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Milkovits, Amanda

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Changing voices, faces of hip-hop

Rhode Island College

Rhode Island CollegeDigital Commons @ RICBroad Street Studio Youth Program9-28-2006Changing voices, faces of hip-hopAmanda MilkovitsFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/bssThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Youth Program at Digital Commons @ RIC. It has been accepted for inclusion in BroadStreet Studio by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ RIC. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@ric.edu.Recommended CitationMilkovits, Amanda, "Changing voices, faces of hip-hop" (2006). Broad Street Studio. 31.https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/bss/31Changing . • VOICes, faces of hip-hop· A Brown University professor traces the evolution of hip-hop as part of the ."Songs of Social Justice" colloquium at the University of Rhode Island. BY AMANDA MILKOVITS JoURNAL SrAFF WRITER SOUTH KINGSTOWN- Com-mentator Tricia Rose could talk about what hip-hop is meant to be. · But a group of teenage per-formers from AS220 in Providen-ce put her words into action. During a presentation Thes-. day night in the University of Rhode Island's colloquium series "Songs of Social Justice: The Rhetoric of Music," the Brown University professor spoke about the evolution of hip-hop-from an underground music scene about th~ experiences of African-Amer-icans, to a commercialized glori-S~E HIP-HOP, BZ Hip-Hop Continued from Page Bl -fication of the thug life. Ifs an !ironic evolution for a genre of .music that can be like poetry, grown from the roots of black experiences and written in protests against crime, poverty, racism, and about the search for a better life. This is the music that has grown out of the experiences of African Americans, Rose said, just like jazz and blues, with the same roots in black history. But she sees how hip-hop has been hijacked by the main-stream, and how the ghetto life-the pimps, the drugs, shootings, and gang warfare - has been turned into something to emulate and consume. "So what should be narratives that make us depressed and out-.. ·" raged become narratives we cele-brate," Rose said. She talked about when she picked up a DVD of hip-hop artist 50 Cent, Live at Detrdit, and no-ticed that clicking the remote brought up an image of 50 Cent in a bulletproof vest and the sound of gunfire. (50 Cent has been shot numerous times.) Viewing the televised concert, she saw that the audience appeared to be all white. These are the images that peo-ple who don't know about the black experience are buying- the sexism, gang violence, drugs. Hip-hop, like other music of so-cialjustice, can be expressions of injustice, she said. ~ut, when that is seen as what it means to be cool, to be bbick, to be a tough young man, to be a submissive woman, then the message of pro-test becomes something to fol-low, "and it's that moment we're hanging in right now," Rose said. As the diverse crowd in the Ed-wards Auditorium listened, Rose read the lyrics of several hip-hop songs and then played them. Some nodded their heads to the drum back beat as she played Ak-robatik's song "Remind My Soul": "Yeah, it's getting wild out here/ Makes me wonder how a black man can raise a child out here .... We're no longer supposed to be slaves/1 bet Harriet Tubman will be turning in her grave/Like re-mind my soul." The crowd was warmed up by Rose, and brought to their feet by a troupe of five members of AS220's Broad Street Studio Rhode Show, which wrote and performed its own songs. Amber Newman, 16, her sister Anjel, 18, David Dayday Arkins, 17, and Michelle Mancone, 17, sang about growing up in the in· ner-city, a rap about the first graf-' ' fiti artist, named "Cornbread," about wanting more for their lives. · AS220's performance coordi-nator David Gonzalez, who per-formed with the Rhode Show, teaches hip-hop workshops at the Rhode Island Training School. "I'm trying to get them to take away the commercial control of the Culture and give ~!1em b~k the art," Gonzalez said later. Rose's talk about the power of hip-hop music rang true for each ofthem. ' "Tbis has helped me gro~ and mature," said Mancone. "I've learned a lot of things about cul-ture and myself. I was looking for help, and it was a positive thing." The colloquium continues Tuesday with Augustin Lira and Alma discussing Chicano/Latina songs. · •llkovl@projo.colll/ (401) 277-7213 On sale For home IIBtlvery, call481.2n.7600 or go ontlnB at projo.com/myprojO 

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Changing voices, faces of hip-hop

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