Hello you all,
to save time and confusion, I decided to create ID for everyone. Here it is:
Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! ID & Flickr
username: eosa_cca
password: hiphop
Google & Blogger
username: eosa.cca
password: hiphop1
Everyone can just use the this ID when they want to post their comments or articles here. I'm hoping that we can use Flickr (www.flickr.com) to share photos.
Best,
Frederick
Sunday, February 25, 2007
What is Hip-Hop for me?
For me, Hip-Hop is all about the true essences of it – peace, love, unity, and having fun. As I understand what the stereotypes of Hip-Hop are, I realize that Hip-Hop is not about money, girls, and cars; It’s about caring and building a community. It may sound cheesy, but I believe the deepest meaning of Hip-Hop is creating a “utopia” in a way. A community or movement where everyone can express themselves and still get accepted by others because we know that everyone is special and unique. When this happens, the people inside the community could grow because they know that they are encourage to do so, through creativity and art.
Our goal is to create a community with this vision and encourage the students in EOSA to express themselves through art and creativity. Hence, they are given opportunity to choose their medium, whatever it might be. We might not be able to make them grow tremendously during the first semester, but I always believe that when the seeds have been planted, they will grow by themselves. This seeds will grow and become their hobby, career, or even just a stepping-stone for them to discover something bigger.
I believe when these kids understand the meaning of Hip-Hop; they are going to strengthen the community around them. We might not be the group that harvest the results, but trust me, the results will be there.
Hope all's well.
Best,
Frederick Kurniadi
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Detournement
D'etournement; noun, a diversion, to subvert meaning.
D'etournement is the subversion, devaluation and re-use of present and past cultural production, destroying its message while hijacking its impact.
Comics, ads, movies, 'fine art' or even city spaces are manipulated and placed in new and radical contexts (one contemporary example is 'adbusting' or 'subvertising' and culture-jamming).
Some contemporary examples of detournement:
Political Culture
But in the case of hip hop, who's doing the co-opting?
Hip hop culture reappropriating haut couture for Bling Bling!
~or~
high culture hijacking urban vernacular to gain street cred?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Pre 70s hip hop
Clay comes out to meet Liston, and Liston starts to retreat
If Liston goes back any further he'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with a left, Clay swings with a right.
Look at young Cassius carry the fight.
Liston keeps backing but there's not enough room.
It's a matter of time, and there! Clay lowers the boom.
Now Clay swings with a right what a beautiful swing.
And the punch rises the Bear clear out of the ring.
Liston is still rising and the ref wears a frown
for he can't start counting till Sonny comes down.
Now Liston disappears from view the crowd's getting frantic
but our radar station's picked him up over the Atlantic.
Who would have thought when they came to the fight
that they'd witness the launching of a human satellite?
Before the Ali vs. Liston fight in 1964
God father of the battle rap
Addressing Issues and Concerns Regarding Hip-Hop, Community Building and Mentorship
In observing the development of this class we see some of you struggling to make the connection between yourselves, community, mentoring and Hip-Hop. Some of you do not see the connection at all. So let us share with you what real Hip-Hop culture is and where it comes from. Hip-Hop is community building. As we learned in the lecture on the first day of class, Hip-Hop begun as a community outreach and gang prevention program run out of the south Bronx villa housing projects (AKA the house of god). Afrika Bambaataa created the Zulu nation as an alternative to gang violence and a place were the generations and cultures could come together and express themselves through art and creativity (whatever their medium). That’s real Hip-Hop, and that is essentially the space that we aim to create for our EOSA students.
What we are finding with our CCA group is that some are quick to say what Isn’t Hip-Hop, but truly lack the knowledge of what Hip-Hop culture is, means and represents. It is impossible to say what isn’t Hip-Hop if you haven’t really yet made the connection with Hip-Hop yourself, or have only viewed it as an outsider. As your instructors, we are inviting you all into this world but you need to trust the process and abandon the misconceptions and stereotypes of what you may have thought Hip-Hop was before you came to this class. Before our CCA students can claim this class in the name of themselves, first they need to claim themselves in the name of Hip-Hop, which is true community building.
We are not teaching Hip-Pop. For us it’s not about the industry and the exploitation of our culture. Although what we see on the videos and hear on the radio is influenced by Hip-Hop and we should be conscious of it, the majority of it truly is a watered down misrepresentation, and in many cases a tool used to deplete the community and destroy and make us forget are Hip-Hop roots. The absorption of Hip-Hop into pop culture has divided the community into individualistic, power hungry egomaniacs and we have forgotten the original principals of the Zulu Nation; Peace, Love, Unity and having fun. These principals were created as guidelines to follow in order to unify, beautify and strengthen the community.
Its understandable that these principals would sound cliché or ' Hippidy Dippity' to the younger generations who may have only experienced Hip-Hop through the controlled lens of Hip-Pop, or received a 3rd hand version of 'the story of Hip-Hop' told in movies like style wars and read in books like Graffito written by the privileged and sheltered from an outsiders perspective. The lack of connection is also understandable in the fact that Hip-Hop's image has been segregated through various forms of propaganda that tell us that Hip-Hop only expresses a narrow minded view of 'street life' and is exclusively a black or brown thing, or something that white kids do when they are not ' keeping it real'. The reality is Hip-Hop is an international movement of a community that has stepped across all lines of separation between the classes, cultures and ethnicities. Even the privileged who feel deep inside that they can never be a part of Hip-Hop or truly identify because of their own misconceptions and stereotypes of themselves being too rich, too white or whatever are included. They are included regardless because of the power they are born into and the influence that their opinions, ideas and values hold in society. In some respects we have designed this course to Take Hip-hop back from their misconceptions, ignorance and lack of communal perspective.
We understand much of the resistance our CCA students are having in accepting themselves and this class as Hip-Hop. So it is our job as teachers, Hip-Hop historians and elders in the Hip-Hop community to educate about the true meaning of Hip-Hop and how it connects to all of us. It is vital that we do not take Hip-Hop out of community building so we don’t forget as a community were we come from. Our first 2 assignments to the class were given with the precise intention to help you make these connections:
1/ a past incarnation of Hip-Hop. We encouraged you to look to the past so that you could begin to make your own cultural connections to Hip-Hop.
2/ bring a piece of your art and be prepared to share the educational and revolutionary components in your art. We encouraged you to do this early on so that you could take ownership as to how your own process of art making and your art can be a tool to educate and a catalyst for change.
It comes as a surprise to us that not many of you did the second part of the assignment. We encourage you to do that for yourselves: make the connections between your art and community, education and change. It is imperative for this class that you do so, so that you can begin to truly own the process/ class and Hip-Hop. Though we ran out of time for in class presentations, we still asked you to email or turn this project into us. The next blogg that we are asking all of you to post presents the question, what is Hip-Hop to you?
We are aware that some students do not feel that we are managing our time as a class productively and think that things should be moving faster. Again this relates to trusting the process. Understand that building a community takes time, semesters, years, decades and centuries, or as they say, ‘ Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ As experienced community organizers and builders we understand the steps it takes. It is important that we don’t skip over anything or rush through the process of community building and awareness in order to fully get back the positive results we strive to achieve. That is why it is so important to take all of are classroom interactions, brainstorms, exercises and games seriously because they play an important part in your development as a mentor.
The voice of frustration towards the fact that you all came into this program not knowing that you were going to be mentors has been thoroughly expressed, made clear and processed. We as the instructors of this course acknowledge and empathize with this experience of signing up for a class that turned out to be something different then you expected. We have given the floor up and a significant amount of class time to letting students express and vent their frustrations about this issue. It is now time to leave this issue behind us because we are all here now regardless of what some thought this would be and the time has come to fulfill the requirements of the course. Our suggestion to you all is not to dwell on negative aspects of the past, but be as present and as positive as you can be now. You don’t need the unnecessary stress. Relax and have fun with this class because that’s what Hip-Hop is all about. Flowing.
Aligning our attitude with a good, wholesome and positive energy is crucial because we are affecting the lives of children/ young adults. If we don’t have union as teachers, mentors and role models then we cannot effectively help or unify the EOSA students. We need to see you all making that effort to care for and help these students succeed. This starts with accepting the fact that being a mentor is one of the courses requirements, taking it on and following through even if it presents itself as a fear, challenge or realm outside of your comfort zone. It is necessary for creators of art to step outside of their comfort zones so that they can grow and develop new ideas that add informed content and relevance to their work. This contributes to a larger awareness that carries beyond the individual and spills over into the community/ collective.
It is truly a blessing that we get to work with the 9th grade class at EOSA for many reasons. One is that going to EOSA is the next best thing to traveling to the South Bronx to visit the house of god. We get to collaborate with a group of students who were essentially in the process of creating the future of Hip-Hop before we even came into the picture. For most of these young students Hip-Hop has been a driving influence, inspiration and mode of expression through out their lives. They have strong opinions about what Hip-Hop means to them and are living examples of these opinions and values. In many cases they will be our teachers and Hip-Hop instructors.
We would like to thank you all for opening yourselves up to having this dialogue with us and hope that some of what we said helps you see the connections between Hip-Hop, mentorship, community building and yourself. We also hope that this helps to give you some guidance and direction in terms of your approach and where we can take this class together.
Peace and Blessings,
Purnima and Unity
What we are finding with our CCA group is that some are quick to say what Isn’t Hip-Hop, but truly lack the knowledge of what Hip-Hop culture is, means and represents. It is impossible to say what isn’t Hip-Hop if you haven’t really yet made the connection with Hip-Hop yourself, or have only viewed it as an outsider. As your instructors, we are inviting you all into this world but you need to trust the process and abandon the misconceptions and stereotypes of what you may have thought Hip-Hop was before you came to this class. Before our CCA students can claim this class in the name of themselves, first they need to claim themselves in the name of Hip-Hop, which is true community building.
We are not teaching Hip-Pop. For us it’s not about the industry and the exploitation of our culture. Although what we see on the videos and hear on the radio is influenced by Hip-Hop and we should be conscious of it, the majority of it truly is a watered down misrepresentation, and in many cases a tool used to deplete the community and destroy and make us forget are Hip-Hop roots. The absorption of Hip-Hop into pop culture has divided the community into individualistic, power hungry egomaniacs and we have forgotten the original principals of the Zulu Nation; Peace, Love, Unity and having fun. These principals were created as guidelines to follow in order to unify, beautify and strengthen the community.
Its understandable that these principals would sound cliché or ' Hippidy Dippity' to the younger generations who may have only experienced Hip-Hop through the controlled lens of Hip-Pop, or received a 3rd hand version of 'the story of Hip-Hop' told in movies like style wars and read in books like Graffito written by the privileged and sheltered from an outsiders perspective. The lack of connection is also understandable in the fact that Hip-Hop's image has been segregated through various forms of propaganda that tell us that Hip-Hop only expresses a narrow minded view of 'street life' and is exclusively a black or brown thing, or something that white kids do when they are not ' keeping it real'. The reality is Hip-Hop is an international movement of a community that has stepped across all lines of separation between the classes, cultures and ethnicities. Even the privileged who feel deep inside that they can never be a part of Hip-Hop or truly identify because of their own misconceptions and stereotypes of themselves being too rich, too white or whatever are included. They are included regardless because of the power they are born into and the influence that their opinions, ideas and values hold in society. In some respects we have designed this course to Take Hip-hop back from their misconceptions, ignorance and lack of communal perspective.
We understand much of the resistance our CCA students are having in accepting themselves and this class as Hip-Hop. So it is our job as teachers, Hip-Hop historians and elders in the Hip-Hop community to educate about the true meaning of Hip-Hop and how it connects to all of us. It is vital that we do not take Hip-Hop out of community building so we don’t forget as a community were we come from. Our first 2 assignments to the class were given with the precise intention to help you make these connections:
1/ a past incarnation of Hip-Hop. We encouraged you to look to the past so that you could begin to make your own cultural connections to Hip-Hop.
2/ bring a piece of your art and be prepared to share the educational and revolutionary components in your art. We encouraged you to do this early on so that you could take ownership as to how your own process of art making and your art can be a tool to educate and a catalyst for change.
It comes as a surprise to us that not many of you did the second part of the assignment. We encourage you to do that for yourselves: make the connections between your art and community, education and change. It is imperative for this class that you do so, so that you can begin to truly own the process/ class and Hip-Hop. Though we ran out of time for in class presentations, we still asked you to email or turn this project into us. The next blogg that we are asking all of you to post presents the question, what is Hip-Hop to you?
We are aware that some students do not feel that we are managing our time as a class productively and think that things should be moving faster. Again this relates to trusting the process. Understand that building a community takes time, semesters, years, decades and centuries, or as they say, ‘ Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ As experienced community organizers and builders we understand the steps it takes. It is important that we don’t skip over anything or rush through the process of community building and awareness in order to fully get back the positive results we strive to achieve. That is why it is so important to take all of are classroom interactions, brainstorms, exercises and games seriously because they play an important part in your development as a mentor.
The voice of frustration towards the fact that you all came into this program not knowing that you were going to be mentors has been thoroughly expressed, made clear and processed. We as the instructors of this course acknowledge and empathize with this experience of signing up for a class that turned out to be something different then you expected. We have given the floor up and a significant amount of class time to letting students express and vent their frustrations about this issue. It is now time to leave this issue behind us because we are all here now regardless of what some thought this would be and the time has come to fulfill the requirements of the course. Our suggestion to you all is not to dwell on negative aspects of the past, but be as present and as positive as you can be now. You don’t need the unnecessary stress. Relax and have fun with this class because that’s what Hip-Hop is all about. Flowing.
Aligning our attitude with a good, wholesome and positive energy is crucial because we are affecting the lives of children/ young adults. If we don’t have union as teachers, mentors and role models then we cannot effectively help or unify the EOSA students. We need to see you all making that effort to care for and help these students succeed. This starts with accepting the fact that being a mentor is one of the courses requirements, taking it on and following through even if it presents itself as a fear, challenge or realm outside of your comfort zone. It is necessary for creators of art to step outside of their comfort zones so that they can grow and develop new ideas that add informed content and relevance to their work. This contributes to a larger awareness that carries beyond the individual and spills over into the community/ collective.
It is truly a blessing that we get to work with the 9th grade class at EOSA for many reasons. One is that going to EOSA is the next best thing to traveling to the South Bronx to visit the house of god. We get to collaborate with a group of students who were essentially in the process of creating the future of Hip-Hop before we even came into the picture. For most of these young students Hip-Hop has been a driving influence, inspiration and mode of expression through out their lives. They have strong opinions about what Hip-Hop means to them and are living examples of these opinions and values. In many cases they will be our teachers and Hip-Hop instructors.
We would like to thank you all for opening yourselves up to having this dialogue with us and hope that some of what we said helps you see the connections between Hip-Hop, mentorship, community building and yourself. We also hope that this helps to give you some guidance and direction in terms of your approach and where we can take this class together.
Peace and Blessings,
Purnima and Unity
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Hip Hop on KQED this Monday (2/18/07)
Maybe we could litsten to this in class while we work.
Mon, Feb 19, 2007 -- 10:00 AM
Beyond Beats and Rhymes
In its second hour the program discusses the representations and expressions of manhood, sexism, homophobia, race and community values within hip-hop culture.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
--Aya DeLeon, a UC Berkeley faculty member and writer and performer of
"Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip-Hop"
--Byron Hurt, filmmaker and director of film "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes"
--Jason Tanz, author of "Other People's Property:
A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America"
--Tim'm West, hip-hop artist
http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?progID=RD19
Mon, Feb 19, 2007 -- 10:00 AM
Beyond Beats and Rhymes
In its second hour the program discusses the representations and expressions of manhood, sexism, homophobia, race and community values within hip-hop culture.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
--Aya DeLeon, a UC Berkeley faculty member and writer and performer of
"Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip-Hop"
--Byron Hurt, filmmaker and director of film "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes"
--Jason Tanz, author of "Other People's Property:
A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America"
--Tim'm West, hip-hop artist
http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?progID=RD19
Mentoring is Hip Hop
Hey everybody. I copied this post from the Wetpaint wiki. To keep things simple, I thought I'd consolidate everything from that site to this one. Peace.
first of all i'd like to congratulate all of us on our first day- mentoring- is a very personal thing. i ask you stop reflect on it in your journals. did you feel like your presence made an impact? how were you affected by the eosa community?
I beg to take this moment and speak to the deed of mentorship. to be a mentor is to know one's own caliber, to be blindado- bullet proof, to know the history of one's own experience- life - the mastery you have on anything...art making, building things, capturing image, writing up songs, poems, enchantments, the pursuit of things, loving, dancing, laughing, energy, organizing, breathing, cooking, practicing, teaching, sculpting... Is there discipline? passion? does that, which you are in the pursuit of meet the/ your challenge? does it hit the spot? mentorship has always confronted me with these questions; it's made me confront how real I my? how much do I walk my talk? from theater, acting, yoga, modeling, writing, teaching... teaching does it to you- i'd say. just plain living? when you are cognizant of your power, you almost instantaneously choose to be a mentor. because you become a model, you become inspiration, a way, and a catalyst. my performance/ director friend Rhodessa Jones comes to mind when I think of keeping it real. do we? always? keep it real? In my opinion, this is the main barometer for your process of mentoring; it will also endow you with choosing good mentors. we are all teachers. how can we inspire through doing (our projects are key). reflect on mentorship (journals will share) finish your business so that we can have you fully committed to the journey. in the words of our adopted quote: We (are) Hip-Hop. Me, you, everybody. We are Hip-Hop
Be blessed, Purnima
first of all i'd like to congratulate all of us on our first day- mentoring- is a very personal thing. i ask you stop reflect on it in your journals. did you feel like your presence made an impact? how were you affected by the eosa community?
I beg to take this moment and speak to the deed of mentorship. to be a mentor is to know one's own caliber, to be blindado- bullet proof, to know the history of one's own experience- life - the mastery you have on anything...art making, building things, capturing image, writing up songs, poems, enchantments, the pursuit of things, loving, dancing, laughing, energy, organizing, breathing, cooking, practicing, teaching, sculpting... Is there discipline? passion? does that, which you are in the pursuit of meet the/ your challenge? does it hit the spot? mentorship has always confronted me with these questions; it's made me confront how real I my? how much do I walk my talk? from theater, acting, yoga, modeling, writing, teaching... teaching does it to you- i'd say. just plain living? when you are cognizant of your power, you almost instantaneously choose to be a mentor. because you become a model, you become inspiration, a way, and a catalyst. my performance/ director friend Rhodessa Jones comes to mind when I think of keeping it real. do we? always? keep it real? In my opinion, this is the main barometer for your process of mentoring; it will also endow you with choosing good mentors. we are all teachers. how can we inspire through doing (our projects are key). reflect on mentorship (journals will share) finish your business so that we can have you fully committed to the journey. in the words of our adopted quote: We (are) Hip-Hop. Me, you, everybody. We are Hip-Hop
Be blessed, Purnima
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
In this class, students will create a new type of Underground Hip-Hop. We will use basic tools of artistic expression and modern technology to redefine the elements of Hip-Hop in a Temporary Autonomous Zone.
We will closely examine the power structure of the Hip-Hop community through three lenses:
1) The Birth of Hip-Hop: Hip-Hop as an original expression of the distinct experiences of inner city youth, as the voice of rebellion and revolution, as a ritual, as a nationality and culture, and Hip-Hop's influence on society.
2) Mainstream Hip-Hop: an expression of the dominant culture's capitalistic ad patriarchal ideologies, an exploitation of underground culture s a means of maintaining the status quo, and an attempt to erase knowledge of the specific historical and social context of the inner city youth experience from which cultural productions and distinct styles emerge.
3) Underground Hip-Hop: subversive disruptions to today's unoriginal co-opted mainstream Hip-Hop, timeless and ever-changing mechanism, and an accessible means o self-expression and representation.
Students will critique the state of Hip-Hop and then build our own Hip-Hop community narrative.
There will be a series of projects in which students are asked to artistically express their individual interpretations of how they perceive Hip-Hop as a community.
We will use low-tech mediums like collage, assemblage and creative writing to explore inexpensive methods of making art. We will also use high-teach mediums such as photography and video to document our environment. Audio recordings will be made to capture the poetry, songs and sounds of the workshop.
Finally, all of the art will be digitized and turned into a website, a booklet and a CD that we will present and perform in an exhibit about our work.
By presenting our work through various forms of media, our art will reach people from many different kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds.
We will closely examine the power structure of the Hip-Hop community through three lenses:
1) The Birth of Hip-Hop: Hip-Hop as an original expression of the distinct experiences of inner city youth, as the voice of rebellion and revolution, as a ritual, as a nationality and culture, and Hip-Hop's influence on society.
2) Mainstream Hip-Hop: an expression of the dominant culture's capitalistic ad patriarchal ideologies, an exploitation of underground culture s a means of maintaining the status quo, and an attempt to erase knowledge of the specific historical and social context of the inner city youth experience from which cultural productions and distinct styles emerge.
3) Underground Hip-Hop: subversive disruptions to today's unoriginal co-opted mainstream Hip-Hop, timeless and ever-changing mechanism, and an accessible means o self-expression and representation.
Students will critique the state of Hip-Hop and then build our own Hip-Hop community narrative.
There will be a series of projects in which students are asked to artistically express their individual interpretations of how they perceive Hip-Hop as a community.
We will use low-tech mediums like collage, assemblage and creative writing to explore inexpensive methods of making art. We will also use high-teach mediums such as photography and video to document our environment. Audio recordings will be made to capture the poetry, songs and sounds of the workshop.
Finally, all of the art will be digitized and turned into a website, a booklet and a CD that we will present and perform in an exhibit about our work.
By presenting our work through various forms of media, our art will reach people from many different kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds.
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