Post #7 – Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy as a Form of Liberatory Praxis

How can hip hop be used as a tool to promote social justice and youth activism in the classroom? What is the relationship between hip-hop culture and the development of critical consciousness among students?

Hip hop like any other type of music or dance is a form of expression. It provides a media for anyone to express themselves and their emotions. Since it is a form of expression hip hop can be used as a platform to express a want or need for social change or express concern and anger regarding injustices that are happening in the world today. There are many hip hop songs that focus on the topic of social justice. Using music, especially hip hop songs that talk about the topic, can be a great way to get students interested in social justice and activism or any topic because they are learning about it in an engaging way. Students are more likely to be influenced by a lesson if it is fun and engaging. Hip hop culture in the classroom can relate to the critical consciousness of students because as I mentioned if you focus on the pieces of hip hop culture that focus on activism and injustice students can be encouraged to think critically about what messages these songs are really conveying. It is almost similar to interpreting poetry. For example if you have students pick a hip hop song that has ideas of activism and injustice in it and then have the students decode and interpret the lyrics to this song they start to realize the meaning to the words. Then encouraging these students to reflect on the messages in the song and how they relate to themselves, their community, and society can help the students develop critical consciousness. 

Reading

Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy as a Form of Liberatory Praxis by Akom – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JywxjY6ZpRU9lzhP5fkC4QsZQdsKFx2S/view?usp=sharing