A light crowd scattered amidst the first few rows of Cramton Auditorium was indicative of the relatively small circle of marginalized tastemakers who cultivated the genre of hip hop, as Howard University recently hosted it’s second Hip Hop Symposium. The event, designed to provide consuming yet critical students a chance to interact with movers and shakers involved with the business of hip-hop, included panels discussing the depictions of women and black men in hip hop and the state of the genre. Guest speakers included spokes-model Melyssa Ford, actor/musician Anwan “Big G” Glover (‘The Wire’), singer Lil Mo, African American Studies professor Dr. Gregory Carr, and emcee/activist Gabriel “Asheru” Benn.
Flanked by 106th & Park hosts Rosci and Terrance J, keynote speaker, hip-hop pioneer, Dougie Fresh set things off with a contextual history lesson. He reeled off names of obscured yet highly influential DJs and emcees, such as DJ Hollywood and Grandmaster Caz, whose styles and truths made hip hop a cultural force in the late seventies and early eighties. However, when “The Human Beat Box Machine” opened the floor for questions most students focused on the effects of commercialization on hip-hop.
“Sometimes in order to know what you like you have to know what you don’t like,” said Fresh. He stressed that the lack of variety and saturation of materialism on the mainstream music scene is just apart of the cycle that most popular American art forms experience.
A panel dubbed “Make It Happen: Business skills for the Hip-Hop Generation” included the most powerful industry guests, Island/ Def Jam Records’ senior Vice President of A&R Shakir Stewart, Sony recording artist Consequence and Allhiphop.com co-founders Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur and “Grouchy” Greg Watkins Stewart, the man responsible for signing both Young Jeezy and Rick Ross, rappers both praised for their vivid rhymes and criticized for glamorizing a drug trafficking lifestyle, says in a perfect world hip hop would be used as a tool of empowerment for the urban community. “If I found artists that could sell millions and millions of records that had all positive messages I’d be in heaven, but that’s not my day to day reality,” says Stewart. “It’s still a business.” Stewart adds that though he’s not just interested in signing acts like Jeezy and Ross, he must sell records in order to keep his position of power. The Moorehouse University graduate says that one of his main objectives for the day was to give back and “find somebody that hopefully I can give a couple jobs to over a period of time.” Stewart plans to April 27 kick off that process at Howard via a program called Def Jam Academy.
see another reason this hiphop thing is so wack Howards uppity negros will make money on a hiphop “symposium” and offer a course in hiphop but wont play hiphop on their radio station how corny is that?
That has to do with the certain departments in the school, in which students have to battle it out in the department to get something done. On top of that watch your mouth on Howard not supporting hip hop, because when it comes to “homecoming” Howard kicks serious “doe” to get the best hip hop performers around, and they probably have more hip hop artist than any other college out there. Also thank God for brothers going to school to better themselves, you wont catch me knocking a brother that is trying to do more for himself mentally. Now as far as the “uppity” negro, you have them everywhere and that is quite prevalent in today’s African American society, but not every brother that is in college is a “house” nicca. Keep your eyez open for a poet named “Samori Toure” the brother is going to be hot, and got more coming out about today’s society than many other brothers can handle.
I was at the symposium and I felt that receiving info from some of the most important people in hip-hop was very beneficial and unbelievable. I wish the writer would have covered the Women In Hip-Hop panel with Lil Mo, Rocsi, and Melyssa Ford. It was good to hear the women’s point of view, and although Rocsi had her ignorant statements about BET, Melyssa actually presented herself in a way that I really didn’t see coming– classy. And for the record, as a Howard student we definitely support hip-hop. Maybe you’re not really listening to the ‘Howard’ radio station….
Peace people
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