Defunct to Re-Funct

So first I want to apologize for my long absence…It’s a combination of having been caught up in a variety of small things and also – I must admit – some confusion in my own mind about what I was really trying to do with this blog. Specifically, it has become clear that a lot of what I had originally intended to do here (show the depth and sophistication of the b-boy/b-girl experience) is already being done by sites like Breakernyc and More Than A Stance.

As is often the case, it has taken me an absurdly long time to come to an obvious conclusion, which is that this blog would be more useful as a place for us all to discuss our experiences with, questions about, and approaches to doing research in hip-hop. As you can see by the previous posts, we have already kind of been doing that, but I guess I just want to make it official, and to publicly commit to doing my part.

Doing research on hip-hop raises a lot of compelling questions in a lot of interesting areas, from methodology to theory to the nature of the actual information. What I hope to do here is to bring together researchers from the academic world with researchers from the hip-hop world (as well as the growing number of folks who are really both), so that we may compare our experiences and interests.

Some of the issues I’ve been thinking about include:

- Writing style: how do you write in a way that is accessible both to people in the hip-hop community and also the academic world? And is that even something you should be concerned about?

- Role of scholars in the hip-hop community – what are we actually contributing and how important is it to ask that question?

- Is there such a thing as “hip-hop studies” and how does it fit in to pre-existing academic structures?

- Are there different sub-categories or schools of “hip-hop studies” and how do they relate to each other?

- What is the relationship of hip-hop studies to other related fields of study, especially African American studies?

Please hit me up in the comments section with questions, experiences, ideas for topics, manifestos or anything else you want to share. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to send food through the internet, but if you can figure out a way to do it, I'll accept food, too.

Another nice review

The Boston Globe gave the book a nice review this weekend, which I encourage you to read...The print version also includes a picture of a b-boy I don't know doing an L kick in the Times Square subway station with a caption that implies that it's me, which it's not. But thanks anyway!

Also, check out Winslow's response to my response in the comments section of the previous post, in which he makes many good points. I will respond to them soon...

Gettin' Down To it

One of the things I wanted to do with this blog is to respond to people's thoughts about the book. My first chance has arrived with the thoughtful comment posted under my previous post. Here is my response:

Winslow,

First of all, thanks for engaging with my book on such a deep level. I don’t think we really disagree significantly on the reality of the situation, or even the association of b-boying/b-girling with the African Diaspora, so much as the exact nature of that association. So let me clarify my thinking on that issue a bit:

If “hitting the floor and doing groundwork” are the defining features of b-boying, then there’s nothing to debate: it started in the South Bronx in the seventies, period. While people may have done similar things in other times and places, there’s no evidence that the people who started b-boying were drawing on any of those traditions when they first conceptualize b-boying…and, in fact, most of them vigorously deny it. So that’s not what I’m saying.

Also, it is clear that many specific moves - such as "The Russian" to which you refer, along with many moves from Kung Fu movies (though thankfully I've never seen anyone try "The Monkey Steals The Peaches")* - were drawn from other traditions. But I would argue that they were chosen because they fit into a pre-existing conceptual framework.

What I am saying is that the people who created that framework were drawing their approach from the traditions that they were raised with, and that those traditions were largely – though certainly not exclusively – of the African Diaspora.

I say that for the following reasons:

1. The people that invented the dance, pretty much without exception, were of African heritage, either via the U.S. or the Caribbean. Now you could argue that those traditions (African American, English and Spanish-speaking Afro-Caribbean) also have many influences that do not come from Africa, and I would agree with you. Nevertheless, I don’t think that that that kind of cultural exclusivity is required in order to consider those traditions part of the African Diaspora. In other words, to say that a practice is part of an Afro-diasporic culture is not the same as saying that specific thing came from Africa. At least not to me.

2. In my view, dance is like language, in that it is composed of vocabulary (i.e. words) and grammar (i.e. rules for putting those words together). In this case, the vocabulary would be the specific moves, and the grammar would be the aesthetic, flow, attitude, cultural context, value system, and actual rules of the dance. With that in mind, I would argue that, even if none of the specific moves could be traced to Africa, the “grammar” of the dance – its rules and expectations - still reflects an Afro-diasporic cultural orientation. I go into this extensively in the book, as you acknowledge, particularly in the chapters on battling and the rock dance.

3. Finally I want to pick apart this sentence of yours a little bit: “You could make the argument that it was created by peoples of the African Diaspora, but not necessarily by 'African' culture (as an uninterrupted physical expression that makes every black creation the immediate purview of the continent).” I’m not sure I understand the distinction you’re making, but I have a feeling that that is because we have different definitions of the word “culture”. I don’t see culture as an object or even an actor, but rather as an activity that is done by a specific group of people in a specific time and place. If one takes that approach (which is essentially post-structuralism), then saying that something was created by people with a common cultural heritage is basically the same thing as saying it was created "by the culture".

As you know, people like Melville Herskovits saw culture more as series of discrete practices which were passed along, essentially intact, through generations (or, as you put it, an "uninterrupted physical expression"). If that were the case, then it would allow you to trace the cultural origins of any traditional practice back to a specific place in the distant past. What you seem to be saying is that this cannot be done with b-boying’s relationship to Africa...and I agree. I think the difference is that I don’t think that could really be done with anything, so it doesn’t bother me so much. The African Diaspora is a cultural/historical construction as much as anything else, and I have no problem with that. I mean, just because bagels & lox can't be traced to ancient Judea, doesn't mean that they're not part of of Jewish culture now.

Peace,

Joe

*This is the name of his blog...I didn't just pull that reference out of nowhere...