Thanks to this class, I have recently discovered Lizzo and I feel as though I am experiencing a spiritual awakening.
I never thought that “hip hop” was for me. As a white passing, middle-working class kid, I never thought I could connect to anything that was being rapped about. If I’m being 100% transparent, I thought that hip hop was too “rough, aggressive, and violent,” the type of music that was meant for kids that I certainly had no affiliation to.
Since then, I’ve obviously grown in my perceptions, but this class has already drastically opened my ideas of hip hop. After discussion of Forman’s Space Matters so that I could actually understand it, I felt guilty about my previous sentiments. Combined with the ideas expressed in Rose’s Black Noise, it was interesting to come to an understanding of hip hop as culture, rather than a music genre; hip hop began to become a political act, a community, a living breathing thing – among others.
And obviously the politics within the subculture itself go without saying. Reading through the opening of Graffitti Grrlz actually made it easier to conceptualize some of the things we were studying in my intro class last fall. It was disheartening to hear stories of how masculinity had rooted itself in graffiti and altered the experience of women writers, while also enjoying their insistence on being active.
Now, I bop to a beautiful, self identifying fat, black woman who raps about confidence and self assurance/love in a community (and larger world) that is constantly trying to disenfranchise her. Maybe this is a cracked door into a culture that I previously thought was closed to me, maybe it’s not. Regardless, my curiosity is certainly piqued and my perception changing.
I think what I’d love to explore from here is how these gender politics/this hip hop culture translates globally.
