here's something cool

Here's one thing I love about hip hop: the use of "Aww" or, "Unhhh" as a way of pausing to let the beat catch up or think of something to say, or... I don't know... lots of things.

For example, in "D.O.A." (see below), Jay Z uses it twenty-four times. I counted. I think it really contributes something awesome to the song, and I'm not being facetious.



Here's another good example:

whoa

No matter how many times I hear this part of "Go Go Gadget Flow," I'm still amazed at the very rhyme-iness of it all. And at the connectedness of it, to itself and to other people's stuff.

They race in circles like they raisin a gerbil
I race in a circle like I'm raisin a horse
I'm racin a Porsche while they racin in place
They race in a cage I race on a course

That case in the court did not defer the dream
I am still a raisin in the sun ragin against the machine

Plus, Lupe dances like I dance.

"my teacher rapping"

Susan, sent me a link to this video of an 8th grade math teacher in LA rapping about slope-intercept.



I then stumbled across a plethora of YouTube videos of teachers rapping. How interesting.









What? If I was still in college, this is definitely something I would have written a paper about.

book recommendation

I'm reading a book by Dr. Ruth Nicole Brown called Black Girlhood Celebration Toward a Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy.

I'm only into the second chapter as of yet, but so far she's arguing for Black girlhood celebration as a "format" for working with those individuals who call themselves Black, female, and young rather than any sort of girl empowerment programming or mentoring. She asks, "What if we abandon the notion that we Black girls are not good enough? What if we got rid of the thinking that says programming makes young people better? What if we did not define 'adolescence' as inherently problematic? What if we valued who Black girls are, including what they say and how they speak? What if we understood Black girls as producers of knowledge rather than consumers? What if we recognized that there is no magical age when one 'gets over' the racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia that collude to make us, as Black girls and women, the problem?" (29).

I think what she has to say is fascinating in that she takes a critical look at well-intentioned programmers who in fact miss the point that investment "in a [girl empowerment and/or mentoring] program's singular narative of who we need Black girls to be. To get funding. To make us feel good. To be good feminists, Black women, teachers, mentos, whatever" actually disallows those Black girls that a program intends to "fix" from taking an "explicitly political approach" to celebrating their identities in a world that rarely does so. (How's that for a run-on sentence?)

I can't wait to read more of what she says on how hip-hop theories and cultures can and should be woven through spaces that seek to celebrate Black girlhood. I like this part:

For the girls with whom I work in our community, as is the case with my girlfriends, hip-hop gives meaning to our girlhood. That makes us experts. Our expertise is rarely acknowleged.

Consider this example: I was working at a community center with a group of girls. it was the first time I had met them, so I concentrated very hard on learning their names. One girl in particular had the polysllabic but familiar name of 'Tameka' that I mistakenly mispronounced as 'Tamesha.' When I 'called her out of her name,' she responded, 'Get it right, get it tight.' A graduate students , Nita... acompanied me on this expedition and afterward sared with me how 'disrespectful' this girl had been in correcting me -- being a Black female adult with a doctorate degree. I shrugged it off. To Nita's dismay, I was not bothered by the girl's defense.

'I did call her out of her name,' I responded. 'Besides, I rarely take offense to the language She was probably quoting some rap song I'm too old to know about.'

...

On my way home from the recreation center that night, I searched for the hip-hop station on the car radio. Not even one mile from the community center, I heard the song 'Ms. New Booty' boosting the chorus, 'get it right get it tight!' The year was 2006, and Bubba Sparxxx, a White rapper from LaGrange, California, rapping an oft-used msogynist trope of objectifying Black women's backsides, was the rapper Tameka decided to quote that night at the recreation center. Catchy beat aside, the lyrics confirmed my suspicions.

Tameka sampled a line from 'Ms. New Booty' to speak to me. In my work, I found that Black girls literally speak though hip-hop. Even as she corrected me, I did not think she was talking abck to me or speaking disrespectfuly. Tameka was demonstrating a leracy that at one time I was too well-versed in. (33)

Huh. Cool.

The Roots will be Jimmy Fallon's house band when he takes over Conan's show. That's pretty sweet. It's pretty exciting to think of a such a badass hip hop (and by badass, I mean not gangsta) group getting such a prominent place in mainstream media. (As I write this, the thought that this could be seen as selling out is crossing my mind. But I don't care. The presence of this kind of hip hop in the dominant media culture is way overdue. )

It's funny to me that the Wall Street Journal article in which I first read about this persists in calling Questlove and Black Thought, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Trotter.

Dude, that's so not hip hop.

"OK, girls! Snoop Dogg finna make y'all a cake!"

What's funnier than, "No Martha Stewart, just one playa."? Right now, I can't think of anything.

role models

I invited Idris Goodwin to speak to some of our kids today, as he is spending this week on campus hosting various events each evening. He was really exciting; the kids seemed really interested in what he had to say. I'm really looking forward to processing some of it with them tomorrow.



One thing I don't want to process them tomorrow is Goodwin's response to the question, "How do you make a living writing poetry?" He answered that in this capitalist society, everybody's gotta sell what they can. When people call Kanye West a sell-out, he went on, that's unfair. Everybody's selling something. He goes around selling his type of hip-hop at poetry slams and at schools. Ms. Dahlke, he continued, comes to school to sell herself.

Yeah, he said that. And yeah, the kids got it.

too much blog-worthy stuff, hence the lack of blogging

The first two days of school went really well. I. am. excited.

Suffice it to say it does not look like this:


(but it would be funnier if it did)


In other news, the Nas and Talib Kweli show was pretty cool. A whole shitload of people singing along, "Yes we can change the world!" I'm sappy. I know that.

"So much fucking homework!"

I know that before I was all angry about this little diddy by Soulja Boy, but I've decided to reappropriate the track, which is going pretty well. I mean, seriously? I could either get really mad to the point where I... write a letter of acute outrage but with very little significance to the record execs responsible? Or, I could think "Um, this is hilarious." And maybe if I start thinking it's cool, then my students will think it's wack; because you can't think what a teacher thinks is cool is cool. You know?

Oh yes:

"I Alwayz Be In School But I Be Walkin Halls. Alot Of Teachers Give Me Test But They Be Super Hard I Get Into Some Trouble Then My Mama Calls But Afta I Get Out The Office Ima Tell Em All Dat Ima Superstar And Thatz Best. Everytime U See Me Up In Class My Head On That Desk. And When U See Me On Dem Girls U Kno That Im Super Fresh. Yea Teacher, Students, Class, Stupid (Wait A Min. Mutha Fuckaz)"

You know what's funnier, though? This:

I know this isn't a very nice thing to say, but

I hope the record execs making money off this kid have trouble sleeping at night. Thanks a lot, motherfuckers, for helping to keep firmly in place the idea that young black men should think school is whack. Soulja Boy's fucking seventeen years old. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

"Be more constructive with your feedback, please!"

Why is the intersection of White people and hip hop so funny? "Did Steve tell you that perchance? Steve!"

super-sweet stuff-stealing skills

One of my former profs posted this entry not too long ago detailing instances of online syndication of an article he wrote for a print journal. Pretty interesting stuff:

"In case you haven't noticed, the web supports some pretty robust forms of syndication. Syndication disrupts how we traditionally think of authorship, in that what is on any given web page is not necessarily written by the author of that page. And I'm not talking only about something being copied from one page to another, but syndicated in the sense that content from one site is hosted on another."

I remember some discussion of forms of syndication in his class. One example we came up with was sampling in the music industry, and particularly in hip hop. I looked into that a little bit more for a project for another class using this article as a jumping off point.

The content I'm hosting below reminded me of those more interesting (at least I think) pursuits, but something about the image of John Mellencamp all like, "Dude! No!" strikes me as funny and definitely worth blogging about.

so many reasons why I love this

S.P.E.A.K. Cafe

Last night I checked out S.P.E.A.K. -- Song.Poetry.Expression.Art.Knowledge. -- Cafe, an open mic night with a social justice focus set-up by UIUC's African American Studies and Research Program and the Krannert Art Museum.

Um, coolest thing ever.

Highlights included a student from Urbana High School who read about the ways that she wants to resist the image of the "video ho" that she's told to emulate; a student from Centennial who read his scathing adaptation of the Bibical Sermon on the Mount that ended with "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs are the streets of America;" and a guy who looked to be college-student age who read about refusing love as the path to oneness, or completeness, or happiness, or whatever. He introduced his work by saying that he was writing against the notion that you gotta be all blues when she's gone and left you, and once she comes back you go jazz. Love it.

The next one is November 8th from 7:00 to 9:00 pm at the cafe in Krannert Art Museum. Seriously, check it out if you're in C-U.

very cool

escalation

Today's gotten progressively better.

Initially, I was crabby as hell, but Kasey sent me this ecard:


...whatever. (Kind of hilarious.)

Later, as I was walking past Presidential Towers, which is a high-rise apartment building on campus, I saw a little boy, couldn't have been more than four, look up, become dizzied by the tallness, and fall over.

And the best thing about today? I just got an email from the Library Catalog about a cool new book that just came into the University's library system that I can use for my upcoming project on language and hip-hop. I didn't really know what the deal was -- how the card catalog knew what kinds of books I would like -- so I used the new "Ask A Librarian" feature at the library website. Here's the conversation:

Hi. We are here to help you with your research. Ask us!
aimguest1550036: Hi! I just received an email from the
Library Catalog Boolean Search. I'm confused.
AskUIUC: hmmm. what's the email subject?
aimguest1550036: The book the email is telling
me about is relevant to a search I've performed recently, and sounds really cool. Can you tell me more about this system?
aimguest1550036: Library Catalog Boolean Search Search for GKEY Black AND KEY Language
aimguest1550036: (That's the subject.)
AskUIUC: oh sure -- you can save searches (and it sounds like you must have saved this one)
aimguest1550036: hm.. inadvertently
aimguest1550036: but very cool
AskUIUC: and then receive email updates when we get new materials
AskUIUC: that match your search terms!
aimguest1550036: ahh... you answered my question before I could ask it
aimguest1550036: very cool
aimguest1550036: thanks!
AskUIUC: you're welcome.
AskUIUC: you can see your saved searches by logging into your account
AskUIUC: in the library catalog.
aimguest1550036: oh okay. good to know
AskUIUC: there's a button labeled "My Searches" on your account page
AskUIUC: so you can add more searches or change preferences or whatever.
aimguest1550036: great
AskUIUC: anything else i can help you with tonight?
aimguest1550036: that's should do it! thanks very much!
AskUIUC: you're welcome. have a good night. :)
aimguest1550036: you too
AskUIUC: thanks!
AskUIUC: bye!

I happened to be accessing the site from a computer lab on campus, so it didn't have AIM or any other messenger system installed. The "Ask A Librarian" site, though, has the messenger built into the page, so it's easy as pie. I don't care how dorky it is to admit, I'm bowled over by the efficiency, usefulness, and coolness of our library right now!

Didi : Ellen :: Jon Stewart : Rep. Jan Schakowsky

Funny, but I wish Stewart would have defended "the rappers" against Rep. Marsha Blackburn's remark (that she "finds it very, very sad that there has been such a societal failing that you would choose to write such filth") with a little more eloquence than a cut to clips from MTV's Cribs.

...It's comedy... "puppets making crank phone calls"... I know...

I'm in love with his brain.

I'm in the throes of a pretty intense mind-crush on Prof. H. Samy Alim at UCLA who writes about, among other things, linguistic profiling, race and racism, education, systems of power, and (of course, right Didi?) Black Language and Hip-Hop Culture.

Seriously, he's so cool. I'm channeling Brian Johnson of John Hughes' The Breakfast Club in the scene where Bender's sitting on the railing in the library, methodically tearing pages out of a book. Andy accuses him, "That's real intelligent," and then Bender mockingly whines, "You're right. It's wrong to destroy literature. It's so fun to read. And... MO-LAY really pumps my nads." Claire corrects him, "It's Moliere." And that's where Brian's line comes in, and incidentally, where I end my gratuitous Breakfast Club quoting and get back to my original point, "I love his work."

Seriously. A favorite point of mine from his article "Hearing What's Not Said and Missing What Is: Black Language in White Public Space"? At the risk of over-simplifying his argument, I'd probably pull this series of poignant questions:

Why is it that, despite ample evidence from sociolinguistic studies and theory that different speech communities possess different, yet theoretically equivalent, linguistic rules and rules of language use, [Black Language] and linguistic practices continue to be denigrated and underappreciated by Whites, particularly in educational institutions? What is at the root of this denigration and misinterpretation? How is that ideology and practice of linguistic supremacy -- the unsubstantiated notion that White linguistic norms are inherently superior to the linguistic norms of other communities, and the practice of mapping White norms into 'the language of school,' 'the language of economic mobility,' and 'the language of success' -- persists, even within the subjugated group? What is the role of communicative misunderstanding in maintaining and perpetuating tensions between communities? How do we understand communicative differences not as the source of tensions but as a means of perpetuating and reinforcing those tensions? how do we move beyond searching for communicative mismatches to explain intercultural tensions and conflicts that already exist due to the larger and systematic social, political, and economic subjugation of a group? Or worse yet... will greater knowledge of communicative differences be used for or against justice?

And in close second:

'What are you saying, Alim -- are you proposing that teachers should not teach 'standard English''? Here's what I'm proposing. First and foremost, we must begin with an understanding that there is nothing standard about 'standard English.' Standard simply means that this is the language variety that those in authority have constructed as the variety needed to gain access to resources. What we have, then, for a 'standard' in the US is nothing short of the imposition of White linguistic norms and ways of speaking in the service of granting access to resources to Whites and denying those same resources to as many others as possible, including poor Whites (linguistic supremacy goes for varieties of a language as well as languages other than the dominating language, whatever that may be).

If I was in the habit of using emoticons, which I'm not, I'd probably use something with a kissy-face, or that's blushing, or sighing.

Also: Um, today's NatGeo Photo of the Day? Very cool.