Organizing Dialogue, Experience and Knowledge for Complex Problem-Solving

Taking time, when it’s time

by • October 12th, 2012

The main point of the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards, as far as I could tell, was to give tribute to Chris Lightly. Hip Hop inspires me as a courageous form of protest by facing the ugly realities of the modernized social world head-on. This shows up in the differences between white-styled award shows and black-styled award shows. It was fun, too, to hear Kendrick Lamar, who won Lyricist of the Year. He had a line in the West Coast cypher acknowledging the passing of the intergenerational torch from Snoop Dogg, who at least I’ve heard of before.

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I Sing the Body Electric (Walt Whitman on Hip Hop)

by • April 8th, 2012

Performing "I Sing the Body Electric" in the 1980 film, Fame.

Through me the afflatus surging and surging . . . . through me the current and index.
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you,
You my rich blood, your milky stream pale strippings of my life;
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you,
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions,
Root of […]

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Engaging Preoccupation

by • November 16th, 2011

Testing tolerance and endurance in Amherst, MA

A friend working on some Twitter research has created a visualization of Tweets containing the word “occupy.” Watching the barrage of names, emotions, attitudes, accusations, reports, insults could seep in like a bad dream, the social miasma of our times unfolding in real time. I find articulate voices making sense of what’s happening now among hip hop artists who are using their art to engage issues of social justice. At AJstream, Derrick Ashong asks Lupe Fiasco why the clear point of the Occupy Wall Street movement – ECONOMIC JUSTICE – is not translating to mainstream media.

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Quoted: Clutch Magazine on Kreayshawn

by • June 23rd, 2011

Note: Audio NSFW

White rappers aren’t the problem. Exploitation of Black culture is.

Black culture is diverse with various meanings; and how one defines Black culture varies from individual. In the case of Kreayshawn, I’m referring to her misinterpretation of what she thinks Black culture and hip-hop is.

One could argue she is exactly what hip-hop has become–gimmicky, devoid

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Catalyzing Movement

by • May 3rd, 2011

The fourth piece, Lateralization by Cassandra Jackman…signaled a dramatic shift in the storyline of the show. Prior to this piece I had not yet noticed individual details of any of the dancers; it was as if I’d seen with soft eyes, taking in only the gestalt. Suddenly, a focal point emerged, casting the previous pieces into the realm of context. I began to marvel at how these young people had orchestrated their discrete works of art into a collective statement about empowerment, including even race relations and suggesting optimism for social change.

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Hip Hop’s Conversation about Consciousness

by • April 18th, 2011

shielding ourselves from the light?

I learned of Carl Joseph’s suicide because I was facilitating a dialogue about identity and bullying at Renaissance High School on the second anniversary of his death. Tiffany is one of several dozen students from six high schools preparing to meet each other at South Hadley High School on April 30. Students from the different schools have expressed a mix of trepidation and excitement about getting past the stereotypes they hold about each other. Can these youth find reasons to bond with each other despite the stereotypes, rather than staying within comfort zones of familiar identification with people they already know or identify with as ‘the same as me’?

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Hip Hop plays with structure

by • April 7th, 2011

The Rihanna thing is intense. The mournful tones of the introduction frame an ominous future for young girls growing up in a body-centric world. Not that the prospects for men are so much better – read the lyrics. We are all under surveillance of one kind or another most of the time, it’s just that the surveillance is so unobtrusive we can ignore it. Ignore it routinely enough and you’ll forget it’s happening!

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always in motion

by • March 23rd, 2011

When I first came upon Beyonce, [in that There-and-Then context], I was figuring myself out as a woman. She was girl/woman/sexy/curvy. Then I came across Alicia Keys, who is seductive and very strong.

Her songs are about love and loss…Alicia gives nothing of herself away.

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Making It Real

by • March 14th, 2011

Tribute.

All grown up and ready to lead, shake it up!
Make it real – compared to what?
Getting shot at, it’s all left up to us.
The hip hop generation, our generation
We’ve got the longevity, educated enough to know
No time for sorrow, gotta share all the love
Love the way it should be.
Not let our minds get trapped in […]

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