No questions from reading this week (but reading/viewing is posted below). Instead, I want everyone to write a cogent, thoughtful short review of the exhibit we just saw – Vodou Riche. Please edit it as best you can. The post with details about reviews is above.
For next week, read and view the following:
- “From Black Power to Hip Hop” – Introduction; by Patricia Hill Collins
View:
- Bell Hooks: Pt 8 Cultural Criticism (on Rap)
- Dead Prez – Hip Hop
- Hip Hop Violin
- Missy Elliot – She’s a Bitch
While you do not have to respond to the questions below, please at least think about some of them, so you are prepared to have a thoughtful discussion of this material in class the next time we meet (October 23rd).
Questions:
- What are the major arguments (or ideas/concepts) being put forth by both bell hooks and Patricia Hills? How do any of the hip hop videos presented in this blog for viewing (or that you find) exemplify any of these larger concepts/arguments?
- In what ways does bell hooks and Patricia Hills’ arguments seem to reflect one another? In what ways are they different (in other words, what, if anything, might they seem to disagree on)?
- When Patricia Hills talks about the “contradictions of a new racism,” what does she mean by this? In what ways is this “new racism” contradictory and/or paradoxical? And how might Hip-hop be implicated within this “new racism”?
- Patricia Hills provides several quotes at the beginning of her introduction; in what ways do these quotes “demonstrate the contradictions of the value system of the Black hip-hop generation”? Does bell hooks point out any of these contradictions, as well? If so, what are they?
