Hip-Hop Fashion, Music, and Sports! Thank you, Ice Cube.

An important moment in hip-hop was covered on ESPN. A moment for which I definitely wasn't ready.

In his amazing documentary titled "Straight Outta L.A." for the ESPN 30 for 30 Film Series, Ice Cube explored how the Raiders franchise, while in Los Angeles, was iconic during the Golden Age of Hip-hop, the late 1980s and early 1990s. That was a time when there was a balance in the kinds of hip-hop music surfacing in mainstream media. For example, hot groups during that time included: Public Enemy, a highly political and socially conscious group, NWA, one of the first rugged and raw gangsta rap groups, De La Soul, a free spirited group, and Kid N' Play, the rap group that was all about partying. NWA, which included Ice Cube, was one of the first groups to rock Raiders gear. Not only did it make the group look cool because of its black and grey colors, but it was something everyone could wear to look hard and not to be affiliated with a gang, unlike someone wearing blue or red.

Cube interviewed everyone from the '80s hip-hop era (including Snoop, who he plays catch with in the above video clip), as well as people from the L.A. Raiders franchise of the '80s to explain how the team had a huge impact on the city and how hip-hop put the Raiders on the map. He addressed how the team became a fashion icon for gangsta rap, how the crowds at the games consisted of hip-hop heads and urbanites, and how the movement ultimately became the reason why Al Davis pulled out of L.A. and moved to its current location Oakland.

I don't want to reveal too much about the documentary, so enjoy the clip and tune in to ESPN for its re-airing of the film. Check the schedule for its next showing!

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!

Hiphop Video Games: Flow

If you can't keep up with the rhythm to most hiphop songs, you have no need to worry - there's a game for that.

In 2005, Ubisoft released the game "Flow: Urban Dance Uprising," a b-boy flavored DDR video game full of hiphop tracks and breakbeats. Using your Dance Pad, PS2 controller, or even an EyeToy Camera, you have the ability control the guy or gal breaking for points for more songs, costumes, territory, and ultimately respect.

If only it really felt that way.

Don't get me wrong! The tracks selected for this game were great, including Kurtis Blow, Rakim, and the Sugar Hill Gang. Although they were the typical breaking/break dancing/b-boying/b-girling (whatever you call it; I'll explain that later though) songs that no hiphop head could not dance to, the developers in charge of the music could have dove a lot deeper in the crates for better hiphop records. I expected more breakbeats and got a lot of mixes from different styles of DJing from all over the world. Even though it's a good thing to hear hiphop mixes from other countries, the game should have kept the soundtrack filled with original breakbeats that b-boys and b-girls first fell in love with.

Another problem I had with the game was the simplicity of the dance moves. I know we're not all breakers; most of us can barely dance, let alone break dance! Even beyond all that, I would've thought we would have more control than step left, right, up and down. I really thought I was going to get to use my hand for this game, like breakers usually do with their footwork, but was heavily disappointed when I only got four ways to move. The closest the game got to the footwork in breaking was the top-rock, where breakers use their feet to bust moves as well as their hands to taunt the opponent and add dance moves. I wanted to at least try a handstand or spin, or, in all honesty, hurt myself after several attempts.

The good news is the dance moves for Flow aren't as easy as normal DDR games. Even the "easy" setting is pretty difficult for people who aren't good at moving their feet. This game is for those who are naturally loose when they dance. If you are stiff when you dance, this game will be a challenge for a long time.

The overall problem with this game was the lack of connection between the art and culture of breaking and video gaming. There were plenty of opportunities where the developers could have made gamers feel like they are really breaking but fell short. From the music to the controls, there was only a small taste of a simulation of breaking. More beats, movements and options would've given gamers a better experience of hiphop, especially if they want a more physical experience. Thanks to the lack of development (and what I am assuming is also lack of research), the game was ultimately too simple to flow with hiphop.

Hip-Hop 101: An Introduction...

This isn’t something that started when Grand Wizard Theodore started scratching records on his turntable. Nor did it begin when Melle Mel and the rest of the Furious Five spit “The Message” over Grandmaster Flash’s beat. It didn't start when Crazy Legs and the Rock Steady Crew were breakdancing in the movie "Flashdance." And it sure as hell didn’t start when TAKI 183 bombed all of New York City with his graffiti tags.

Hip-hop is far beyond all that.

Most people like to see hip-hop as an art, including some so-called hip-hop artists like Ludacris, Jay-Z (who also sees hip-hop as pure entertainment - but that’s another story) and 50 Cent. It’s easy to call hip-hop an art form when the gifts that most of these cats possess - like MCing, DJing, breaking and tagging - reap the benefit of different forms of art. When you hear productions by people like DJ Premier, Dr. Dre and the late J Dilla, it's undeniable that the songs are the modern-day version of beautiful in the same way beauty is found in one of Beethoven’s pieces. We know that Rakim is as lyrically gifted as a million poets put together. But it's impossible to understand these things UNLESS we remember why these artists do what they do and where they got the skills to do these things.

We all know the saying “nothing is new under the sun.” This is the easiest and quickest way to explain the origins of hiphop. People can easily connect MCing to poetry, but hip-hop artists in specific get their spunk from the Amiri Baraka and the poets from the Black Arts Movement. This movement glorified the empowerment of the Black community by resorting back to African roots and explicitly voicing opinions on racism during that time era.

DJing, although a lot of the techniques behind it came from accidents and experimentation, originated through extending the best parts of a song. All of the cutting, blending, sampling, scratching and so on came as ways to express oneself without physically saying a word.

Breaking was never anything new, and originated from various forms of dance. Many of these forms have African and Latin origins (i.e. capoeira, mambo, etc.), but some breakers go so far as to include things like karate into their moves.

And unless you never paid attention in history class, graffiti's origins from hieroglyphics is obvious.

This is just a basic outline that shows hip-hop is not just an artistic outlet for the oppressed and for minority groups. Its roots show that as long as you brush up on your history, you can see that even hip-hop's origins were outlets for the oppressed. So to further define hip-hop as a lifestyle and a culture I must say that hip-hop is that voice of the poor that says “despite our condition we’re still having fun and we’re proud of who we are.”