Spoken Word Blog

Chris Jordan recently wrote an article about a hip hop event supporting the acceptance homosexuality:

[Hip Hop is] an ultra masculine, rough-and-tough world, where even the slightest suggestion of an acceptance of an alternative lifestyle is pounced upon as not being street.

Street equals sales.

“Hip-hop is a kind of art form that’s always had a lot of male bravado,” said Scotch Plains spoken-word artist ShadoKat. “It was born in the streets and it’s always been a faux pas to allow that kind of diversity into the music.”

The Hip Hop: Out, Loud & Proud program, which takes place Saturday at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, seeks to open up the corridors of hip-hop culture to the voices of all sexual persuasions.

“Basically the point of the night is to raise awareness that hip-hop is an art form that’s had a variety of diversity of people who have been part of it and will continue to do so,” ShadoKat said.

Read entire article by Chris Jordan.

I don’t have any problem with homosexuals. I see someone’s sexuality as merely another personal trait, like hair-color or favorite-food.

Nonetheless, I do find the idea of a gay rapper odd - not necessarily in a bad way, though.

I would like to see more acceptability of homosexuality in the rap/hip-hop community. Since rap artists tend to also come from underprivileged backgrounds which often included facing discrimination, I think they can work together with homosexuals to address their mutual problems.

Luckily, I think the spoken word movement has relatively much more acceptability of homosexuality than most movements and places.

What do you think?

In the following video, spoken word artist U.N.I.VERSE performs at the Dallas Theater Center’s DaVerse Lounge.

I think she accurately portrays pop music, movies and Hollywood, as well as modern commercialism and consumerism.

I apologize if it plays with the volume low. I had to turn the volume all the way up on my computer to hear it clearly, but maybe my speakers dysfunctioned. Anyway, I just found the video which only has 8 views on YouTube so far. I like it a lot so I posted it.

What do you think?

Bakari Kitwana recently wrote an article that conected commen misconcpetions surrounding hip-hop with the Imus incident:

When Don Imus put his foot in his mouth on the air last week with a dirty and derogatory reference to young black women, he was articulating a message that had been clearly voiced by Michael Richards, Rush Limbaugh and countless others long before him. Ditto the white law students at the University of Connecticut who donned big booties and blackface this year on Martin Luther King Day, as well as the rash of undergraduates across the country, from Michigan to South Carolina, who somehow imagine that hosting “pimp and ho parties”is a good idea.

That message is this: The aesthetics of hip-hop culture - from the language and clothing to the style and sensibility - can be absorbed into American popular culture like any other disposable product without any effort or responsibility on the part of the consumer.

It is an idea in part ushered in by the marginal voices of black youth themselves, youth so eager to be visible that they gave up far too much of their identity in the interest of partnering with the corporate music industry. Together, and all the while green-lighted by the Federal Communications Commission, a handful of rap artists packaged and commodified rap music (not to be confused with hip-hop culture lived daily by countless youth around the globe at a local level, from graffiti and break dancing to deejaying, spoken word poetry and political activism.).

Encouraged by the quick bucks, this partnership was quickly reinforced by additional peddlers of one-dimensional images of young black men as violent, and women as oversexed bitches and hos - from filmmakers and television producers to music video directors, comedians and beyond.

Read entire article by Bakari Kitwana.

The overly sexy and violent nature of mainstream rap and “hip-hop” comes from mainstream American culture, not hip-hop culture. Hollywood, record producers and TV conglomerates peddle sex and violence, because it sells. They took only parts of hip-hop that they can package and sell. That’s why rapping became the most prominent part of hip-hop in the mainstream: because CDs sell much easier than break dancers and graffiti artists.

Blaming hip-hop for mainstream hip-hop artists is as silly as blaming singing for Brittany Spears. If you turn on the TV, you’re more likely to see Brittany Spears than Andrea Bocelli. You’re more likely to see overly violent, overly sexy and overly vulgar rap than cultured hip-hop.

Like all pop music, mainstream rap is the manifestation of mainstream American capitalism and commercialism directed towards an oversexed and violence-obsessed consumer-base.

What do you think?

In the following clip, Miami poet Asia performs his spoken word piece on HBO Def Poetry Season 6:

He uses spoken word to express his experiences with cancer very well, making it very moving and very sad. Luckily, that he came out of it all with a positive look.

What do you think?

Diane Hagg recently reported on a church mixing hip-hop and spoken word poetry into it’s some of its services:

Hip-hop had come to church at Shreveport’s Praise Temple Full Gospel Baptist Cathedral.

Although the term can sound like an oxymoron, Bishop Larry Brandon sees the service as a way to reach out to teenagers and young adults who have fallen out of church.

Hip-hop has been used in church settings around the country for about a decade. Brandon believes Praise Temple is the first church to launch a regular hip-hop service in northwest Louisiana.

Brandon has been considering the service since 2004. He saw children and older adults in his congregation but missed the teenagers and twentysomethings.

Although hip-hop has acquired a questionable reputation for promoting sex and violence, Brandon said it doesn’t have to be that way.

“Hip-hop in all actuality is nothing but poetry,” he said. “The Lord created music, but man caused it to be negative.”

He knew the service needed to speak the same language as its audience, so he tapped several volunteers including some members who are and have been radio personalities, such as worship leader Bay-Bay and Pascha Gibson.

“The young people are our future, and it’s not looking good,” Gibson said. “We have to mend those wounds and scars and bring them back in church, where they’re comfortable and where they don’t feel like they’re being scolded because of what they’re wearing. We have to grab the inside and the outside will follow.”

It also included spoken word poetry from Gibson, which touched on issues of social justice and unity.

Read entire article by Diane Hagg.

I’m not a religious person, but I think that the above union helps both the church and the kids. Additionally, I like seeing churches open to cultural changes in the youth. The youth need institutions to help them and small local community organizations to feel that they belong. Open-minded churches can fulfill that purpose, while spreading their message. For young Christians, this works out well. And for the rest of us, that definitely works out well, because nothing hurts society more than a neglected youth.