Hip-Hop, Deconstruction, and the Importance of Critically Engaging Art

Hip-Hop is poetry. Not 'poetry for the 21st century', not 'a kind of poetry for urban youth' - poetry. Some of those things may have bearing on the history of Hip-hop in the right context, but often comments like those are used to marginalize and separate Hip-hop from other examples of poetic expression.

I'm going to make a concerted effort on this blog to never attempt to 'justify' Hip-hop as legitimate poetry, because to do so would be to fall into the same trap that video game activists plunge every time they try to defend video games as art. Talking about why something should be taken seriously does not legitimize something - taking it seriously does. At this point, Hip-hop does not need our campaigning, it needs our minds and our critical consciousness. The public at large is aware of Hip-hop, but it doesn't get the same intellectual engagement as other forms of art, and Hip-hop fans have themselves first to blame. Devotion to an art needs to be a deep and rewarding process. What starts as appreciation needs to progress towards engagement and criticism.

Scholars of Shakespeare may well begin their conversation with his work by enjoying a witty line or respecting a clever plot-twist, but they would never leave Shakespearean analysis on such a surface level. Even in 2010, Hip-hop enthusiasts rarely reach that second, crucial level of engagement with the art they enjoy so much. Common's Dooinit is a dope track? Yes!

Why?

How does it fit into the overall context of 'Like Water for Chocolate'? How do we reconcile the genre self parody and anti-misogyny of A Film Called (Pimp) against the troubling depictions of masculinity and homophobia in Dooinit itself? Hip-Hop is full of smart, opinionated people that are ready to start answering these questions.

As much as time allows (hah), i'm going to start doing my part to engage with an art that I love. I will try and post semi-regular analyses and critiques of whatever track has been kicking around my brain, both in terms of scansion-type rhyme and meter and also lyrical content and social connection.

I'm going to post these under the banner of 'Deconstructing ____________'. Look for the first segment with Shad in the next few days.

Things to Come...

In the spirit of getting back into things, I'm going to set some tangible posting goals for the next 7 days. Doing so might mean not going into a subject in quite the detail I would like, but I do love revisiting topics.

Look this week for:

Breaking down Shad's 'Rose Garden'
The legality of retroactively withdrawing sexual consent
More on the Calgary Mayoral Race

and....nope. That's it. If I do that, be a better man than I was all of last year.

Kinda scary really.

TEDxCalgary - Naheed Nenshi - Calgary 3.0

Some really interesting things here. A little scattered perhaps, but he gives some fascinating (and scary) demographics about our fine city, as well as advocating for urbanism.

...ummm Nenshi for Mayor?

Redesign!

I've never actually made good on my desire to blog, and honestly, every time I looked at the old layout it just depressed my in a very livejournal sort of way. I think the odds of me actually doing something here just increased tenfold. :)