> And why not understand the social reasons that contributed to it?

Nice response.

Why not?

I don't know who much of the material you've read that is about "hip hop", but this is what it's all about.

Hip Hop's only value to the academy is the social reason for its existence.

In a lot of ways, they view hip hop in that sociological way of movement development.

Macro-forces act on people and they create movements.

From there, it's just id'ing the forces and id'ing the movements, and matching up methodology.

- poor people in jamaica
- vinyl
- jamaican moves to NYC
- takes sound system idea

= Public Enemy.

What you're talking about is precisely the area of hip hop "scholarship" that needs to be shut down.

That kinda thinking isn't about hip hop, it's about atomization of the family, redistribution of work, post-civil-rights era society...

Hip Hop only comes in when they can find a line to quote.

I firmly believe you could take out those 30-40 "protest" records out of hip hop, and still have something enjoyable and interesting.

I may be the only one that believes that.

one
k. orr