Michelle Obama, America, Hip-Hop, Spoken Word

“We want entertaining in the White House to feel like America, that we are reminded of all the many facets of our culture. The Latino community, the Asian-American community, the African-American community… hip-hop, spoken word – we want to bring the youth in, for them to hear their voices in this,” [Mrs. Obama] said.

Yet another reason for me to love Michelle Obama.

Read the BBC News article here.

Do you feel the standard of beauty shifting in America?

So this is a good time to talk about two of the women who spoke at the recent USF Hip-Hop Conference which Oscar and I attended this past Saturday, and at which I admittedly felt very, very old and unhip.

The panel discussion included Dereca Blackmon and Susie Lundy; I’d just seen Lundy B-girling and having a blast at the lunchtime performances. And then there she was on this panel, talking very pointedly about grounding oneself in Hip-Hop. Here, she encouraged everyone there to really listen to the lyrics, the messages in the music and beats, the messages in the graffiti (this term gets criminalized, when “mural” I think is what’s happening here, in terms of public art with a social or political message) not to simply be an unquestioning and empty vessel. Do take Hip-Hop into the body, and remember that our bodies’ connectedness to the earth and to one another is in the drum. She discussed the importance of ritual, and spirituality to be had there. She discussed the importance of craftsmanship, basically, being proactive and in control of your message.

Blackmon was way candid about her criticism of the message and how it messes with community, especially a pervasive misogyny which so many young women internalize. How did we get here, she asks, where a room full of young woman have no problem chanting “No Ho,” et al. So again about this awareness. To be fair, the discussion about misogyny did also take into account that mainstream or popular culture are rife with misogyny, or include it centrally as their world view, so it’s not just Hip-Hop. Still, the criticism here is given the practice of liberation and political education which occurs in Hip-Hop, misogyny should not be excused or dismissed. Can liberation be true if it is achieved through the oppression of others.

Here, the packed conference room verbalized its agreement here in a collective nod and affirmative “hmm.” There were so many young women of color here, and I was so glad to hear this discussion happen, and so glad to hear and see these young women operating in this critical mode.

Blackmon then discussed the Walk of Shame, which she conducts in Hip-Hop and community workshops. The young women form two lines like in Soul Train, and the young men have to walk down the middle. Here, the women articulate the foulest, most offensive things they have been told and called by men in their communities.

Now the thing is this: as Blackmon was in the process of articulating how the Walk of Shame works, even I thought this was cruel. But then when she finished telling us how some men, clearly uncomfortable, laugh it off, others actually cry, when contrite, they say, “I had no idea,” at this point, I didn’t think it was cruel at all. A few minutes in our shoes is nice, though I believe this will never be enough for a man to know how damaging and how scary it is to go through our lives every day in the world viewed as prey and pieces of ass.

The men are then led into a room full of photographs on the walls, of African American women, historical photographs, mothers, grandmothers, young girls. For captions: misogynistic rap and Hip-Hop lyrics. Just food for thought. Imagine Michelle Obama’s Vogue cover in this gallery.

So yeah. Let America be Hip-Hop. I am with Michelle Obama here. But let engagements with Hip-Hop be critical, and transformative. Jeff Chang has said that even those artists who don’t act “community,” even those whose priorities do not appear to include community but instead, commercialism, i.e. profit at any (human) cost, let’s think of ways to bring them back into community. Yes, I am with this.

Tags: Dereca Blackmon, Michelle Obama, Susie Lundy