Comments on: The Globalization of Hip-Hop

By: Yo La La!

Yo La La! — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:31:47 +0000

For more on French hip-hop, check out my monthly educational podcast for English-speakers: http://www.yolala.org

By: rushay

rushay — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 02:50:28 +0000

thank you robin hopefully we can keep this dialogue open if anybody interested they can check out our radio show u can download from the link if you can listen live on sundays http://www.heusdens.biz/pt/index.php

By: JITNEYsound

JITNEYsound — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 17:06:20 +0000

open source did a great job whitewashing hip hop, promoting one particular vision of it and marginalising and maligning anything that didn’t fit into their idea of what hip hop should be. congrats!

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:48:27 +0000

Thanks everyone for the great level of debate on this show.

By: rushay

rushay — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 05:17:00 +0000

for anybody that want to see bout the hip hop movement in south africa watch BET

CATCH A FEATURE OF SOUTH AFRICA HIP HOP ON BET TODAY AT

11:30 AM Sunday and 8 PM Wednesday THATS EASTERN TIME ON BET

By: jordon

jordon — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:38:27 +0000

re: jitney’s comments and links about grime, i was dissapointed to hear NO mention of british hip-hop on last night’s show. artists like dizzee rascal and the streets are part of the most internationally popular hip-hop movement outside of the US.

By: Stephen Karmol

Stephen Karmol — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 04:08:15 +0000

I haven’t had time to read through this post…been listening to hip-hop for years, have sought out the most politically radical content that still brings lyricism and beats…

I live near Seattle now. The independent hip-hop scene is blowing up. I URGE everyone who hasn’t to check out Blue Scholars, Common Market, and Macklemore. Their honesty, politics, emceeing capabilities and amazing, complex beats will enthrall anyone who cares about social change/revolution.

By: RaggedRobin

RaggedRobin — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 23:43:19 +0000

Sure, there’s something oppositional about a lot of Japanese hip hop, but if that’s all we say about it, we ignore some major social differences about who makes and listens to rap music, whose reality sets the standard for a local hip-hop authenticity. Middle class, majority-community kids, rapping about the lack of graduate jobs in a depressed economy are doing something quite different from members of an ethnic minority (whether desi, maori or inuit) building a space to speak to each other, and for the community, or an urban, multi-ethnic community mixing languages and crossing boundaries, as seems to be happening in Kenya.

By: Ben Herson

Ben Herson — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:09:05 +0000

There’s some amazing music and movements out there!

Great to see so much interest on this subject from all over the world. Having been recording and researching African and Global Hip-Hop for many years now I must say I’m still completely inspired on a regular basis by the innovation, brilliance and sheer determination of young people the world over who use hip-hop in ways to better their lives and communities.

Peace and Respect to all the panelists and presenters. Looking forward to the broadcast..

Ben Herson

http://www.nomadicwax.com

By: iiicalypso

iiicalypso — Wed, 31 May 2006 03:05:42 +0000

It seems to me that the initial questions–

“Can an Arabic 18 yr old in a French ghetto identify more with 2-Pac or Snoop Dogg than French cultural icons? Why do oppressed people all over identify with the story of Black American ideas of struggle and success? What message is mainstream hip-hop music selling to the world?”

pose two contradictory and irreconcilable issues. To me, it seems that the idea that something can at once be mainstream and revolutionary is a bit absurd. Like all forms of art, revolutionary and mainstream may share a common ancestor, but they evolve in very seperate directions. While certainly there are exceptions, it seems more often than not that the MC5 devolves into Bon Jovi and Marvin Gaye begets Usher. Whether this is good or bad, I cannot say.

To me, the more interesting part of the question is the globalization issue. I have spent the past three years in Korea and Taiwan, and have watched with the eyes of an outsider the effect of hip hop. My thinking about it has evolved as my understanding of the cultures did. Without the language ability to listen to the lyrics, I spend a lot of time simply seeing how Asian hip-hop has adopted certain elements of the greater hip-hop culture (shiny cars, dancing girls) and modified others (less overtly sexual references, greater emphasis on dancing prowess).

As for the globalization aspect, there are two points that stand out especially strongly. The first is with hip hop fashion, which filters down through the mainstream all the way to elementary school students. The second, and more interesting to me, sign that hip hop has become truly globalized, is the fact that my rural county has taken to airing televison commercials extolling the virtues of recycling. The vehicle? A rap song.