National Geographic article on Hip Hop

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0704/feature4/

Not sure what to say about this. Its cursory history as it relates to the Bronx can be found in a lot of other places, and a lot more complete. I do like that he unabashaedly discusses this from a middle class, middle-aged standpoint, which is no doubt the magazine's target demographic. And it did help me understand the similiarities between the urban ghetto and midwestern rural poverty, whos teenagers have adopted the hip hop speech and style more completely than it seems anyone else.
 
In the shadow of the Great Rock, Assane has built a small restaurant, Chez Las, decorated with hundreds of seashells. It is where he lives his hip-hop dream. At night, he and his brother and cousin stand by the Great Rock and face the sea. They meditate. They pray. Then they write rap lyrics that are worlds away from the bling-bling culture of today's commercial hip-hoppers. They write about their lives as village fishermen, the scarcity of catch forcing them to fish in deeper and deeper waters, the hardship of fishing for 8, 10, 14 days at a time in an open pirogue in rainy season, the high fee they pay to rent the boat, and the paltry price their catches fetch on the market. They write about the humiliation of poverty, watching their town sprout up around them with rich Dakarians and richer French. And they write about the relatives who leave in the morning and never return, surrendered to the sea, sharks, and God.


I really want to hear some of this. I liked the way the article touched on the scene in Africa, though i would like to have seen greater analysis of the state of hip hop in the third world and how the tradition of politically conscious spoken word music is still current, and also some coverage of the sub-genres hip-hop has spawned would have been nice. Nice to see the National Geographic embrace this though.
 
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