>I'm very surprised at the tone of this post; so often posters
>here (not you, k) cry about how the Establishment refuses to
>recognize the artistic merit in hip hop and how unfair that
>is; and now that you see a movement that could asist greatly
>in that recognition, you decry it? Odd.

From their perspective, the mainstream recognition

That recognition is often not for "what we are", but for "what they like about us".

I don't know if that's a subtle distinction, but the idea is that if Will Smith and Freeway are up for "the best rapper out of philly" Grammy (Black Thought was snubbed again)

- you wouldn't want Freeway to win because he's "street"
- you wouldn't want Will Smith to win because he's cheesy

You would want some real recognition of both of their styles.

And that never really seems to happen.

And i'll throw this in, After Ms. Jackson Dropped, Dre was on one of them celebrity shows super-geeked cause all the Hollywood types knew his record and would sing him the chorus everytime they saw him -

That's not the kind of mainstream recognition that the people want.

>Anyway, to summarize some vibes I pick up from this post and
>elsewhere as reasons people might object are:
>
>-the quantification and strict defining of hip hop, which can
>be seen as a limiting factor;

The Damajafication of hip hop?

I go back and forth on that one.

>-the fact that most hip hop intellectuals are dweebs;

Possibly. It could be that they weren't "in the streets" or "in the crowd", they were in the library.

>-the underlying fear that hip hop will not stand up to the
>scrutiny usually reserved for forms like jazz or classical;

I ain't said that, and most of the riders for it, will say that it does match up.

Me, i'm against the whole comparison to begin with.

>-the fact that 'hip hop academia' might sacrifice
>research/argument standards in favor of PC conclusions;

That's a concern.

>-the study of hip hop as an ethnomusicology subject (where
>it's been studied for at least 15 - 20 years) further enforces
>the idea that hip hop is not a part of mainstream or pop
>culture, but rather some sort of wild tribal music to be
>fetishized by academics

Yup, that's a concern as well.

>-the idea that if you're studying it in an academic setting,
>you can't be living it.

Not so much for me, but many folks are on that "hip hop is something you live"

>So k, if you were arguing against teaching hip hop classes in
>college, what would your argument be?

1) the academy does not deserve it
2) they don't have the ability to research it
3) what research they will do, will be wrong headed and lead to bad scholarship
4) that bad scholarship continues to enforce harmful ideas about the music (PE good, NWA bad and Selling Out Bad, Staying True - good)

The apex-esque question is

"Isn't a bad attempt to study hip hop better than no attempt at all?"

No it's not.

I may even go as far as to say, hip hop will be better off if it dies with us. I may say that, just not sure yet.

one
k. orr

>Alternatively, if you were forced to teach a class, what would
>its focus be and how would you go about it?


leaning back like The Matrix (c) them boys from Hustle Skwad