Saturday, February 20, 2010

AAS 357: The Real Hiphop 101

Every Spring Quarter, the Department of African American Studies offers us OU students a real hip-hop 101 session called Black Music Seminar I.

I took this course my freshman year because when I heard from Anita, then president of the Ohio University Chapter of Hip-Hop Congress, tell us about "the hip-hop class" I was amped. I had never heard of somebody literally teaching hip-hop in a classroom setting!

Yeah, I know you can teach someone about the ins and outs of the hip-hop culture, but never did I know that you could reserve a space on campus, as a faculty member of a university, and let students register and receive credit for learning about a subculture in America, including a curriculum and required textbooks!

Taught by Dr. Akil Houston, this class engages students in discovering and developing critical analytical skills within the context of hip-hop history, culture and politics. Hip-hop culture as a manifestation of Africana visual, performance and oral tradition is studied. Africana cultural practices that have given rise to the numerous manifestations of hip-hop in the United States and abroad are explored, and the class looks at how hip-hop has affected/infected all facets of popular culture from the classroom to the corporate boardroom. The development, contradictions and various representations of hip-hop culture are examined (from OU's online course catalog).

Here is this year's information for the course on Athen's campus:

AAS 357, call no. 00673, will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. in Morton Hall Room 322.

Don't miss out on a wonderful experience. This is one of the best courses on campus because it's the best way to broaden your horizons within music as well as different cultures. Plus, your final is a performance organized and performed by you!

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