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.