Hip-Hop Culture: The Africanist Aesthetics

What is the Africanist Aesthetic? It’s the African-based cultural forms and philosophical approach existing in the African Diaspora that continue to reflect similar musical, dance, and oral practices as those in Africa; though not African, enough resemblances in the performer's’ attitude and relationship to audience exist that cultural connections to African cultural practices are apparent. How does African culture continue to show in Hip-hop over time? Hip-Hop culture, since around the 1950s, has shown the world different aspects of the Africanist Aesthetic within its culture. Though it is understood that not everyone in hip-hop is considerably part of the Africanist Aesthetics, they still embrace the creation of hip-hop and its origins. For …show more content…
Arts for African-Americans are seen as “a part of life” showing (to it’s audience the world they experience opposing to showing) “art for art’s sake” this what people Eurocentric people see it as. In African culture, there is no sitting and watching the performer. African culture looks for engagement, whereas White culture expects the “audience [to be] quiet observers;” for instance, the opera. The expression in African culture comes from “creativity vitality comes from community; individual regarded as instigator” which is saying that in the African culture the performers expression is based on what is in their surroundings. The White’s believe “creative vitality comes from performer within the individual” saying they do not based their performances on their surroundings, but more on their emotions. These are the ways in which African and European people in music, and art are …show more content…
“Breakdancing, originally a creative dance alternative to actual gang violence, has thus become a particularized discursive dance style in the signifying tradition, so prevalent in African American popular culture”(Halifu, pp54). For instance, like when watching a deejay perform his records, once he began to scratch –the break in his performance– the breakdancers are given the opportunity to show their best, additionally, it is a great way for people to release anger. Furthermore, it is also expressed in the sound of music, “African American orality, as exhibited in hip-hop culture, is a part of Afro-diasporic cultural practices that have direct and persisting resonances with specific African ethnic groups, such as Yoruba, Bakongo, and Wolof”(Halifu, pp.35). In relation to African performances, picture a group of people playing the bongos, everyone is in unison, and as several performers stop playing one continues impressing their world through sound, and when they finish their segment everyone joins together again. Hip-Hop consist of African culture, and is represented in a form of music known as