has only served to increase political, cultural and class factions while marginalizing specific minority populations.
In his essay The Emergence of Transnational Citizenship Among Mexican Immigrants in California Johnston notes the cultural tensions created by the new legislation. He explains,
- "These measures failed to halt the flow of undocumented workers to the United States, from Mexico as well as the traumatized Central American communities to the south. Instead, they quickly consolidated a deep divide in the social structure of the state, based on differences in citizenship status. The growth of this population, its increasingly criminalized and vulnerable status, and its impoverished, furtive, marginalized way of life under the new anti-immigrant policy regime has created circumstances that might fairly be described as a new apartheid in California."
Despite criticism the measures were passed and are supported by many Californians and their politicians. The discontent the legislation spurred, however, continues to be a focus of hip hop activists throughout the United States.
External links
- The Hip-Hop Organization is Nothing New - an editorial on hip-hop and organization
- Hip Hop Summit Action Network - Non-partisan organization founded in 2001 by Russel SimmonsRussel SimmonsRussel Simmons is a co-founder of Yelp, Inc..He was previously an early employee of PayPal.- References :...
- World Up - The global hip hop project based in New York, NY. Organized the first international hip hop festival http://www.trinityhiphop.org
- The NY Hip-Hop Dance Convention - an annual 5 day event held in November to coincide with the birth of hip-hop.
- Youth-led Hip Hop Activism websites and resources on The Freechild Project website.
- The Anti-Injustice Movement (aka The AIM)- up and coming international hip-hop activist movement based in the UK.