History of Hip-Hop Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

History of Hip-Hop - Essay Example This essay begins from explanation that the music that is known to us today as hip-hop was then called disco rap. It was a man named Keith Cowboy, a rapper with the band Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five that coined the famous term â€Å"Hip-hop†. The term â€Å"hip-hop† that is analyzed in the first part of the essay was used for the first time in print by Steven Hagar, an author in his work the Village Voice in the year 1984. But this does not imply that the Keith Cowboy was the true pioneer of hip-hop music and culture, but on the contrary, hip-hop was there even before Cowboy was born, only then it was known by a different name. This essay tries to trace the history of hip-hop. And for that one will need to go about four decades back to the 1970’s, to the city of Bronx. The essay describes the history of the music genre to 21th century and to the times when the rappers started incorporating serious issues into their lyrics. The Jamaican born Clive Campbe ll who later famously came to be known as Kool Herc or DJ Kool Herc can be said to be the ‘godfather‘ of hip-hop music. Essay focuses not only on his impact to the genre, but also provides the reader with detailed analysis on the 80s and 90s history of hip-hop. The 80’s saw a dramatic change in the hip-hop scenario. The hip-hop of the 70’s got more complex as it developed more. A glance of Hip-Hop through the 80’s, the 90’s and the new Millennia is also described by the researcher. In concluion, the researcher suggests to enjoy the present scenario of hip-hop music and what will follow next.... MC would just go on about pairing nonsensical rhyming words, making a clown of their friends and enemies with their witty words, hence taking the shape of folk music. It was later, that the rappers started incorporating serious issues into their lyrics. (History, n.d.) DJ Kool Herc the Pioneer of Hip-Hop The Jamaican born Clive Campbell who later famously came to be known as Kool Herc or DJ Kool Herc can be said to be the 'godfather 'of hip-hop music. He was born in Jamaica on April 16th 1955 and was a Jamaican DJ by profession. The credit for making hip-hop music what it is today goes to DJ Kool Herc. He was the one to experiment with the segregation of the instrumental part of a record and give more emphasis to the drumbeat or the "break". He used two turn tables, a set up used by the DJs and the same record in each of the turn tables hence elongating the break of the beat. This method of breaking the beat of the hard funk and rock records and mixing them with Latin percussion then formed and still forms the basis of hip-hop music. Later Kool Herc used dancers to dance in tune to his prolongated breaks and guess what, there were break-dancer. Kool Herc influenced many other greats of hip-hop including the Afrika Bambaataa and Joseph Saddler a.k.a. Grandmaster Flash who later starte d DJ-ing in Kool's fashion. It was due to Kool's impact that Bambaataa a notorious general one timer of the Black Spades gang in Bronx converted himself and his followers into the non-violent group of Zulu Nation. Of this transition period Steven Hagar writes, "For over five years the Bronx had lived in constant terror of street gangs. Suddenly, in 1975, they disappeared almost as quickly as they had arrived. This happened because something better came along to replace the gangs. That

Schooling Children with Down Syndrome by Freire, Greene and Kliewer Essay

Schooling Children with Down Syndrome by Freire, Greene and Kliewer - Essay Example In this ‘banking concept of education’ students are seen as â€Å"adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.† (Friere, 1997, p.54) Under this system not only is there a supposed knowledge asymmetry between the teacher and the pupil, but the former also holds professional authority that is not always grounded on merit. Moreover, this banking education minimizes or annuls the students’ creative energies so as to serve the interests of the oppressors, whose primary motive is not progress or critical inquiry. To the contrary, under the humanitarian veil of the educators lies their intention to perpetuate the status quo. Maxine Greene’s article titled Teaching for Social Justice is similar in tenor to that of Paulo Freire’s. The history of human societies is full of instances of the privileged few (the oppressors) dominating the majority rest through explicit and implicit means. Where brute force proved unviable, sophisticated indoctrination through education ensured domination. Further, â€Å"the privileged few were the ones with the opportunities to map and dominate the linguistic universe. The imbalance, the undeserved advantages in that domain as well as in the socioeconomic and political worlds is evidences of the most glaring social injustice.† (Greene, 1988 p.29) It is in this context that an educational system be devised, whose end is to ensure that each citizen is at the least entitled to develop and build his/her â€Å"intellectual, social, emotional, and expressive capacities†. (Greene, 1988, p.29) Consistent with the arguments made by Paulo Freire, Marine Greene too advocates a new way of looking at our educational institutions and their underlying motives. Contrary to what the system produces, she espouses Teachin g for Social Justice. Here, teaching is to project â€Å"what we believe ought to be – not merely where moral frameworks are concerned, but in material arrangements for people in all spheres of society. Moreover, teaching for social justice is teaching for the sake of arousing the kinds of vivid, reflective, experiential responses that might move students to come together in serious efforts to understand what social justice actually means and what it might demand.† (Greene, 1988, p.30) Kliewer’s article focusing on the special needs of Down syndrome children is also of a similar vein to the other two articles. The author feels that current understanding of this health condition and schooling possibilities for children afflicted with it is quite limited. (Kliewer, 1988) And hence educators should be more open and inclusive of children of different capabilities as they draw up their curricula. In essence, there is much convergence in the content and thrust of the three articles as they express their concern about mainstream education today. After having read these three articles and based on my own educational experience in childhood, I am mostly in agreement with the views expressed by Freire, Greene and Kliewer. Formal education is something most children in our country have the privilege of attending. To its credit, the education system in the United States has extended literacy and math skills to several generations of students. As a result, the country overall has become more educated. The percentage of young adults passing high-school