Hip Hop & Racial Politics 2012

MC Geo 

I chose the name Geo firstly because its part of my actual name and also it makes me think of stone and the concept of being grounded in my beliefs and ideals. The element of hip-hop that I most identify with is MC. As a student we are constantly working to express our ideas in papers and projects in creative ways similarly to a MC expressing their ideas though their lyrics. I feel as though all of the books that we read and lectures that we listen to are like the track that we rap over and our pieces of work are like the lyrics that we rap.

For the most part my relationship with hip-hop has been fairly shallow. I grew up listening to classic rock and pop music in the primarily white suburbs of San Francisco. I also remember in middle school saying, “I listen to anything but rap”. When I would sit in the car with my mom and scroll though the radio stations she would make noises like she was puking when we past a station that was playing hip-hop. In high-school when my friends got more into hip hop I started to become a little more open to it I even started writing funny or goofy raps in high school for various school projects. The first piece that I ever made was for my physics class about how we conducted an experiment I don’t remember much of the rap but the one line that I do remember was, “to all you brothers and all you sisters we used materials like wires and resisters.” Since then I’ve used goofy hip-hop pieces for multiple class projects. My freshman year I made a couple of older friends that were really into free-styling and we would sit in the garage with a boom box playing instrumentals and go for hours however after they graduated I pretty much stopped completely. For the most part my experience with hip-hop has been making it in goofy ways and I have never really taken any artist or the history of hip-hop seriously that’s why I am so exited for this class. The hip-hop that I do listen to currently are mainly newer hip-hop artists like Lupe Fiasco, Common Market, Blue Scholars, and Macklemore.

These are the first hip-hop artists that I started to follow and appreciate when I went to college. They’re pretty dope.