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Lynn: Decontructing Hip-Hop

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Transcript:

Miriam: There’s an aspect of deconstructing hip-hop in the Word program. Can you tell me a bit about what it means to deconstruct it, and why one would need to deconstruct a hip-hop song?

Lynn: It’s so --

Miriam : Oh, can you also include the word ‘deconstruct’ in the beginning of it, because this is going to be an important bit.

Lynn:

Okay. It’s so important to provide a space where you deconstruct hip-hop because it’s – the role hip-hop has, or the role that I believe it has, is it kind of plays a role in society as a mirror. It’s a mirror of the good and the bad of society. It talks about wealth and poverty, capitalism and community – grassroots level stuff. I think I need to revisit the question!

Recently there’s been a lot of coverage in the news about hip-hop rappers taking more responsibility for their lyrics. I think it’s good they brought it to the congress. They had these whole big issues, like you see Oprah talking about 50 Cent, and Bill Cosby saying, ‘Oh, let’s not use the N-word’, and then you also have to be careful in the same sense that when it comes to anything that’s related to black culture. There’s also the tendency to demonize anything that’s related to it. Hip-hop can also be used as a scapegoat, and kind of packaging, like all sexism in our society is because of 50 Cent. Look, that’s why he’s making a lot of money, because he’s reflecting this glorification of gangster rap, and misogyny, and racism, and self hate. That’s what we want to have as the representation of black people in our society. Again, that kind of ties into the racist society that we live in.

So, what our program does is instead of holding – and I always go back to this interview that I saw of a rapper name Cam’ron, and he was invited to come on to the Bill O’Riley show. There was this black principal of an inner-city school, and they were talking about how they really want Cam’ron to change his lyrics. Cam’ron in from Harlem in New York, and I think has been shot a few times. He lives by the street code – he’s the one who would say, “Don’t snitch”. He was getting very defensive, and he was like, “This is my art expression. This is me expressing.” What they really need to do is get parents to be more involved with the students. Parents are not engaged into the hip-hop scene and they can’t necessarily connect to their kids on that level.

After watching this conflict in this interview – and of course this was all propaganda and bias, because it’s the Bill O’Riley show, and they just wanted to fulfil the bias of the interview – I realized that this was the niche; this was where the program Word comes in. I can take lyrics of a rapper who might say pretty offensive stuff about women, but then on the other side really talks about poverty in their community and how important it is to address it. I could also deconstruct the hero of the rapper, or this idea of idolizing, and not taking every word for granted, and unpackage what is being given to them in the music or culture. That lifts the responsibility of the artist, because like Cam’ron said, he isn’t the father of every single kid that listens to his music. It gives them the space to still be creative, and I do feel like you have to be accountable for your actions.

Spaces like Word can now actually deconstruct and teach kids the power of words, and saying “Okay, when you use this word, this is what you mean, so I hope that when you use it, you know why you’re saying it.” And you’re not just copying or imitating another rapper, and understand the context of these words. Words are just being used so freely that people don’t really understand where it comes from. That’s the role that we play for these kids.