Throughout this week, we were tasked with reading two articles and I chose to write about the use of Hip Hop in social justice. I read the article “Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy as a form of Liberatory Praxis” by A. A. Akom. the author makes connections between using hip hop as a tool for students to help find roots in the African American culture. I have never heard of hip-hop pedagogy until I had started reading this article but I have an understanding of the stereotypes that come with hip-hop. hip hop has been known as a way of expressing displeasure towards life and it has been known to involve violence, fighting and many bad words or phrases. the author says “I argue that the use of hip hop as a liberatory practice is rooted in the long history of the Black freedom struggle and the quest for self-determination for oppressed communities around the world” (Akom, pp. 53). This quote suggests that there is a lot more to hip-hop pedagogy than just focusing on what hip hop is.
After reading this article it made me wonder how hip-hop pedagogy would specifically be used in schools and in different subjects. The first thought that I had for a prime subject to use this in would be history. although hip hop is a topic that may not be used in a history class, the subject of African American culture is very present. The great part of hip hop is that it has a history of voicing social justice problems such as poverty, racial discrimination, and police brutality. this would be a great idea to use in this day and age because of the Black Lives Matter movement that has been sweeping across the world. throughout the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a number of hip hop and rap artists that have been a voice for the people. In schools, an assignment could be done on the history of African American culture and the assignment could have ideas on doing a hip hop-oriented paper. although it seems like hip hop is strictly just about music, the article goes into a great depth that I have never thought of before reading the article.