The following is a hip-hop adjacent final paper that I recently wrote for a class. Because of that, it's considerably wordier with a much different feel than what I usually write. I decided to post it anyways because hey why not and you're already here so what do you have to lose by reading it? Probably a lot actually, it's like 10 pages long, you could spend that time doing a lot of different things. Anyways, yeah here it is.
Hip-Hop in Today's Society
Throughout the 2010’s, hip-hop music saw a huge boost in popularity across the U.S. especially with young people. As hip-hop dominated the decade in music, children grew up in a sort of hip-hop subculture that has made them more understanding of the genre. In this paper I argue that this popularity with the youth grants educators a unique opportunity to teach students through the use of the hip-hop genre which they are already invested in. With its focus on storytelling and wordplay, educators can use the hip-hop as an introduction to writing for students who may not be initially interested. We find a perfect example of these elements of the genre in Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 Grammy nominated rap album, “good kid, m.A.A.d city.”
Before I move forward with my argument, I’d like to present some historical context concerning hip-hop. This genre began as a type of party music prominent in 1970s New York City block parties and grew in popularity through oppressed artists who felt their stories needed to be told. They did so through music and in turn created a type of subculture that challenged authority through loud, braggadocious lyrics. The harsh messages that some hip-hop lyrics conveyed lead to critics deeming the genre as vulgar, violent, misogynistic and a slew of other descriptions meant to detract from its growing popularity. Even today as the genre’s most popular artists use their fame to call attention to racial discrimination and social justice issues, hip-hop is still seen by some as a lower form of music. Despite all this, hip-hop recently passed rock as the most popular musical genre in the United States. In 2017, hip-hop had the highest total consumption in the U.S. for the first time ever and has held the title each year since, according to Nielsen Music’s year-end report. Today, hip-hop is a musical force that has begun to invade other genres as well as pop, rock, and even country artists have called on rappers to make appearances in their music and vice versa.
A significant element of this rise in popularity can be attributed to the youth's infatuation with hip-hop music. As the genre features younger artists than those of rock music, young listeners have found hip-hop to be more accessible. This accessibility level will only continue to rise as music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have solidified themselves as the primary source of music for this generation. Though rock was the most popular music genre up until very recently, its fans are more familiar with their music coming on CD’s and records and may opt not to make the switch to streaming services because of that. These services have even formed exclusive partnerships with hip-hop artists recently. In August of 2016, hip-hop artist Frank Ocean released his highly anticipated album Blond only on Apple Music for a short time and rapper Jay-Z's discography has only recently become available outside of the streaming service, Tidal, which he has partial ownership of. These partnerships are likely to catch the eyes of young people who are already constantly using these services.
Now that we have a better understanding of the genre, I feel that I can properly introduce Lamar’s album and all the intricacies of it. In good kid, m.A.A.d city, or GKMC as I’ll refer to it, Lamar uses a series of skits interpolated with music to tell the true story of a day in the life of a Compton teenager when he and his friends fell victim to gang violence in a shooting that took his friends life and ultimately lead to him finding religion. Lamar weaves together an authentic narrative of this night by attaching skits and voicemails from his mother to songs that contain similar themes and messages. The album saw plenty of commercial success with hits like Swimming Pools and Money Trees but the story that was told across these songs was more important.
While students are likely to initially be more interested in the music rather than the message, GKMC is a great example of how to use hip-hop as a form of storytelling. A savvy teacher could capture student's attention much easier by lecturing about a rap album instead of a book. Tony Pozdol highlighted a problem he faced with connecting themes found in dated books with today’s issues of social justice and racism in his collaborative article with Alison Dover, “Teaching Good Kids in a M.A.A.D World.” Pozdol said, “There was a clear difference between what matters, and what matters in English class.”
To correct this issue, Pozdol featured GKMC in a lesson plan revolving around self-identity, an issue that Lamar highlights on the final track titled Real, and found that students were able to relate more to Lamar’s character than those in the books they were assigned. The themes of peer pressure and how a community can drag someone down prevalent in songs like The Art of Peer Pressure and good kid provided a latching on point for the students. On good kid, Lamar raps, “I heard ‘em chatter ‘He’s probably young but I know that he’s down...he don’t mind, he knows we’ll never respect the good kid, m.A.A.d city,” in reference to how his peers influenced him to take place in a robbery despite him being known as a “good kid.” This is a theme that many students could probably relate to.
In the case of Pozdol’s class, which was located in Chicago, music proved to be more relatable to the students due to the similar communities that they shared with Lamar. Other classes won’t be able to connect with the music in this way but it’s implementation into the classroom could still provide an outlet for students who better express themselves through music than through writing. In her article, “Hip-Hop EDU,” Marva Hinton detailed how a high school in Georgia implemented a recording studio into its library for student use. The studio became very popular on campus and sparked creativity and camaraderie in the student body as they came together to write and record rap music. While this may not seem like the most conventional means of creating interest in writing, it proved to be an effective one as several students credited the studio with improving their own writing skills.
I believe that these more unique teaching methods can work in conjunction with conventional forms of education to boost student’s interest in school. By substituting a book for an album in the year’s lesson plan or dedicating an occasional class to the writing found in music, teachers are more likely to maintain class engagement throughout the monotony of the school year. This is not to say that music is superior to literature in how it displays writing acumen. Rather, I am arguing that hip-hop is such a mainstay in the lives of students today that its inclusion in school could fuel their passion to create and write.
Is Hip-Hop Appropriate for the Classroom?
While some, such as Pozdol and Adam Kruse, argue that hip-hop has the power to capture student’s attention due to its relatability, there are still many who feel that the language and themes found in the genre should disqualify it from being taught in the classroom. It is true that many hip-hop artists glamorize violence and substance abuse, but this isn’t to say that this is all the genre has to offer. In fact, Lamar’s most commercially successful song on GKMC was Swimming Pools which many perceived as a drinking anthem but was actually an warning of how Lamar saw alcohol control so many people. Kruse acknowledges how beneficial hip-hop could be towards teaching and suggests that teachers seek parental approval before including explicit music in their lessons as well as proactively search for “clean” versions of songs which censor what is deemed inappropriate.
Today’s teachers wouldn’t struggle much to draw parallels between poetry and rap either. Both are used to convey a message through rhythm and rhyme, but poetry is perceived as being more elegant. Still, art songs, which are poetry set to music, became popular during the Romantic age in 19th-century Europe, and modern-day rap seems to be an evolution of this poetic form. Of course, today’s music isn’t exactly like Romantic age poetry, but it still uses plenty of poetic devices, meter being the most obvious. I found some of these similarities on Lamar’s song Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst, which features Lamar rapping from the perspective of two people he knew that died in Compton. Lamar uses a form of enjambment, a poetic device characterized by abruptly ending a line of writing, when he ends one of his verses suddenly with gunshots and another with the lyrics fading out to illustrate how these people were killed.
Another uninformed opinion revolving around hip-hop is the idea that these rappers are not fit to be role models for today’s youth because so much of their music revolves around inappropriate themes. In actuality, many hip-hop artists today are heavily invested in work centered on improving their communities and the lives of those who are growing up in situations similar to theirs. Recently slain rapper and former Los Angeles gang member Nipsey Hussle was actually scheduled to meet with the LAPD the day after his murder to discuss methods of calming gang violence in the city. In his case, Hussle was aware of the bad decisions he made in the past and was using his platform to warn others not to make the same mistakes he did. Would there really be anything wrong with a young person admiring him for that?
GKMC teaches an important lesson about how our communities don’t have to dictate the type of people we become. This lesson is similar to the message of how pointless gang violence is in the coming of age story, “The Outsiders,” a book that is commonly assigned in high school. Both stories revolve around young people growing up in rough neighborhoods surrounded by gang activity, the stories are just told through different mediums. While the message in “The Outsiders,” still rings true, the book is beginning to be quite dated as it originally released in 1967. Students may have trouble connecting with the world described to them in the book but if an album like GKMC was taught as a supplement to the lesson, it could serve as a frame for students to consider the similarities of their own communities with those in the book through.
There are countless ways that teachers could implement hip-hop music into their lessons. The effectiveness of these lessons are only held back by these teachers’ willingness to get creative with how they go about their classes. Explicit lyrics can be censored and songs revolving too much around drugs or sex can be skipped or limited to excerpts to focus only on sections that the students can learn from. Many people might feel that today’s students are too impressionable to objectively analyze hip-hop music, but that isn’t entirely true. As today’s students continue to grow up in and around this hip-hop subculture, I believe they are actually more capable of forming their own opinions on the subjects of rap music than most parents and teachers might believe.
Should Students be Considered Blank Slates Before Education or Clay to be Molded by it?
One common assumption about high school students is that they know next to nothing important and what they do know will not benefit them much once they enter the “adult world.” Many view students as blank slates upon which their teachers can impart knowledge that will lead them to a career after school. While the goal of schooling is to learn, I don’t think it’s entirely correct to assume that these students come into the education system carrying no important information. In fact, I believe that today’s students are so connected with the world around them due to social media that they understand much more about a great deal of things that we might not expect, such as how to critically analyze hip-hop music.
In his article, “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff argues that students contain hidden intellectual resources that he terms, “street smarts.” He goes on to theorize that these street smarts are not taken seriously by educators because they are tied to interests that don’t seem to connect with typical intellectual resources. He then suggests, just as I have, that educators need to view their students as “hidden intellectualists” and that their job is to coax out the critical thinking skills that they’ve developed through their interest in things such as cars, sports, television, and of course music.
In support of this theory, I want to highlight Lamar’s character in GKMC again. As the title of the album suggests, Lamar deems his younger self as being an innocent kid growing up in a dangerous city. He makes sure to detail the bad decisions he made as he matured to show that anyone can find success if they don’t allow themselves to let their circumstances hold them down. The young Lamar in GKMC is a good example of the hidden intellectualism that Graff wrote about. He harnessed his interest in rap music into a focus that lead to him being regarded as one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time and wrote GKMC to show that anyone could do something like he did.
Though Lamar never mentions a teacher who helped him find success, he includes several voicemails from his mother where she encourages him to tell his story, effectively playing that role. On the final song of GKMC titled Real, Lamar’s mother says this in a message to him.
“Come back a man, tell your story to these black and brown kids in Compton. Let ‘em know you was just like them, but you still rose from that dark place of violence, becoming a positive person. But when you do make it, give back with your words of encouragement, and that’s the best way to give back. To your city...”
This is essentially the thesis statement of Lamar’s album, that anyone can rise above their surroundings and find success. Personally, I found inspiration not just in the incredible story of the album but also in the creativity of the storytelling. It’s encouraging as a young writer to see someone find success in telling a narrative without using a book and I’m sure this could motivate many others to try to do something similar.
I believe that the story behind GKMC and so many other narrative-driven albums and songs found in the hip-hop genre could serve as an effective motivator towards students pursuing their goals no matter how conventional they may seem. Not every student might want to become the next Kendrick Lamar but seeing his success may inspire them to work towards finding a career doing something that they love. With the appropriate level of attention and care put into it, any teacher could use lessons on hip-hop to motivate students to write or more actively follow a path towards doing something truly special with their lives.