Hip-hop can be seen as a form of individuality and a way to express yourself, your beliefs, and your culture through the art of dance. Throughout the world, social injustice is becoming the new normal, unfortunately. However, this hip-hop culture became popular in fighting against racial justice. That through the art of dance and music, we can tell stories and express the changes that we want to see in order to obtain social equality around the world. In terms of classroom importance, “Hip-Hop is the dominant language of youth culture, and those of us who work with young people need to speak their language” (Akom, 2009, p. 3). We all know that a majority of children have easy access to an electronic device so by allowing hip-hop into our classrooms, we can allow children to voice their options and allow for an inclusive classroom where children are free to express themselves wherever they see fit.
The hip-hop culture is becoming really popular among today’s youth. Hip hop can be used to voice options towards social injustice, especially towards the discrimination towards black people. Now instead of reading about the discrimination of black people through a textbook, students can listen/watch and learn about hip hop as the genre of music that talks about these issues in ways that are more interesting to students within a classroom.
Akom A. (2009). Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy as a Form of Liberatory Praxis. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Hey Michael.
I appreciated your following quote: “ Hip-hop can be seen as a form of individuality and a way to express yourself, your beliefs, and your culture through the art of dance.” This struck out to me because in a similar manner, I view hip-hop through this definition. Furthermore, I also see hip-hop as a way of promoting inclusive classrooms because it allows students from all background to participate it in. Hip-hop also promotes inclusive classrooms because there are various voices in which students can use to communicate with each other.
Now, questions I would like to end off with includes the following: How do you view hip-hop? Do you think there are disadvantages of the hip-hop culture? Do you think hip-hop music is inappropriate for certain age groups?