{"id":30778,"date":"2014-05-21T09:30:09","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T16:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=30778"},"modified":"2014-07-16T15:33:32","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T22:33:32","slug":"homegrown-hip-hop-flexes-global-political-muscle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/homegrown-hip-hop-flexes-global-political-muscle\/","title":{"rendered":"Homegrown hip-hop flexes global political muscle"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Frederick Gooding Jr.<\/em>
\nLecturer, Ethnic Studies Program\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Thirty years after Def Jam Records introduced a fresh, universal soundtrack to America, hip-hop has ceased to be an outlying art form performed by disaffected urban youth. It is now a worldwide phenomenon responsible for introducing us to names that have indelibly shaped our musical experiences\u2014not only forever but, arguably, for the better.<\/p>\n

Who hasn\u2019t heard of hip-hop artists such as Run DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy or the Beastie Boys? Even contemporary artists such as Jay-Z and Kayne West number among those touched by the long arms of the Def Jam label.<\/p>\n

Much like the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, which mesmerized individuals in other parts of the world and galvanized them into acts of social justice, hip-hop has provided a similar social outlet. Rising from urban America\u2019s forgotten barrios, African-American and Latino artists fostered hip-hop as an organic, healing and constructive coping mechanism in response to their dire socio-economic conditions. Hip-hop later evolved into a culture beyond a mere musical art form once predicted to be a passing fad. At the same time, hip-hop was roundly disparaged with much hand wringing for everything wrong that it represented. Hip-hop was counterculture, it was in your face, and it was loud. In retrospect, for these very same reasons, hip-hop was revered in other countries for it was fresh, innovative and provocative.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, hip-hop\u2019s proclivity for the theme of social justice has inspired countless artists outside of American borders, and now numerous developing countries have hip-hop artists using both the music and the culture has a means of political expression.<\/p>\n

As globalization creates a smaller world through technological innovation and shared media, it becomes increasingly important to understand the creative genius and marketing appeal of hip-hop within the context of global political expression and social change. From popular commercials to political slogans, hip-hop culture, its language, and stylistic creations have altered society\u2019s landscape.<\/p>\n

Studying the global reach of hip-hop is not only innovative but necessary. If anything, we see that the global community has studied and continues to study our very own hip-hop community. For more than 30 years, hip-hop as proven itself to be more than a passing fad; it is a global phenomenon that is now familiar to those who travel anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Frederick Gooding Jr. Lecturer, Ethnic Studies Program\u00a0 Thirty years after Def Jam Records introduced a fresh, universal soundtrack to America, hip-hop has ceased to be an outlying art form performed by disaffected urban youth. It is now a worldwide phenomenon responsible for introducing us to names that have indelibly shaped our musical experiences\u2014not only forever…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":30779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[810],"class_list":["post-30778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views-from-nau","tag-hip-hop"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}