As a former full-time music professor from a large community college in northern California, who taught and wrote the first eBook, Hip Hop Music: History and Culture, I feel it is vital that we teach about hip-hop music in our schools and colleges to bridge our connection with the current movement and as a way toward healing our communities. I have read and researched various articles pushing the needle for the need to teach hip hop in our educational institutions. The following viewpoints are the key reasons to implement teaching hip hop to better reach and heal our communities.
The most recent Nielsen Music annual report found that hip hop formally overtook classical music as the most popular musical style in 2018 and maintained its dominance in 2019. It also stated that educators should use hip-hop music to reach students who might not otherwise find a subject relevant, as rap music is still America’s most popular music genre.
Educators are part of a younger generation of teachers who support hip-hop pedagogy as a method of instruction. It is a method of education that makes use of the most well-liked musical genre in the country to encourage student success.
Hip-hop can introduce pupils to vital topics they might otherwise ignore, depending on the method used. K–12 educators and college professors are learning to use the hip–hop culture’s diversity to engage pupils in subjects like Shakespeare and neuroscience. Avoid gimmicky hip-hop instructional techniques like parroting hip-hop slang out of context or playing a random rap video unrelated to the course material. Instead, emphasize the need to be authentic, not lying about where you are from.
Hip Hop Through the Years
Hip hop is a concept that has been introduced previously in American classrooms. Researchers like Marc Lamont Hill, Chris Emdin, and Jeff Duncan-Andrade have been studying the effects and efficiency of hip hop in educational settings for the past ten or so years. According to their research, hip hop can teach various skills, including critical literacy, STEM skills, media literacy, and critical consciousness.
Hip Hop has had a Big Impact on Higher Education
Since the pioneering of Tricia Rose’s text, “Black Noise,” in 1994, several books on hip-hop education have been published. Hip hop-related courses are being offered at more than 300 colleges and universities. While McNally Smith College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, provides a hip-hop credential that entails 45 credits and three semesters of hip-hop music creation, language, and history classes, the University of Arizona offers a minor in hip-hop studies.
These advancements are not small achievements. Hip hop had to overcome the skepticism of detractors who questioned its legitimacy in educational settings to achieve the level of prevalence that it enjoys in today’s educational landscape; there were at least 150 K–12 educators using hip hop in their classrooms in 2011, the last time a hip-hop education “census” took place. Is hip hop appropriate for educational settings? How does hip-hop respond to its contentious past of glorification of abuse, consumerism, and misogyny?
Hip hop reflects society’s complexity, despite what some may consider its weaknesses. Violence, excessive consumerism, and maltreatment of women are not innovations of hip hop. What it does is give a forum for discussing these problems.
Dissecting Hip Hop
A social studies instructor utilized the inflammatory “This is America” video by rapper Childish Gambino to encourage discussion among students about the state of American culture. After viewing the music video, students reflect on the shock value of violence; it capitalizes on our society’s growing numbness to seeing Black bodies being brutalized – it’s exploitative.
Thus, hip-hop courses must adhere to state education standards by requiring college-level reading, writing, and critical thinking. Alumni of hip-hop courses have reported that class discussions improved their critical-thinking skills and helped them prepare for college courses.
Similar outcomes have been attained by other educators who incorporate hip hop in the classroom. As an illustration, a math teacher observed better student involvement and increased performance levels from one unit test to the next.
Instructors are having their students look up college-level language in rap songs. Reports that students’ test scores showed a “dramatic increase” after being introduced to an interactive online series that teaches college-level vocabulary and U.S. history concepts using hip-hop lyrics rooted in African American speech.
If more teachers utilized the diversity of hip-hop culture to connect with today’s pupils, they might accomplish comparable results. Many pupils already base their opinions of the world and of society on the lyrics of the rap songs they enjoy. It makes sense to incorporate what they are already listening to into the lesson so that everyone has, at the very least, a shared reference point.
The Benefits of Hip Hop and Rap in the Classroom
Teachers use rap and hip-hop music to help students learn history, poetry, and writing in innovative and culturally sensitive ways. Higher learning educational institutions, like Harvard, study music to spark students’ creativity and learning and explore the innovative ways educators use hip-hop to enhance learning and engagement.
Hip-hop music, which has gained popularity over the past few decades with a current surge brought on by the success of the musical Hamilton, is the language of global youth culture. However, many teachers nowadays are giving greater thought to how hip hop might best be incorporated into their lessons.
To encourage collaboration among students and teach them about digital recording, a high school library media expert in Georgia set up a well-liked recording studio. Students are drawn to it because they are allowed much freedom to express themselves there. They have things to say and a way they want to voice them.
Rap songwriting can engage youth, who may be less interested in traditional writing as educators start to view hip hop as poetry, opening avenues for writing education. For instance, students discover their voices by registering and producing lyrics in the recording studio—a space where you can freely be yourself.
Students are really interested in music, hip hop, and even the historical era, which provides professors with plenty to talk about with their classes. Because some hip-hop songs contain violence, vulgarity, or graphic language, some educators hesitate to incorporate it into their lessons. It’s a good idea to establish limits and standards for lyrics. Inform students that lyrics that encourage bullying are prohibited, along with any lyrics that are derogatory to another student or member of the school community. Inform parents in advance about any content that may cause them concern and explain how and why it will be used. “Let Me Hear a Rhyme” is the focus of a reading curriculum created by a high school librarian for pupils who scored poorly on the state’s standardized English exams.
A library media specialist at a middle school in Maryland uses hip-hop examples to teach citation, a subject she concedes is mostly “boring.” She encourages accurate citation by making it mandatory to do so before allowing them to play the music; however, they were permitted to do so after they had done so. Using models such as Will Smith’s “Friend Like Me” and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” engages students.
Hip hop, however, can also be thoroughly incorporated into the curriculum. A librarian uses hip hop as the culturally sensitive basis for interdisciplinary studies, including reading, math, and creative writing. In one lesson, students had to work out a math problem based on a scenario about Kendrick Lamar. They determined the expansion of his fan following and found trends in his Twitter stream. Additionally, through hip hop, students are learning about intellectual property, copyright, and digital citizenship.
Hip-Hop Education: Humanizing the Classroom
Hip hop is present in almost everyone’s life, particularly among young people nowadays. It’s more than rap music; hip hop is a cultural movement consisting of MCing, DJing, breaking, graffiti, and knowledge. Our lives have included it for almost 50 years. Including hip hop in our thoughts about education is critical.
Currently, it would be difficult for a teacher or administrator to deny having some interaction with hip hop or to demonstrate how they likely have a personal connection to it. And your students may have connected with it in some way. It is thus always present.
Hip-hop pedagogy is being investigated in an experimental lab at Harvard, which has seen firsthand what may occur when hip hop is welcomed into the classroom with open arms.
Hip hop is an excellent indicator of what’s happening in education today, so we should pay attention to it: Harvard’s HipHop, an intergenerational lab investigating hip-hop pedagogy. Hip hop has had a significant cultural impact for nearly 50 years. Hip hop has a transforming effect on people all the time, and colleges need to embrace it more. Hip hop has impacted most of our lives—and that of most students—in some manner, yet it continues to function mostly outside formal education in most institutions.
Hip hop is highly grounded and speaks to issues that society is reluctant to address. Even though some people misinterpret, minimize, and denigrate hip-hop; it mirrors society. Additionally, it will always reveal the truth to us. Hip-hop doesn’t really care about how you typically consume information because, to put it another way, that may not be how people are used to doing it. It’s unpolished and fundamental in that way. And it resonates with people.
According to Thoreau, “the massive men lead lives of quiet desperation,” and hip hop is a good fit since most people desire that authenticity, rawness, and groundedness. But so much of what we have created in the realm of our educational institutions is an attempt to gloss over the actual truth. No. Be merely surface level. Additionally, hip hop is rooted in the underworld. And thus, it makes sense for particularly young people. Since it is very cyclical, anyone can enjoy hip hop. But when something is genuine, unvarnished, and unadorned, it will undoubtedly appeal to people. If we want education to reach people most genuinely and authentically possible, we should observe how hip hop affects people’s responses and be open to learning from how it moves.
Do Many School Systems Genuinely Support Hip Hop?
Yes, but perhaps not. First off, contrary to popular belief, rap music is different from hip hop. It is a dynamic culture that traditionally consists of five fundamental components: MCing, DJing, breaking or dancing, graffiti, and knowledge. Hip hop is also present in schools because it is approaching its 50th anniversary and does not just appear when you turn on the radio.
If you are a teacher or administrator right now and you have not encountered hip hop in some way, or you do not personally relate to it in some way, especially working in urban environments. It seems sad and confusing when pupils have some sort of profoundly significant interaction with this music style.
Beautiful curricula have been created by educators, and entire districts are adopting them. It exists in the building and in our pupils, even though some of the people teaching may not be aware that they are MCs. Additionally, it is similar to how we ought to be discussing the representation of classical Western canonical arts and instructors who are paid fairly.
Hip hop has been minimalized, which is not current, and should not place too much emphasis on Western canonical arts. However, insofar as the arts are a constant, they exist if there are people inside the structure.
The entire basket was centered on the topic of arts education. Hip hop is therefore playing inside the structure. Because there are still restrictions on doing what is nice and on the surface, even though we know that this no longer works, people need to be more aware of how to look in order to embrace it.
What is education, exactly? Content is not the main consideration. The three Hs that should guide our behavior in any school setting. Humanized, heard, and held. It is how teaching works, how you co-create a space with the people in the room so they feel held, heard, and humanized.
What equipment do you need to perform that? What influences who we are and how we present ourselves to the outside world? Will we object to a code-off? Care about how individuals feel held, heard, and humanized in any space, in any place. These are tools to do that because hip hop and the arts are so informative when you show up and stroll around the planet.
Tools are available to create that kind of space to teach hip hop. Even though the subject matter is about embodied learning, the method of instruction is very hip-hop pedagogical. It needs to be used in the curriculum to the extent that we skip past encouraging people to feel comfortable being human.
Do not try to force hip-hop culture where it is not the primary language spoken. Celebrate that if another cultural force, another artistic force, or another type of way of being is the dominant language being used. Hip-hop pedagogy has a lot to offer because it emphasizes relationships. Therefore, for educators working in buildings, if you are observing, if you are talking to your students—which is like step one—do so in a way that has nothing to do with a rubric or an assessment because, as with everything else in life, relationships are the foundation of learning. Find out who they look up to and what they listen to.
What is meant by “look forward and embrace it” is that you discover while listening to that hip hop influences a lot of how people interpret the world or interact with it. To invite people to remove their censorship lens first is to embrace them. Not holding back, either. When someone has this, compare it to prepaid minutes on a cell phone so that you are prepared to ask this question when they say no and wish to remain in their familiar environment.
What should we do about music with explicit lyrics is the next question? First, that inquiry is not generative. One, there are bad questions, and that one falls into that category because it needs to focus on finding a remedy that will make people more human. That is how we can remain secure in any container and avoid embracing this thing that is unfamiliar yet might be strong.
Including explicit language invites readers to practice critical reading. True key literacy abilities and reading comprehension. In civics studies from primary school, we had to do a whole lot of memorization of the Constitution, which has violent amendments in it, where people’s humanity was utterly canceled. However, to memorize those amendments without any critical reading and without considering how that might affect me personally. Maybe we should investigate why we do that rather than, hesitate on teaching hip-hop music.
Ask people to consider and find out who their students are. Additionally, hip hop could not be the common language, in which case you should not push it. Furthermore, do not assume that simply because students come from a particular socioeconomic, racial, or ethnic background, they necessarily enjoy hip hop. Again, not always the case. Get to know them. And if hip hop is the dominant culture, then consider this an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
It should be a desire of both students and educators to consider the multidirectionality of transformational education. Students can only sometimes be instructed by another adult in the front of the room on what will have an influence. It must have multiple directions. This is the question: Why should teachers and students be able to learn in settings that allow for their humanity? Because we should require that.
We enjoy obsessing over functional neuroscience. Additionally, studies have been done that claim learning is impossible. But when you are neglected, education is biologically challenging. Nothing transformative can occur when your effective network is just perpetually armed with the idea that this environment is dangerous and that it is a blind perception.
The power of hip-hop education and hip-hop pedagogy has a relationship and an inviting quality. Educators themselves discovering that they may know less than students is also quite potent. That is a lovely window where students will interact with and learn from one another. Although it may come across as very disarming, it is wonderful for students to feel as though they are involved in the learning process.
There is a lot of exposure to popular culture today that bears the hip-hop label, including popular music, popular music videos, and popular clothing. However, even that needs to be questioned because it is being applied to artistic expressions that may not truly capture the essence of hip hop. And the four guiding principles of hip hop. That’s what harmony, love, and enjoyment look like. Those are wonderful ideas. We ought to accept this. This is where hip-hop culture is at its core. Teaching is difficult. However, teaching hip hop is an additional strategy for developing dynamic, multifaceted learning environments that are joyful for people.
Although the activity of ciphering is not unique to hip hop, MCs and dancers do cipher in their culture. It is also physically forming a circle. Each person can see the others. The attention is not just held by a single individual. You need to be paying attention and offering your enthusiasm, backing, and feedback to the circle or group around you. To know when to approach someone, you need to be kinesthetically tuned into people. We never leave the center empty, so you must have faith that someone will fill the space when you leave it.
Being still and sitting stationary both have benefits. But when we can also understand that as a type of movement option that is deliberate in the learning design. And it is incumbent upon us to focus on how we can reimagine how bodies and movement should appear in schools in a way that is embraced by people with different learning preferences, learning styles, and even ways of how their culture defines listening, paying attention, and participating in conversations.
And the dialogue around the cost of developing and implementing this work is a legitimate one to have. You have just accomplished so much with so few artists. But that diminishes how fantastic the work would have been if it had not been reduced to a nice hobby that people could pursue on a tight budget. Although it does not actually cost much in terms of material expenditures, there is a lot of work done beforehand.
You will have to give up some comfort, and many people prefer to avoid discomfort. We all know it is not simply an idiom, but change does not happen without difficulty. Most of the time, growth does not occur in the absence of discomfort. It literally is impossible. So that is how much it costs. People who view logistical expenses and logistical infrastructure as obstacles to overcome are afraid to bet on the cost of comfort.
If the price you pay for your comfort in refusing to attempt anything new and cope with criticism. Then that is again something you can get from hip hop ciphers. You will receive feedback if you enter that center and you misinterpret your talent and energy. You are going to destroy the vibe; you are going to mess up the momentum. It is immediate!
A Final Observation by Doc T Elliott
Hip-hop education is vital because it is the time we are in. As educators and community folk, we must be present in our children’s and grandchildren’s lives. Learning more about hip hop and how to use it in the classroom is significant in all subject areas because it is such a creative phenomenon that will enhance our teaching and our students’ learning capacities. As a former music professor, who wrote a *hip hop textbook, it was a task to convince my colleagues of the significance of offering hip hop classes to the scheduled music courses and also persuade them that hip hop should be incorporated in symphony and jazz performances. The scope of hip hop is endless. Today, one of the key hip-hop styles that is emerging is Hip-Hop Wellness. This is a style that is concerned with the mental health and wellness of us all. Hip hop artists like Londrelle, Lizzy Jeff, and Serene Rivers are using healing as the base theme for their music. Well-known hip-hop artists Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, and Erykah Badu have been infusing this theme in their music for a while. As a seasoned jazz and popular musician/pianist, I now incorporate sound healing in my performances and do sound baths to reach and heal my community. Let us all move our culture forward, to be relevant and concerned for the betterment of ourselves and the people we serve. Forward to the people’s culture, forward. Forward!
*[For more information on the history and culture of Hip Hop Music, and to purchase my book; Amazon affiliate member]