Hip-Hop within and without the Academy Hip-Hop within and without the Academy Karen Snell and Johan Söderman LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 16 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BT, United Kingdom Copyright © 2014 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Snell, Karen, 1971- author. Hip-hop within and without the academy / by Karen Snell and Johan Söderman. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-7649-8 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7391-7650-4 (electronic) 1. Rap (Music)--History and criticism. I. Söderman, Johan, author. II. Title. ML3531.S66 2014 782.421649--dc23 2014018057 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America This book is dedicated to hip-hop musicians, hip-hop educators, and hip-hop activists all over the globe. v Contents Acknowledgments ix Part 1 Ethnographic Hip-Hop Studies 1 Introduction 3 2 Young Hip-Hop Musicians Talk About Their Learning 13 and Creative Strategies 3 Towards a Swedish Professional Hip-Hop Identity 25 4 The Musical Personhood of Three Canadian 41 Turntablists: Implications for Transformative Collaborative Practice in Music Education 5 First Nations Hip-Hop Artists’ Identity and Voice 59 Part 2 Academization of Hip-Hop 6 Introduction to Part 2 77 7 The Formation of a Scientific Field: Hip-Hop 85 Academicus 8 What is at Stake? How Hip-Hop is Legitimized 99 and Discussed Within University 9 Turntablism: A Vehicle for Connecting Community 111 and School Music Making and Learning vii viii Contents Part 3 Educational and Artistic Implications of Hip-Hop 10 Introduction to Part 3 125 11 Jean Grae and Toni Blackman: An Educational and 135 Aesthetical Conversation with Two Female Emcees 12 Folkbildning through Hip-Hop: A Presentation of 153 Two Rappers and One Swedish Hip-Hop Organization 13 How Critical Pedagogy and Democratic Theory can 165 Inform Teaching Music, and Especially, Teaching Hip-Hop 14 The Informal Learning Practices of Hip-Hop 177 Musicians 15 Outroduction: Implications for Education and Music 197 Education Glossary of Terms 209 Bibliography 211 Index 221 About the Authors 227 Acknowledgments We would like to acknowledge the help, guidance, and inspiration of: Randall Allsup, Joe Schloss, Kyra Gaunt, Martha Diaz, Marcella Runell Hall, Kip Kline, Emery Petchauer, Paul Woodford, Patrick Jones, Chris Azzara, Mark Pemberton, and Brad Porfilio. We would also like to thank all of the musicians, educators, and scholars we interviewed for this book who all gave so generously of their time and ideas. ix