I think it’s safe to say I was overwhelmed with an influx of information regarding the history of hip hop. I already knew about the idea of hip hop being very male dominated, but really enjoyed going a little bit more in depth about it. I’m excited to get into the deconstructing gender and sexuality part of it. That’s what I’m here for; figuring out the little bits and pieces to it all. As for what I learned about the history — the reading I really enjoyed and learned the most from was Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. I’m ignorant and never knew any history regarding b-boying. I’ve seen people perform on the sidewalks in the city and on the subway, but never once asked myself or wondered how it began. It was started by a bunch of kids who couldn’t get into clubs and it expanded and turned into different groups of people creating their own styles. Another thing from this reading that I learned for the first time was basically everything it said about Grandmaster Flash. I never realized just how much time and love he put into his passion of DJing. Learning everything he could about his machines and putting what he taught himself to good use to be the best at entertaining crowds. And, realizing he needed a voice and coming up with the MC idea. Everything that started out so small has grown so much and been adopted and changed here and there by so many different groups of people.

Just a side note about something else I knew, but didn’t really know too much about: White people exploiting groups for their own profit. In the show Pose, it has a couple episodes showing Damon teaching vogue classes when Madonna came out with her HIT SINGLE Vogue because white people become obsessed with it. It only lasted for a short period of time of course and I just think it’s really interesting to think about because it happens all the time, but we never really think too deep into it.