Transcripts For CSPAN2 Panel Discussion On Hip-Hop And Literature 20160529

Politics. Also the development of the womens Space Program in the 1940s and 50s. And this weekend, tamara drought will talk about americas new working class and their potential political power. She is in conversation with democracy nows amy goodman. We have a deep and long history in this country of undervaluing work that involves serving people and especially caring for people. So we now have a working class that is much more female and much more people of color than the industrial working class was. And that very definition of who is working class is one reason why i think weve seen a real disappearance of the idea of a working class in this country. After words airs on booktv every saturday at 10 p. M. And sunday at 9 p. M. Eastern. You can watch all previous after words programs on our web site, booktv. Org. And starting now, a panel on hiphop and literature from medgar evers college, host of the 13th National Black writers conference. This panel contains language that some may find offensive. Im now here at, representing, im an emcee invited here from your college, cuny. I will be associate professor in the department of Teacher Education where ive been chair, and ive been charged with talking to educators. And the job has to be having teachers, even some of whom who love our children, to start teaching from the love of our culture, from the love of our heritage, for the love of our soul of our children rather than judge them. Thats why this particular panel is so, is just so important or more us. I was in a situation, and im confessing because youre here, i thought my job was, oh, hiphop aint this and hiphop this was in the 80s before i grew up. And one of the people in the audience was a hiphop artist. And he said, well, miss, i wasnt even a doctor then. I wasnt even smart enough to know what i didnt know. He said, well, im a hiphop artist, and he started to tell the story of some of what it was in within the words, within the messaging of the art form. And it awoke in me, it awakened me, rather. And im still needing to be awakened, and thats what this is for, to awaken us to the depth of an art form we have not really, well not be able to know all of in this short time, but we can get a glimpse of where our study must be. Does that make sense . So today our moderator, joan morgan, is stuck in traffic. And you know new york, so need i say more. [laughter] so when she does come, our new moderator in her place is the wonderful, phenomenal Michael Eric Dyson michael, i say this, you say that. Try it again. Try it one more time. Michael eric dyson [laughter] you help em out. So he will be introducing each of the panelists, and then following that introduction and after they speak therell be time allotted for a questionandanswer period. Please give a hand for this phenomenal oh, im sorry, wait. [applause] hiphop and youth culture, im not going to spend a lot of time reading whats in the journal that describes the elements of poetry and Creative Work play figures prominently in the language of hiphop and in the various ways youth express themselves. This panel will be discussing that. All right. Thank you so very much, dr. Baron. [applause] im honored, im honored to be joan morgan for a little bit. I always wondered what it would feel like to be joan morgan, you know . [laughter] with a sex change and not be as fine and brilliant as she is, but were going to work with what we got. But its a real honor to be here on this panel. These are all friends of mine. I happen to know some of the smartest people in the world, and this is just such an honor to extend this conversation that we often have offline in various fora into this particular situation. So let me introduce people who really need no introduction. To my right here, m. K. Asante. And you all know this thats right, give it up for him right there. [applause] best selling author, awardwinning filmmaker, hiphop artist and tenured professor at morgan state university. [cheers and applause] he can say what he want to say. And still not get fired. [laughter] but it is a school that we know wouldnt do it anyway. Hes the author of four books, and im holding in my hand here his memoir. Hes serving at the Sundance Film Festival now as a feature film fellow for the movie adaptation of this book, buck. Its a brilliant book. Its a memoir. And you see how it pulls out right here. You see is that done . [laughter] huh . Yeah. Whatd you say, robbing negroes of ignorance. Robbing you. Shooting you with this knowledge. [laughter] he and i, we were in the studio, and we were spitting together. You know, we might freestyle up in here. Im looking at this book, it looks like a gun. I looked at this dude, and i say, is this you, son . [laughter] [applause] thats just amateur. [laughter] anyway, but hes a brilliant, brilliant young man, a brilliant, brilliant artist, a brilliant writer, and hes presented and performed in more than 40 countries and received a key to the city of dallas. Youve no doubt seen his film, engaging with kwanzaa. Hes a remarkable artist and a man who operates in several different genres simultaneously, really knocking down these artificial barriers between the digital, if you will, expression and articulation of knowledge, the sonic articulation of knowledge and the literary one. So were honored to have him here today. Next to him is dr. Marcyliena morgan. You heard professor baron shout out her bonafides, the wutang clan in such a way, that stuck to my mind. You know, method man. [laughter] so some of the greatest artists ever, ghost face killer and the like. She is a professor in the department of african and africanamerican studies and founding director of the hiphop archive and Research Institute at Hutchins Center for african and africanamerican research at harvard university. She earned thats right. Shes at the big h. [laughter] right . She bringing hiphop to harvard, son. [laughter] [applause] yall think yall got lyrics, we leaf you in hysterics. But she earned both her b. A. And m. A. Degrees at the university of illinois in chicago. She also earned an m. A. In linguistics at the university of essexengland and her ph. D. Through the graduate school of education at the university of pennsylvania. A very wellregarded authority in linguistics and race and culture and identity, sociolinguistics to be more specific. And shes an author of many works in those fields. Her books include the real hiphop battling for knowledge, power and respect in the underground and speech communities with that was published in 2014 by Cambridge University press. Shes currently launching projects for the hiphop archive web site and harvards lowe Music Library on the classic crates archive of 200 of the most influential hiphop albums. Man, 200, huh . Yeah, we going to have to talk about that today to see whats up on that list. [laughter] see what they got up in there. Did future make pit, or is Kendrick Lamar dominant . I want to understand whats happening in the hiphop can culture now with the kind of dissonance, the kind of blues aesthetics that is pervasive. Drake going to the rockhymn inspired, embrace monotone expression. But i want to find out what thats about. And finally, we have dr. James peterson, certainly one of the most brilliant, as i said earlier, younger scholars in america on hiphop and on literary production. Hes the director of Africana Studies and associate professor of english at lehigh university. You see him on msnbc throwing it down, you know, wrestling with these people, taking the switch to bears and beating em. And hes the founder of hiphop scholars, an association of hiphop generational scholars dedicated to researching and developing the cultural and educational potential of hiphop, urban and youth cultures. Hes also been a journalist, youve read many of his essays many magazines and in in magazines and in newspapers where hes trying to articulate ideas that are of interest to the broader public. Hes written about the underground as weve already indicated. Also, his book that will be published soon about, you know, headphones, and then his book on the prison industrial complex. But, you know, a gifted and wonderful scholar, all of them, of course, are. And were going to have a wonderful and rich conversation. I want to start with dr. Morgan. You know, some people think that hiphop archive is an oxymoronic statement in the sense that whats being archived may not be high culture, whats being right, high, right . Whats being archived is not worthy of a legacy of literacy that would perpetuate its presence and influence into the next decades and, indeed, arguably into the next century. So tell us the logic behind at one of the most elite, if not most prominent centers of learning in the western world, that at the heart of that institution you have marked it in a memorable and ineradicable fashion with the power, the insight and the intelligence of predominantly young black creators who could never darken those ivy walls in terms of test scores, but whose lyrics are now studied by the smartest psychologicals weve produced. Scholars weve produced. Well [laughter] yeah, right . I want to say pull the mic up to her. Thank you. You know, first of all, thank you so much for saying that and putting that that particular way, because i think what happens especially when you start a career, because i was listening to james talk about the linguistic conference we were at. Linguistics is an elite field, and i mean theres really nobody there. And is so you know everybody [laughter] you know . Theres just a small segment, section of people, and they spend most of their time like this, just, you know, really studying system. And i am a system kind of person. I really can notice when people Say Something and are meaning Something Else and the different layers that you need to know to do that. I grew up on the south side of chicago in a very vibrant black community of art and culture and music. And so you had to listen, pay attention, all these things, or you were going to miss what was really going on. So the whole concept of whats really going on becomes really, really important. So i grow up automatically thinking we must be the most creative, most intelligent people on the, in the world because we understand our families, you know . Who are very complicated, very well educated, often selfeducated. Smartest people in the world, you know . We used to have, us kids, this category called smartest people in the world, and they were all cousins. [laughter] so when you come out of that kind of environment and then you go into institutions, all you can think is, oh, they dont know, you know . They dont get it. And at a certain point, you begin to think about the power of those institutions to stop you. To hurt you. To break you. To challenge you. Its that sort of background that sort of puts, put me in a position when i decided to do linguistics to be very interested in what we understood about, you know, speech interaction, ideology, philosophies of africanamerican communities, african diasporan communities, african cultures because all these were studied by others, right . Outside of those contexts. And were taught this is what we know about how we really mean, how we intend, how we communicate. And that this is the law. These are the rules on this. And when you realize, they dont know. They actually dont know. Think they know, dont know. And so as you begin to work in that capacity, you develop a real sense of i am not going to be stopped by their ignorance. But i also have a responsibility to do the job, do the work. And its not easy, and its not pretty all the time, you know, if you really look back at my career, you know . There have been some really, really incredibly rough times. But the key is that when youre around young people especially and theyre being incredibly creative, incredibly supportive of each other, it is not like in a classroom where youre dealing with the, you know, i Say Something, you Say Something back. I Say Something, you Say Something back. It can feel chaotic, but it is an incredibly powerful learning environment. And my interest became how do we really make sure that keeps happening. We want to keep turning that on, never let it turn off. Never let anybody take it down x. As we began i began more and more to look at the material people were giving me and talking about, it became even more important for me to keep going irrespective of what people didnt understand. I didnt think they hated hiphop or anything like that. Everybody in the beginning hated hiphop who was old, okay . [laughter] all right . Everybody did, okay . They just didnt get it. It was always my attitu, you didnt get it. And so thats how it becomes the archive. Lets call it something they value as a name and make them have to deal with it right up front. Its not like the collection or Something Like that. And there were a group of very young people who worked with me on what to call it, how to do it, etc. , to make sure it kept the sense of really about hiphop and not about my needs as in a job or whatever. And theyre the ones who were, like, lets call it an archive. And met me just say one more thing before we let, have joan take over. Hiphop kids especially the beginning collected everything, okay . You think about the peace books, you think about all these things that mattered that they saw as being part of, i mean, they couldnt articulate it at this point, but its the culture they were building. And so you had this material culture. And anyone whos an anthropologist knows you dont throw away material culture. Youre like, oh, look whats happening. You begin to see the patterns and the beauty and development of it. So thats how it became clear to me that it belonged in this world, because its serious, and its about us, and its something we should take seriously. [applause] hi, everybody. Im joan morgan. I actually am the panels moderator and very grateful to be that. My apologies for being late. If any of you are speaking of hiphop, home of the bronx. It is also my home and very difficult to get to brooklyn if there is no 5 train running. [laughter] i had to uber here, and it took a minute, it took three ubers and a minute, but thats a whole other story. So im not thank you. [applause] you know, this panel is full of folks that i have worked with, and if i havent, i admire and hope to work with at some point. So im not even sure where we are, marcyliena, you just finished speaking. That was the first first question, okay. Yeah. So joan, can i add one piece to the archive . You can, absolutely. Just because dr. Morgan is being very humble in her discussion of what the archive is and what it means, and its really important to know that folks like dr. Morgan, folks like Michael Eric Dyson and joan as well lay down a certain kind of foundation for younger scholars to be able to follow. And its so interesting to see how this has developed at the harvard archive over time, because at first it was dr. Morgan like, you know, supporting graduate students. And i dont know if we can keep count of the number of graduate students that have harvard [laughter] but to think about how that has evolved over time is amazing so that now the archive has resources to support around thetists, to artists, to bring in scholars or who are nontraditional, to work around certain themes that are important to the hiphop generation and important to our community. I mean, you have evolved the resources at the archive over this has been i dont know exactly how long its been around, but its over a decade. And you have helped and shaped and informed the careers for at least, by my count of scores of scholars in almost every discipline across the pantheon of the academy. And now even folks who we think of as scholars even outside the academy. So there is important professional work, important mentorship and an important platform for younger scholars that the archive has done under your leadership and under the [applause] theres also now a hiphop archive at cornell, so the idea has had some traction, and, you know, emulation is a good thing. My heart goes out to anyone who ever wants to do that, because its really hard to keep that kind of thing going and do it. And i really am so proud of everyone and, you know, just happy to see as people keep pushing on this. You know, james, can i ask a yeah, yeah. [laughter] you know, the panel, were talking, were doing something decoding, so were talking about the links between hiphop and literature, but i also wanted to expand it somewhat to the idea of hiphop being in the academy as a form of scholarship and making different disciplinary inroads. But i also wanted to really talk about that rich that it had that relationship that it had early to journalism. Uhhuh. And so i was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the back and forth between hiphop journalism, actually, as a form and what we see now in terms of sure, absolutely. You know, i think its pretty safe to say that early on the relationship between hiphop journalism and hiphop scholarship was really tight. I dont think its as tight now as it was early on. You know, we were reading the as young folks who were consuming hiphop in that first generation, one of the things that was not marked well enough was how deeply influenced and inspired we were by the young journalists already at that time. Thats joan morgan, dream hampton, bones malone, theres so many folks. But they were writing across a number of different platforms. This was back in the day when magazines were still really popular, people went out and bought magazines on a regular basis. But i cant tell you how jones writing or how dreams writing influenced me as a thinker and as a scholar, because what happens in hiphop is that there are a lot of discourse communities, as dr. Morgan talked about, within hiphop culture. So there are a lot of people in barbershops and at homes and at clubs or wherever who sit around and talk about hiphop. There are a lot of stock conversations, whos your favorite rapper, producer, the regional conversations. Those conversations, i think, are amazing, and theyre incredible conversations to have. There are a lot of different hiphop public spheres in which those conversations occur. But what the hiphop journalists were doing very early on is they were engaging in a level of sophisticated discourse that was both impressive and inspiring, and it was also poetic and beautiful. And so it gave young folks who were officionados of the culture not artists, but people who loved the culture a sense of how deep and how far you could go in thinking and talking and writing about it. So i think that made us, you know, that made us that made the partnership between journalists and scholars a little bit better. And, joan, you already know this, but i am really now as im getting older, im really invested in the relationships that were able to build to help other folks in the academy, to help i dont thinker scholars younger scholars. Ive worked with everyone on this panel. Dr. Morgan was on my dissertation, by the way. Im writing this dissertation, right, on hiphop at penn, and penn is a very traditional english department. And this is, like, you know, clutch time for the diss, right . Ive finished it, ive turned it in. Dr. Morgans at harvard, shes my outside reader. Shes the first person to sign my dissertation, right . That puts pressure on the department [laughter] hey, if this brilliant harvard scholar has signed, right, we have to sign. [applause] and i lament a little bit the loss of the relationship between journalists and scholars, because as were starting to sort of grow up in the academy, we can leverage resources to support other folks, you know . So when m. K. Calls, yo, man, im coming to do the Philadelphia Free library can you come . Yeah, im coming to do that. When people call me to try to build that network, im invested in it. And i hope that we can recover some of that, you know, that historical relationship between the hiphop journalists and hiphop scholars. Okay. M. K. , so one of the things im excited to hear you talk about because, you know, you actually spit, you perform and you write. Its like this perfect merger of triple threat. You know . Hiphop definitely informed, i mean, my book was about hiphop, the style, the musicality and the lyricism of hiphop really impacted chickenhead. I had to listen to beats before. So theres a reason that the prose flows a certain way. Youre nodding your head, so i know you know what im talking about. [laughter] i just want you to talk about this, and this is so incredibly hot, like, my god. [laughter] oh, word. Thats whats up. Thank you, joan. Whats up, everybody . How yall feeling . Good. Thats whats up. Thank you to the distinguished panel. Everybody up here, i researched even before this panel, ive known about them, ive read their work, ive studied them. Thanks to, shout out to dr. Michael eric dyson for being joan morgan for a second. [laughter] he said he always wanted to be you. [laughter] [applause] live from the flames of baltimore, what you call this, you dont call it war . Tanks in my hood, no aquarium, no thanks, aint scared of em. Buzz cuts and humvees hunt me bluntly because i be the color of blunt leaves. Leave the streets redder than [inaudible] black life, we on that month to month lease. So we burn this bitch. Wake up, caked up, she didnt earn this dick. Stakes up [inaudible] unforgettable, im super m. K. Critical. No assurance even with insane visuals. We hype when they indict slay residuals, and i get paid in miracles. Behind bar, super max and minimal. Jump on the knife so much death on my turf, we got megahertz, and im so used to pain, i think im better hurt. We learn how to play ball with a hanger. They used to cut your balls off when they hang you. Balls like these already endangeredment bulletproof the range. With my young boys, rearranging my anger. Indy 500 on a system of anger. Up early with the sunrise, george jackson, blood in my eye. School of hard knocks. Shelf your speech, nah, we dont do governments. Send congress to the same place my brother went. Chain gang, hell bound, state we militant. Nobody break up fights, too busy filming it. Anyway, whats up, yall . How yall doing . [cheers and applause] like, for me, you know, for me i totally could relate to what joan is saying, everything about the musicality and the rhythm. Its so important, you know . I mean, it literally, its everything to me, rhythm, you know what i mean . Like, my mom is a dancer, choreographer. I grew up around the drums, grew up around that energy. So my brothers an emcee, my pop is basically an emcee [laughter] you know what im saying . Yeah, he is. You know, so thats very important to me. When i write, when i write, i listen to ill tell you a quick little story thats interesting. When i write, i always listen to music, and i usually listen to buck is my fourth book. All my books, i usually listen to, like, movie soundtracks just to get that, you know, but when i was writing buck, i couldnt listen to the movie scores like that because it was too fastpaced, the book, the story, everything i was trying to illustrate was too it didnt move like a movie score. It moved really like a beat, you know what im saying . So i ended up starting to listen to a lot of hiphop instrumentals when i was writing. And as i was writing the hiphop instrumentals, i was writing, you know, the book, the memoir, and that was very musical. And i wrote about something calls hiphop due relates. Thats just tourettes. Thats just basically the involuntary walking down the street, spit some lyrics. [laughter] and basically probably everybody here under a certain age has that. You cant avoid it, you know what i mean . Anyway, i started writing like ive always been a poet, but i started writing these lyrics on the side that were definitely not they werent really poems, you know . They were definitely bars, you know what im saying . And i didnt know why i was writing them, but i just kept writing them. They always talk about preparation meets opportunity. So its amazing im here at the National Black writers conference. We have dr. Green, shout out to dr. Brenda green. [applause] so im a professor, im doing my professor thing at morgan [laughter] im writing books, filmmaker. But definitely not a rapper, you know what i mean . And when i say not a rapper, just meaning really it was a mind thing. To me, i was, because i was a poet, right . So i was a emcee already but didnt really know it. As i was writing this book and writing all these rhymes, i get a crazy call one day from dr. Greens son, right . Now, at this point in time i dont know them, you know what i mean . And they hit me up, and theyre like, yo, we got this song, and its called gods in the hood, and we want you to, like, Say Something on it at the end, you know, some smart professortype stuff, you know what im saying . [laughter] you know, they wanted me to get on it and, you know, so my friend whos going to be here later, dee watkins, i told him, yo, can you believe this . They sent me this song. And, you know, he knew, he was one of only people that knew that i was preparation meets opportunity. I was already ready to battle people and everything, you know what im saying . [laughter] so when, so i told my boy like, yo, they want me to talk on it. And so my boy dee go, so you going to spit on that . And im like, no, no, you dont understand, man. They want me to, like, talk on it, you know, like a professor. Ask and so my man, dee, is like so you gonna spit on that . [laughter] and, you know, like a hundred songs later, you know what i mean . Like here we are. Be i had a moment, you know, im with the record label, ive been traveling with him, learning from him, studying, making music, making a lot of songs, doing videos. I think one of the biggest quotes that inspired me was a quote that said the best form of critique creation. So if you want to know what i think about hiphop, just listen to my shit. Oh thats, like, the way i see it. I love that, the best form of critique is creation. Its true. Especially because, you know, theres a whole brand of selfproclaimed cultural critics and scholars who critique a lot of things and create absolutely nothing. [laughter] so im going to that might be a facebook post, m. K [laughter] i took that from somebody else. [laughter] so, you know an african proverb. Yes, well call it a new african proverb. [laughter] one of the things that i wanted to do before we switch over to q a is i think that this question is cyclical, you know, of where does hiphop fit in in terms of how we think of a canon of africanamerican literature. You know, already know this about me, james, but i like to think diasporically because i definitely have always positioned hiphop as a black art forms that is diasporic with heavy roots in the caribbean. You cant deny that, you know . Its true. But im wondering, does this question actually even serve us to constantly want to find out where hiphop fits into a literary tradition of, you know, africanamerican literature, or is it something that actually needs to be archived and thought of and stands in its own space . So im wondering if you guys can each speak on that for a second, and then lets go to q a. Well, i mean, for me my lifes work so far has been about showing the sort of interface between africanamerican literature and rap music. So i believe in that. I believe in the continuities and the consistency of themes. I believe that the the artists of hiphop culture come out of a black expressive tradition. It is diasporic as well, you know . And its really interesting to look at it. I always say bliss the ambassador is a georgia nay january brother who spent time in brooklyn. But if you listen to his music, you can see how hiphop is like a reverse diasporic effect where hes collecting a lot of different experiences and themes and sounds and cultures throughout the diaspora and bringing it back, right, to ghana. So i think for me that relationship is strong. It doesnt mean that hiphop doesnt and cant stand on its own, because it does and it can, it will, you know . And i have to be very careful in my own work to not try to use black literature to legitimate rap music or vice versa. They can be separate entities. But there is such a rich shared heritage can absolutely. Between what rappers are doing as poets and as writers and what great writers and poets have done before, you know . One of the examples i always point to in the classroom is paul dunbars we wear the mask, published in 1896, a collection of poems called the lyrics of the lowly. And dunbar is so to important to this discussion for a lot of ways. I dont want to get too deep into it, but there was a huge conflict in his career around writing in standard english versus writing in the black vernacular. And its kind of a poem that does both. And that poem is speaking to all these sort of deep issues that black people were dealing with, about having to wear this mask that grins and lies in the face of white violence. 1996, we have the fujis, fugees, and in the mask you have lauryn hill, wyclef rapping about different situations where they have to wear the mask, they have to subvert to power structures. So that kind of poetic continuity between black literature and rap music, for me, is very, very valuable. Its also important to understand how you use those things as teaching tools, right . But, so im invested in that as a scholar, even though i want those forms, black literature and black writing and hiphop and rap music, to be autonomous. I also believe that they are inextricably linked as well. I, so i come at this from the perspective of social linguist, linguistic anthropologist. And when you begin in those fields, one of the things that you look at is the relationship between languages and language families and this whole idea of, you know, where does this language come from and what is the influences of different languages. And you immediately especially if you have my interests at the time in particular have to say, okay, lets do slavery. Lets look at slavery in the caribbean. Lets look at what happened in africa. Lets look at what happened in the south. What is plantation slavery like. How do you build up these communities. How cowe actually what do we see absolutely that came from the the african continent thats still there versus all the different groups especially out of europe, irish in particular who werent slaves. So its the history through language. Its like what does language context mean . It means death. It means someones trying to destroy you, bury you, pull your under. And so when you think about that and the first time you hear someone say word, you know, youre like im going over there. And see what those people are doing. [laughter] and what you realize is that its, it is the diaspora, okay . It is like we are all different stories, different, you know, i got, you know, what country are you from, you know . Well, what country. I could name one [laughter] im not going to do my dna even though i could, you know, because professor gates is really into that. [laughter] but ive got a family who doesnt want you to know everything. You know . And so its just like, hey, thats part of the experience. And so when you then look at whats happening and what has happened historically throughout the development and growth of hiphop, what you see is the continuation of that. You see all the junk, Everything Else thats clouding things. Some of its really fun too, by the way. And you see this clear kind of, you know, the drum remains. Its like this is who we are. This is what we, were figuring out. And what were figuring out and what were doing in terms of the creativity, the narrative, the getting at what happened as hard as it is and as beautiful as it is and as painful as it is isnt, its about us. And because its about us and what weve been through, its about everybody. And thats what everybody gets, you know . Throughout the world. Everyones like thats our drum. No, thats ours, you know . Wheres yours or, you know . Lets all get this together. So i think this notion of diaspora from my per perspective especially from my discipline is like, yeah, yeah. Its the norm. Yes, i stud africanamerican english, but i understood it because i looked at discourse interactions in some african languages. Because i understood the development of creole pato to is, whatever. I couldnt have understood what was happening here if i didnt understand what happened there. Its like all in the mix. Thank you. M. K. . Yeah, word. Young bucks on the road like adapt in any habitat. Shit, i could pen a novel or put me on the track, i get down with that. Strap with that data pack, that black on black. Euros in the volt, that Saddam Hussein [inaudible] zimbabweborn, born to revolt. Want to provoke. They made a [inaudible] gtown, im young alone sow mourning the post. Ill be doing the most. [laughter] you know, for me, like, this is, this is a deep conversation. As you heard in the rhyme, i was born in zimbabwe, you know what im saying . Zimbabweborn, born to revolt. Born to revolt. And my parents are africanamerican, and i grew up in philly. And so had an interesting africas always been a very special place to me, the continent and diaspora, of course. I grew up in an afrocentric household. But, you know, i grew up in an afrocentric household in uptown billy, so its like [laughter] i mean, you have a lot of different influences, you know what im saying . [laughter] and, you know, one of the things thats interesting to me, i always felt like some kind of, like a bridge or a connective tissue because my friends, the way they thought about africa, you know, and the way that africa was portrayed and then what i had known about it, what i had seen, you know, ive been to a lot of countries. I was talking to my uber driver on the way over here, he was from senegal, and ive been to ive been to about 20 african countries, so i always feel really connected to the motherland. When i learned about africa bam bad da Afrika Bambaataa going to africa literally, seeing the zulu nation and then coming back and renaming his organization, right . The zulu nation. And when i learned about the etymology of, like, the word hip, for example, right . The etymology of the word hip is hippie. That means enlighten. To open ones eyes and see, its a term of enlightenment. And the etymology of hop is to spring forward in action, so hiphop is enlightened action, its an enlightened movement, you know . And those are the things that have inspired me just in terms of language and linguistics. Ive always known that hiphop had, like, the donest poetry. It was interesting, when i went to college, went to lafayette college, and, you know lafayette and lehigh are, like [laughter] but now im an hbcu dude, so i dont even engage in those rivals. [laughter] but, you know, the thing about it is when i went there, it was like the first time i really studied, you know, i guess traditional, classical, european contemporary poetry. And at first i was like, okay, this is going to get better. Its going to be like, im going to let it, theres got to be something here, right . They got all these books and musics and all this shit. It has to be its like youre watching a movie, and youre waiting for like and then the shit doesnt happen, and youre like, oh, what happened . I thought it was going to so, like, that moment, and the whole time im thinking, yo, camera, cam any of these poets that were reading. Like, lyrically though. If we really break down the double, triple intend res, the puns intend rahs i really start to appreciate what we do. Its still upside appreciated when we talk about the genius, the brilliance of language and the lyrics and whats really going on. We really havent even studied it yet. Like, its so because we produce so much. And im saying we as in terms of hiphop has produced so much that theres cats that havent been looked at yet, you know what i mean . And their work will, i mean, its unbelievable, the level that its on in terms of language and how the level of sophistication that is operating on. Theres so many and youve got to spit it. You know . Its like, im reading, when i was in college and studying all these great poets, and im like, first of all, im not even moved by what im reading, but then on top of that, theyre not even spitting it [laughter] i go to the event, they tell me this is the greatest, you know, poet, whatever. I go to the event, its so whack. [laughter] its boring. [laughter] the writing is just so i really started to have so much more love for hiphop. Like, yo, like and, again, like i said, its underappreciated. And one other thing. This is also what inspires me about hiphop. Like i told you how they came and got me, right . So, like, thats hiphop. Like i never experienced more love than in hiphop. I never experienced more, like, even dr. Michael eric dyson, me and him, right . The best moment we probably ever had, you know, was we had a [inaudible] and we just started freestyling. That was a me and him went somewhere that day that it would take me, what, a thousand conversations to be able to get there with you where we could be that free around each other, you know what im saying . But what im talking about in terms of love is the, you know, the sense of having a comrade, you know . Im this academia too, i guess, and im in literature and all this stuff. Literary people dont hit you up and want to work with you. They dont want to hang out and go and build with you. [laughter] they dont want to, you know, have a [inaudible] and spark it up with you. Thats not really in the culture of academia and literature, you know . In hiphop if youre done and youre if youre dope and youre dope, you work together. In general, the sense of, like, collaboration is, like, every day were collaborating with people. Every day theres new people come anything and out the studio with ideas, and its just a lot of synergy. And, yeah, its a very lovely experience. And the more, the more the farther i go into hiphop in terms of especially with the music, the harder just to be honest with you, and this is the first time im really explaining this, because ive been writing so much music and doing so much music that it becomes harder to write like the thing thats so beautiful about hiphop is when i say things like [inaudible] shaking the block, play with fire because its better to like, if i start spitting in a rap, its like i dont have to explain myself. You know what im saying . If i say runaway slave running from the grave, man, ran from being saved, can i get an amen . Say, man, i was wondering why you running. Hey, fan, i antibiotic running i aint running, i chasing. Shaking the block, they play with fire because its better to burn than to rot. I been running my whole life, soul like my skin, the color of midnight. So so when i hold a pen, my brothers kind of [inaudible] i be up right for little tamir rice. Raise me crazy, rocks in the system, 80s baby. Shout out to mama, praise the lady. Shout out zimbabwe, land that anyway, if i do that, you guys can listen, you guys can understand, and if you dont understand, you guys will go on your own time, continue to listen, all that stuff. When i write an essay, Something Like that, im beginning more and more to feel like who i am writing this for . Its kind of frustrating. And the way hiphop is set up is different because you have independent labels, and you have an independent structure thats really viable. Publishing is a little bit different because its like, you know, you want to work with publishers, you want to get your stuff out there, but at the same time, you know, i want to communicate it in a way that i want to communicate it, you know . Or the way that its in my head and i feel, you know, hiphop is probably my freest expression where i dont really have to think about, like, okay, well, do they understand that . I got to fucking explain what hiphop is. [laughter] im writing this piece about hiphop now, and i feel like i have to explain what hiphop is because of whos going to be reading it, you know what im saying . And thats the thing. Its like, you know, so anyway that was all over the place. But i have so many thoughts we loved it. [applause] and, joan, thats we havent even started to talk about the novelists and the writers who are coming out of the hiphop generation, people like paul beatty, i mean, there are writers like yourself who are hiphop generational folks, and were seeing that, adams at great one right there. There are definitely some great writers coming out of the hiphop generation who are doing some incredible work. Absolutely. So i think this is a really good point to, you know, i know that you folks want to talk to these guys, right . So i think this is a great point to throw to q a. But before we do that, i want to give some love to the memory of probably one of the best lyricists and the strongest emcees to ever do it, my beloved fais. You know [applause] i think that what we had early was this wonderful synergy of really true connections with the artists that we were writing about. And so, yeah, you know, i could write about tribes, and i did many times. I could write about but i also listen to him when im writing about my own stuff, you know . And so i think that it is really largely about this community that functions, youre right, very differently than academia which is a very individualistic place. So questions. Dont be shy. Come on up to the mic. And its crazy though, right, because hiphop seems so individualistic, you know . It seems like but its not, you know . And academia sometimes seems so communal, but its not. [laughter] yes. Hi. First, i want to say thank you to everybody whos up there. I appreciate all of the knowledge that ive gotten so far. So my question is, so were, you know, were here talking about hiphop and the impact on the culture. And i, i was taking notes something that james said earlier. He was saying that, like, you know, the tip of the iceberg a lot of times is misogynystic, but, you know, under that, thats where you get the art, thats where you get the things that you can teach. And so, like, i, so i came out here from sacramento just for the conference. Wow. [applause] wow. Im picking myself up for coming from the bronx. So i came out here, and i was invited by dr. Green because i was telling her that i was work on writing my first book, im a rapper, im a poet. But one of the things that i was struggling with was so even as a rapper, and im sure that, like, you know as a rapper, like when i, when i write things that are conscious, i know before i put it out that people my age, most people my age arent even going to listen to it because its something thats conscious or whatever. But, like, when i started writing my book, you know, its the same thought. Most the people my age dont even read books. And so, you know, last night i was having a conversation with someone who told me, you know, if you writing a book, your more target audience are the younger or generation that are, like, middle school and down, high school and down. And thats cool, and i want that, but at the same time, like, i guess my question is what do you coor how do you what do you do or how do you whats your opinion on targeting, like, my age group knowing that, like, you know, i want to, i want to save the people who are my age in my community, but i know that they dont read, they dont listen to they dont. They dont read yet, you know what im saying . What happened is, like, when i meet kids that dont like to read, i used to hate to read. If you meet a kid that doesnt like to read, probably just hasnt been exposed to the right books. Its a lot of b. S. That they give you in the schools. So a lot of times your opinion of reading is based on, you know, the thing is, man, i understand where youre coming from, you know what i mean . And the reason, you know, i wanted to answer your question just because theyre listening, man. Theyre listening. And theyre reading, you know . Way more than you think. Dont make that assumption that your peers arent listening to you, that your peers arent going to listen to your music. Yeah. You know, make your music hop, thats the first thing. Us a netically. Aesthetically. Too many artists think just being conscious is enough. Its not. The music element is important. Same thing with writing. Just because you have something to say, you have to figure out how to say it in a way that, you know, is beautiful or poetic or powerful, whatever it is, so mastering the craft is important. But i think its a false assumption to assume that they wont listen. I think, you know, lauryn hill when she came out with miseducation, i mean, it was like what happens is when you drop projects like that, you change the course of where we going, you know what im saying . So, yeah. [applause] thank you. I just add to this . I agree with what m. K. s saying, its important not to make assumptions that people give us about our community that arent actually true. But i think one of the challenges with young people in terms of reading is that we dont provide enough opportunities to, number one, read things that make sense and that matter, that are pertinent to them and, two, there are not enough opportunities for them to discuss what theyre reading, right . So, like, one of the great things about reading good literature is being able to talk about it with other folks and share that experience. And weve got great writers doing it, theres an incredible novel by d. J. Older or, its called shadow shaper, right . Which i think all young people need to read this. The protagonist is a young woman whos an amazing sort of character, and it has this incredible, sort of vivid depiction of new york city. And what i realized in reading myself im wondering, one, are we getting this into the curriculum of young people . It should be read all over new york city. Its about new york, right . But then, two, even the young people who are reading, is there any place for them to go to talk about it . The way you get people excited about literature is to situate them in a discourse community. Anyone whos ever been part of a book club or in any of the classrooms, whats exciting about literature is being able to talk about it. So not only do we not sometimes have the right stuff, but were not providing the right opportunities for them to engage in a sophisticated way. Yeah. So im going to Say Something really quickly, but im going to ask people to keep their questions short because there are quite a few people, and our panelists, our answers short and succinct. But i just wanted to say to the young man that just asked the question, dont get so caught up in audience and genre. Actually, daniels a good friend of mine, and one of the things i know about him is that he was a novelist, an adult novelist for a long time. Yep. Young adult is a really vibrant genre. Its much more sophisticated than it used to be. Yep. A lot of adults buy young adult and read it. Yep. So write the best produce the best piece of work you can, and then worry about how youre going to market and get it out after. But do the work first. [inaudible conversations] i was going from side to side. Hello. My names [inaudible] i wanted to ask what was the best part in researching hiphop literature for you guys . Im sorry, what was the best part of the best part about researching it. Yes. Because im very interested in hiphop myself, so what was your, what was so fascinating for you guys since you guys have been in the field longer. I mean, theres so many things that were exciting to me about it. I mean, the first piece that was exciting about it was the linguistic piece of it. What was first exciting to me was that working sort of in the world of social linguistics, you learn that the way black people speak is an incredible phenomenal. When i started to read black literature as a graduate student, i realized there was this amazing, complicated way that people were trying to represent black speech on the page. And when you look at this over history, it has this crazy history, you know, you have all these racist people trying to use how black people speak to indicate a certain kind of intelligence, and then you have all these smart people who are trying to show the incredible intelligence of it. So there was literally a war going on beneath the surface over representation of black folks through black language, and thats happening in black literature. So for me, that was that made me realize that hiphop was the next frontier of that battle, right . That hiphop was going to be because the way that i was growing up, rap music and hiphop was my entire world in terms of black expression, in terms of my own identity. So i was really drawn to the kind of battles that were going on over black intelligence through black language in both literature and in hiphop. And these things were going on beneath the surface. Theyre not readily accessible unless youre a nerd like me spending a whole lot of time and studying orthography and how black speech is represented on the page or studying social linguistic features within rap music. It was exciting to me because i realized the stakes were so high for those, for those battles that were going on beneath the surface. You know, one of a number of things associated with language in particular. I mean, i love city labification, and i love the different styles and when people use long vowels, you know theyre probably from the south or l. A. Because theyre bumping in cars like this and short vowels and then, you know, you expect ice to come here, but when you hear snoop do it, hes driving like this. These are artists are brilliant. They capture region, all aspects of identity, and theyre arguing various important kinds of issues and ideas. How do you survive in america with the same person teaching new line which cracks how do you survive, so the way you survive is you got to do what we call freak the language. Learn how to freak it, so when i say when someone say mk and they say the white people here that in the slave master says yes. Know what im saying . We know that means, you know what im saying. Thats what got me inspired. Next question. This is for mk, you are saying when you are writing in english and culture and everything [inaudible] thats like the first thing i do, so i never use the right english as much because i like to write poetry. I never like i thought no one would understand me because music is all i listen to, thats all i did, but so i saw the connection and now im into poetry, but i find myself not writing as much poetry because im still thinking about writing and understand english. How you handle it . I went to clarify, for me its not really i wouldnt say its the standard english dilemma. Its really the dilemma of when i talk to you in bars i dont have to explain myself. When i talk to you in an essay or a book i kind of have to explain myself because there are things you assume about where your publishing the peace and like that. Different energy, so that is what message with me, but one of the things i have been inspired with is people who are multilingual, paul robeson was one of my heroes. He spoke a lot of actual languages, but that idea of being multilingual and the more you do it at the more you continue to write poetry its going to be hard. Continue to write read the essays of stop school like continue to do it. The more you do it, its will become i remember those struggles and i remember like for me now sometimes i write a rap and i have to work on a film or Something Like that are write some other kind of private writing and now i can move in those spaces more fluently than i used to, so practice and eventually talk in those becomes more easy. And i Say Something quickly . Yes. Sometimes we want to write something in the form they are asking you to write it is, you just cant speak that way. Its like your time just wont move, your pen will not move and what i do a lot in my own writing is like if i need to put a poll and in middle of an essay i k couple bars of poetry i will do it and then i can stand the junta because i believe in the work, so use the form that makes the most sense to you and teach your reader to themselves up to Something Else. Thats a great. Real quick, to add that writing in bars or reverse is not easier than writing an essay form, so i dont think one form is easier than the other. I think this is tough, but like writing is bleeding. Its the equivalent literally about bleeding. If you want to be a good writer and matter what format you talking about you have to write. And the sign that writers write and if im a writer i need to see that and thats how you get better. There is no shortcuts. There is nothing easier than anything else. You know we are kind about writing in different forms in different genres and their stiffer next citations when you do that, but writers write and its hard and it takes time, energy, patients love and practice and thats how you become a good writer. Great advice. Next question stephen k, good evening good afternoon. My name is zero. Ive represent the corporate dirtbags and thats it acronym that stands for delivering information rightly teaching building active guards and i stand behind every letter in that acronym meaning i aint doing everything thats involved with that and what im finding out the now im building active guards in this means im educating children and i working schools and have programs in at least force schools, but im finding out that the Young Children who now have access to media devices, they are empowering the very people trying to destroy them. So, im finding this out that its becoming its very difficult to try to teach them the right way to do something when they see the wrong way is getting the reward, so my question is specifically to mk cause im trying to get [inaudible] my answer to this is to literally take these artists to war. We have to call them to task. Being held as heroes in our community by our youth. We can allow them to hold this position. Brother eric dyson says something about drake earlier. You know, zero mac 100 real quick pick this is the things that get stuck in the kids have and when you go from zero to 100 pro quick youre not thinking about your actions in these things, we are going to have to stop. I hear you, brother. I have a different opinion about where we are right on hiphop. I think where we as expanded as a resurrection of hiphop. The principles hiphop was founded on in the hiphop a lot of people in this room grew up on has returned. Its in a very strong a powerful way. The young people i mean of course you are always going to have you know the areas influences, but what i am seeing in hiphop right now is a return to lyricism like there is so me real emcees right now, like new generation dudes, like that is one thing. They returned to consciousness, whether it is kendrick at the grammys or call at the you know, or alice mart or the protest song or beyonce, theres a return to consciousness in our culture and especially with the young people. You have a whole like at least 100 new rapper that are young, lyrical, consciousness and bringing a whole new energy to hiphop, so i dont believe in going to war with the people you dont like come i dont think thats a good idea, for me. I think that ideas to praise and celebrate the people who are upholding the values you talk about, so its not about like attacking people. Its like we dont elevate like you say brooklyn, theres a bunch of emcees in brooklyn that the students dont know about. Exposure students to them. Its not about lets attract attack drake. No lets expose them to the guys in brooklyn that they would not hear about them as they are exposed to the teacher like you and then what let them make the decision. Drake what . Then they did it and they did the work. We are not creating robots. We are creative thinkers, so lets expose them in let them make the choice. They will make the right choice because you are exposing them. Its the same thing with me. I remember this was a criminal crazy moment, man, you can read about it when i was young i was really wild and out. The other day i was driving and my friend had never heard this particular son and i said youve never heard this song and i started to remember how this particular song began to change who i was and i think i tweeted at that moment that i love dead prez because these are dude as soon as i was exposed to them it means i was change. As soon as i heard the healthy and im african what . My whole like i was of the same anymore and i can go on with a lot of examples, so my suggestion is exposure and then let them one other thing too, brother, with the Technology Problem real quick, you need to teach them to be more litter in the media they are consuming because they will be on their phones and you wont stop that. Give them tools to discern, interpret and think quickly about that scene that i love you all, so full disclosure we have nine minutes and 29 seconds. We have a lot of people appear. Respect the microphone. So, lets go and get it through. Im interested so very quickly i am another person who has a phd the coast doctor morgan was the chair of my dissertation. There are black phds all over this country that you mentored that have nothing to do with hiphop, that we have been supported by the archives. Shes very modest, but she deserves respect for what she has done for black academia. [applause]. I have a question about black women writers specifically black women as poets and black women as emcees. Doctor morgan and i were talking recently about lauren hill and how it was inconceivable in education came out that i could look forward to today and there would be so few successful women emcees. Im interested in your thoughts on what hiphop, not just how literature has spun hiphop, but what its done for the spoken Word Movement and why people in the spoken Word Movement and where that leaves black women because some a gifted black women who cannot get supported with the hiphop culture perform within the spoken Word Movement, but dont get the attention and respect, so how do we bring more women emcees especially those gifted with their literary skills into respectability or at least attention from hiphop culture . I mean, i wish that people would support the women emcees who are doing incredible work right now, people like rhapsody, i mean there are women who are doing great work in making records. They make music videos, you know , but people dont support them and what, i mean, by supporters paid for their music. So come i think that is the first step honestly is can we support some of these incredible women rappers who are out here. There are a lot of spoken word poets and i think for me its a different scene and requires a different strategy in terms of support, but in terms of hiphop there are incredible young women who are making incredible is again its not all about exploiting are leveraging their sexuality to make money. Some of these women are making conscious music as a make like everyday music, but for whatever reason they dont get the same kind of support, so for me its about making sure my students know that those women and about me personally supporting those artists and i wish that every time we had the conversation about where the women are that people would the take away is go out and support women who are literally dedicating their lives, not make a lot of money to make a credible music and i may mentioned those the rhapsody has made i dont have a music videos or albums, but people dont go out in math and now shes a grammy winner. We need to support the women. I would like to make one proposition. I think we should propose we stop using the word conscious of that light does not do service to like the complexity and nuance of poetry, but also in addition its like that for marketing and bad for like selling music like no one wants to buy a conscious rap album. You know what, i mean . If it happens to illuminate thats cool, but calling it that puts it in a box that for a lot of its like people are ready to now to it, so thats one suggestion for all of us. I just want to quickly say theres no excuse for it and i blame almost all of it right now and that the men in hiphop and support hiphop are not doing anything to change this. Its just like you, rhapsodys great and i have an appreciation how many artists really doing things and addressing it directly . They are moaning and taking advantage of it. Do you know i mean . They are benefiting from all of this and can change it, they can actually do that and i think we need to put more pressure on them to in fact do that. Im going to ask everyone because we only have five minutes, so im going to ask everyone to say your question at the microphone. Im going to end with you. You have a comment and then going to ask our panelists to respond to one question and one panelists only will respond to a question. Thank you. Yes. I have a question about the bridge between the academia aspect in the hiphop aspect. I just finished my senior thesis on hiphop and on the only black person in my department, so when i submitted my original thesis was on how hiphop had changed over time and how we accumulated a lot of culture preparation aspect and a lot of white artists in hiphop and as i had to meet with my advisor, i felt myself having to explain so much more it became more about hiphop history as opposed to what i originally wanted, site road out of my thesis. I got a a anyway, but i feel like you always end up writing yourself into the white gays and i dont know i dont know what to do about that select so, your question is what to do about doing the work you want to do and having to negotiate and navigate the white gays gate. I like to think that palace for their insight, but this is in this good for. Im a High School English teacher at a transfer school and my goal is to blur the lines between the classroom in the community. I had your book and fell in love with it and brought it into the classroom and my students fell in love with it and i would like to invite you to our classroom to speak to our students because i think that they would really get so much out of it soon okay, its done. Yes . Yes, lets do it. Next question. Not really a question, but more soy,. Brief comment. I have a copy of your book, buck, and i would like to thank you for sharing your story with the younger generation. Thank you. I appreciate you, man. [applause]. Short,. Thank you very much for being here today. I was enlightened by many of your comments. The first two hiphop albums ever bought allowed people to look back on the old times with nostalgia, but they dont realize like 94, which is like the pinnacle of hiphop. There were a lot of things that were not so great put out that year as well. People think about sort of the bragging rap, but that existed in the early hiphop. I think theres a lot of condemnation about it. It was always there. Im curious about how even though it always existed how it was pushed to the forefront at least amount last decade or so where you have this sort of mcdonalds kind of making up rap artists picked a make a hot song that speaks to the most superficial aspects and then they get tossed out and new rap gets put in. When you make money off the product then it becomes the easiest to make things. James said earlier about consumable rap and thats a good,. Im wondering what you have to say about how it became part of the forefront and how its pushed out to the masses to represent what hiphop is. Think you would thank you. Being a child of hiphop pretty much i was just with them in baltimore. They getting back together again. [applause]. Well, pretty much in the hiphop culture theres a lot of comparisons going on like people of older generations like compare whats going on today with what we were raised on like the 90s compared to now. Now, people will say that the music being produced now is very emasculated into the black man, but when we look at 90s hiphop it seems as if it push the message of black on black violence. Now, when we say in reference to these particular comparisons, we always pick up the older, but i sit there as a way, they pushed violence amongst our people in many like gangster rap in all of this and why does that make that era better than this year and what i want to know is what is your thoughts on the direction of hiphop because we are talking about a reemergence of that, then i dont think thats evolution. I dont think thats going forward. I think thats regressing, so if you can give your thoughts i would appreciate it. Thank you. Michael. Briefly. Regarding the conversation about writing and warring against other hiphop artist and so on i just think it behooves us to think about the fact that writing is bleeding. Wouldve my writing for, in writing to show you what we are fighting for and so i would hope that we would take the genre seriously. Hiphop has its own poetics, but rarely articulation, but writing well is a reward of its own as well. I stayed up two nights ago im a grown professor, but i had to speak somewhere got home at midnight and because i had to get work done it does not stop with being a student i had to give it slam magazine on my essay and i was up from 12 00 oclock until 9 00 a. M. , felt a sense of satisfaction then took a plane here, so whats important to me is that it doesnt affect or shoot no jump stop shots, but the incredible integrity of form and adherence to a sense of intelligence that it takes to be good at that knowing that only 100 years after im dead will the appreciation for that sentence register in a such a fashion that someone will see the work i put into that equaled the greatest aesthetic effort of our greatest artists and poets and musicians and life, so im making activist rick argument for a certain kind of literacy that takes a hell of a lot of work to do and then what my man, mk, set is so important here, i tell you i am messing up the name, the argument about why is the greatest love song of our generation. He did construct work and he begins to talk about the relationship between labor and love. Im against fundamentalist. I dont care who you are. Hiphop fundamentalist mormon because the reality is drake is a genius. If not, drake cant be a genius because someone else is a genius. Daisy is a genius, also. So is James Peterson and joe morgan. Respect the craft and the only thing that makes me sad is that mk has not been exposed to a love cipher that exists in Academic Circles because we too have been marginalized and we do reach out to others. Read this essay. Look at the sense and the paragraph here. Look at what baldwin did. All the crap that hes getting because he is not james baldwin, thank god he is who he is an baldwin is who he is because no one can do what baldwin did, but baldwin wasnt writing essays about reparation atlantic that can change the political constitution of the rhetoric and dialogue. Im a writer unapologetic and if you cant under understand it the first time, read it again. [applause]. I think we call that dropping the microphone. [applause]. On going to take one answer, followup, comment. And on that note, i mean, you want us to answer the question . Yes or if you are not going to do that than a final i will take the first one, which is about doing hiphop work within the context of having to navigate a white gaze at. Depending on how far you want to go with your scholarship, the Publishing Industry is an industry saturated by the white gaze and there is a very tricky terrain to not be a translator when youre writing about black culture and the people who are reviewing or peer reviewing or determining if your pieces published or passed to the next line are white folks, but i think there are limitations to that in terms of the profession depending on how far you go as a scholar, which is to say that theres always a time when you are apprentice in the academy where you have to do their stuff, like whatever that is. Like you had to do their stuff. They will never do your stuff, like they wont learn about your culture or history or your great writers or your great poets, but you have to do their stuff and its sad its this way. But, you master their train and that create some space for you to then master the things youre interested in and you Better Believe the first time i was at the howell how hallowed halls at the university of pennsylvania say no way to write hiphop, they literally laughed at me, like literally laughed, so i think you can say forget that and i dont want anything to do with those institutions and i will write my work and do my work here, but if you are going to be in their institution , you got to do their stuff. Is good for you to master this stuff because it will help you to understand some of the systems of oppression keeping our step out of the canon that keeps up out of position and we need to learn a because we need to sort of revolutionize some of these institutions and knowing that stuff will be helpful. [applause]. We are supposed to respond to different questions, so i should have spoken earlier. [laughter] i want to Say Something about the 90s and hiphop. I mean, as the director of hiphop archives and the classic collection we are doing in the low Music Library is going to house 200 classic albums as described as classic by producers, so its all producers and hiphop doing this together and we know it will be more than 200, but right now one of the things you realize because we are really building and really looking at everything about culturally, musically etc. That happens around these particular problems and so when you realize as we go through, if you look at Something Like the 90s, first about how powerful it is that these albums before problems turn out to be missed educational of lauryn hill and the instant classic. Miseducation came out and everybody said we can make money doing this . It is like the mix of everything in the album. Nas had done a number of artist had had done things. But the commercial side of it was like bam, we can do it. One of the things we have to realize now is the people who make money off of also having the love side are the men. Still no room for the women. I just want to bring it back to that. What is going on . What are we doing wrong . This is us. Somewhere it is us. I think we have to think about that. As we get nostalgic, i love the 90s, i was on the west coast in the 90s and liked it. But the whole thing is like, we really need to keep moving. I really appreciate what was said. Look, do you want just one person who is degraded and that is it and you dont want to be able to talk about it . Remember when jay z and nas the most incredible paper a student gave about lyrics and he said this and the level wasnt as College Graduate level. It was hilarius, and beautiful and challenging things. That is the hiphop i know. I want to say quickly, marty, i think this is a question of with women i want to look at what Kendrick Lamar and the incredible level of acceptance he got and the critique beyonce got. When there is another word that is conscious and out of the realm of sheer commercialization they are tear nize for it and often by feminist. We have to look at how women come out and are critiqued. And we cannot act like nicky manage doesnt exist. If shes out there for people to touch, hold, mold, and educate. So it is not like i just think she should be recognized. She is an incredible female mc. You know . And so, i am sure people have issues with her but at the same time i think she is an important person to talk about. I just want to quickly say it has been a while since the site has been out but i wanted to say just to the brother who is asking where is hiphop going, you know, i believe in the res recollection of hiphop. I am talking about that enlightened movement. Something you said, dr. Morgan, you said when people saw what lauren hill was saying but the commercial success. Jay coal has no radio single but he is selling the most. Went platinum. He is selling more than artist doing features and having radio gigs. Same thing with kendrick. When we have artist with those cwords and those artist are commercially successful it inspires a lot of people. Art is almost like energy. You can go anyway with it. We have gunfire and we can make firers or hammers and start clapping. As a young artist, when you see these people achieve success doing something as positive, being in touch with their emotions, talking about politics, social issues, it inspires you to want to direct your energy toward that. That is how, i men, we have a whole generation of younger artist who are in that. This is how i remember watching dyson on tv breaking somebody down. Seeing that made me realize i could be a professor because i talk like that. You know what i am saying . I would love to so, when you see it creates a whole different generation of people doing it their own way and bringing their own touch. I think we are experiencing a great new movement in hip hop. I came out with a soundtrack to this book and it is we talk about literature and music but i have not talked about the music but it is free, on my website, and all created and related to the book. It deals with the themes and the issues in the book and represents the book. That is where i think hip hop is going. Listen [applause] i feel like i am in about early high school. If we had more time i might be able to graduate. I am, ah, jesus. [applause] ask Ryan Anderson is the author of truth over rule. Mr. Anderson, what is the point of your book . This is the first book response to the Supreme Courts samesex ruling and i explain why it was wrong as a matter of constitutional law and philosophy. The nature of what macher is and why mage matters and from there i go to say what americans should do to defend religious fro freedoms. How in your view, did they get it wrong constitutionally . The Supreme Court says the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment required to states to redefine marriage. Whatever state you are in, wanting to treat marriage equally but we disagree about what type of relationship is a Marital Relationship and five elected judges have no greater insight into the nature of marriage. The constitution is silent on the question of what is marriage so people should have voted to say what type of relationship is marriage. That is the only way this should have been answered. Is this a moral issue . It is a moral issue, public policy, and political issue. The answer is not going to be answered to appealing to the principle of equality. You need the philosophy of what marriage is. In truth overruled, the first two chapters is the philosophical stance on husband and wife and mother and father. Host so much of society is built around marriage and laws, too. Arent are class of people being denied those same rights and taxes and come to mind. Some people are talking about the poly and the others. You need the right definition of marriage. Every marriage policy draws a line between what is and isnt a marriage. If you want the right line to be drawn you have to know the truth of marriage and what gets the government interested in marriage in the first place. I argue marriage is based on a truth men and women are distinct and a biological factor of to make a child you need a man and a woman, and the societal reason that children need mother and father. In the second half of the book, i say what do we do to protect tolerance and immirr diversity religious freedom so people that dont support the view of marriage are not penalized by the government. Host what is one solution . Guest after roe versus wade we said prolife doctors shouldnt be forced to perform an abortion. Congress created a law that says you have the right to chose not to perform an abortion. Same thing here. The Supreme Court said samesex couples have a right for the state to recognize their marriage and we need congress to say that means bakers, florist, adoption agencies dont have to celebrate and violate beliefs marriage is between a man and a woman. Host what is your background . I was an undergraduate at princeton and there most classmates disagreed about marriage with me and couldnt understand the other perspective. They thought it wasnt conceivable. I did my phd in political philosophy from the university of notre dame so i am looking at it as a philosophical question about public policy. I had my former classmate at princeton in mind. A well educated individual who is a secular liberal and this book is written for them to understand why half of america thinks why i do. It is really written for all americans. Host so right now is it a truth that it is up to the congress, it has to be on a national level, correct, if any changes are made to the status of gay marriage . Guest the Supreme Court itself would have to reverse the decision very much like the roe versus wade. The court might strike down the laws unless they said we got roe wrong and we will have wiggle room and allow states to regulation abortion. Same thing with the marriage issue. They would have to say we got it wrong or we need something for samesex relationships but not marriages or civil unions. The religious liberty aspects of that can be done by local, state, and federal government. Every level of government can say we are not going to penalize Catholic Charity adoption agencies because they want to find orphans homes with moms and dads. Boston Catholic Charities was shutdown because they didnt want to do samesex adoptions. I am suggesting we want civil peace after the samesex marriage ruling we have to be able to agree to disagree. If you are in favor of samesex marriage, bake the samesex wedding cake. If you are not in favor, dont have the Government Force you to bake the cake. Host a lot of libertarians support gay marriage and attend cpac. Guest the panel im on is two conservatives and two libertarians and we disagree about marriage. Two are in favor of the historic definition and two in favor of the new definition. But all four of us agree no one should be cohearsed by the government. I think that is the Common Ground here. Ryan anderson, truth overruled; the future of marriage and religious freedom is this book. This is booktv and television for serious readers. Here is a quick like at our prime time lineup this evening at 7 30 we will discuss how the rust belt has become the hot spot for global innovation. And we talk about the changing faces of the working class. At 10 p. M. , a Book Release Party for Steve Hiltons book more human; designing a world where people come first. He is a former Senior Advisor to british Prime Minister david cameron. And at 10 30 the book artist under hitler. And we wrap up looking at a small pox epidemic that