Think back to when you were in your high school English class or even science class. Did your teachers ever use creative ways to help you learn better? Some teachers across the country have begun to incorporate Hip-Hop into their curriculum to get students more engaged in class. While it is very easy for students to remember the words to their favorite songs, it is hard for them to remember what they had just learned earlier in class. Many Hip-Hop songs tell stories about everyday life struggles in urban communities that many urban students can relate to. Hip-Hop music reflects urban culture and should be used in the educational curriculum because it chronicles generational movements and therefore should be an approved course of study in education.
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Kool Herc got his start at the age of 18 when he and his sister Cindy would throw parties in a small recreation room of their apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx. This is the birthplace of Hip-Hop (Hip-Hop Evolution). Kool Herc’s combination of underground songs and scratches became a sound that everyone wanted to recreate because of the popularity he received. Kool Herc soon came up with the idea to let the instrumental part of a song play on repeat and this became known as “the break”. Essentially, this is the birth of Hip-Hop. Because of this great idea of the break, this allows the other elements of Hip-Hop to come in to play. Hip Hop comprises three elements: djing, mcing, b-boying, and graffiti (Hip Hop para 1). When a DJ lets the break play on repeat, this allows MCs to rap and b-boys to dance. MC is short for masters of ceremony and they rap over the beats the DJ supplies. B-boys, also known as “break-boys”, dance over the break (Hip-Hop Evolution). Graffiti comes in as an expression of urban art. Because of Kool Herc’s great accomplishments, many other DJs followed in his footsteps and went on to mimic his sound such as Afrika Bambaataa. In an interview, Grand Wizzard Theodore of the Fantastic Five talks about Afrika Bambaataa saying, “when he formed the Zulu Nation, it was a melting pot of different gang members and people wanting to straighten their lives out and the …show more content…
Many Hip-Hop songs have a positive influence that the youth can learn from. Students can even learn from songs with a not so positive influence by seeing what’s right and what’s wrong. Although some newer Hip-Hop songs tend to be about violence and drugs, many artists took a different path. For example, the very politically and socially aware rap group Public Enemy decided to use their platform to take a stand against the oppression mainstream white America placed upon minorities in such songs as “Fight the Power” and “ Don’t Believe the Hype.” In 1990, a group of popular rappers from all over the West Coast, formed the West Coast Rap All-Stars and released “We’re All In the Same Gang”. The song touches upon the topics of violence, drugs, black on black crime, and gangs, and tries to send out a positive message to put an end to it all. The song ends with the lyrics, “ It's gotta stop, we don't need all the violence, peace in the hood and a moment of silence, we got together not for ego or fame, we got involved cause we're all in the same gang.” The song “Changes” by Tupac, talks about the struggles an African American faces and they’ll continue to face those struggles unless they make a change by saying, “But we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other, we gotta start makin' changes, learn to see me as a brother instead of two distant
Kool Herc got his start at the age of 18 when he and his sister Cindy would throw parties in a small recreation room of their apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx. This is the birthplace of Hip-Hop (Hip-Hop Evolution). Kool Herc’s combination of underground songs and scratches became a sound that everyone wanted to recreate because of the popularity he received. Kool Herc soon came up with the idea to let the instrumental part of a song play on repeat and this became known as “the break”. Essentially, this is the birth of Hip-Hop. Because of this great idea of the break, this allows the other elements of Hip-Hop to come in to play. Hip Hop comprises three elements: djing, mcing, b-boying, and graffiti (Hip Hop para 1). When a DJ lets the break play on repeat, this allows MCs to rap and b-boys to dance. MC is short for masters of ceremony and they rap over the beats the DJ supplies. B-boys, also known as “break-boys”, dance over the break (Hip-Hop Evolution). Graffiti comes in as an expression of urban art. Because of Kool Herc’s great accomplishments, many other DJs followed in his footsteps and went on to mimic his sound such as Afrika Bambaataa. In an interview, Grand Wizzard Theodore of the Fantastic Five talks about Afrika Bambaataa saying, “when he formed the Zulu Nation, it was a melting pot of different gang members and people wanting to straighten their lives out and the …show more content…
Many Hip-Hop songs have a positive influence that the youth can learn from. Students can even learn from songs with a not so positive influence by seeing what’s right and what’s wrong. Although some newer Hip-Hop songs tend to be about violence and drugs, many artists took a different path. For example, the very politically and socially aware rap group Public Enemy decided to use their platform to take a stand against the oppression mainstream white America placed upon minorities in such songs as “Fight the Power” and “ Don’t Believe the Hype.” In 1990, a group of popular rappers from all over the West Coast, formed the West Coast Rap All-Stars and released “We’re All In the Same Gang”. The song touches upon the topics of violence, drugs, black on black crime, and gangs, and tries to send out a positive message to put an end to it all. The song ends with the lyrics, “ It's gotta stop, we don't need all the violence, peace in the hood and a moment of silence, we got together not for ego or fame, we got involved cause we're all in the same gang.” The song “Changes” by Tupac, talks about the struggles an African American faces and they’ll continue to face those struggles unless they make a change by saying, “But we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other, we gotta start makin' changes, learn to see me as a brother instead of two distant