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From B-Boys to Broadway: Activism and Directed Change in Hip-hop
Abstract
In this article, I examine how the dominant paradigm of development led to the Bronx being in a state of ruin, the development of hip-hop culture as a self-empowerment tool, and how that tool is used to direct change in blighted urban areas around the US through rap at all levels-from street corners to the Broadway stage. I use a combination of theories from development communication, ethnomusicology and popular culture to perform my analysis and conclude that hip-hop culture empowers individuals and communities to make change in their neighbourhoods. I also conclude that Lin-Manuel Miranda, coming from that culture, has gone on to bring this empowerment and directed change to Broadway to make fundamental changes there that have an impact that reach far from the hallowed halls of the Great White Way.
This thesis explores how American identity is being mediated through Hamilton: an American Musical. I examined two main aspects of Hamilton, American identity in relation to its founding era, and race relations in America.
Hamilton-related phrases have been repeated by politicians, BlackLivesMatter-protest signs, Trump rallies, children’s birthday parties, not to mention a sheer endless cornucopia of digital reiterations on social media. The pervasiveness of Hamilton-quotes in American society suggests that it has succeeded in reaching a broader audience, and that it has been exerting a significant influence on the American people. The foregrounding of black and brown people is evidence of Miranda’s intention to assert the stake minority communities have in the nation’s founding. Strategies such as these are “another way of saying that American history can be told, claimed and reclaimed, by people who don’t look like George Washington and Betsy Ross.”
The genius of Hamilton lies in its power to transcend the seemingly irreconcilable deadlock of a deeply divided society. Hamilton offers blacks and Latinos “access to the cultural power of the Founding without having to deny their own histories or to affirm the celebratory narrative that ignores America’s sins.”
America has a collective responsibility to tell national history in the most accurate and complete fashion while preventing the demonization or whitewashing of its historical deficiencies, most notably its original sin; the sin of slavery. Through cultural artifacts such as Hamilton: An American Musical, avenues are created for public discussion and reconciliation with the good and the bad in historical heroes for some and villains to others.
I argue that Hamilton's emotional appeal has engendered change in ways that take precedence over correcting historical errors or omissions. Hamilton has reinvigorated a sense of pride in the hearts of the current generation and the generation that is right now coming of age. The insistence that America and its history belong to each and every one, the inspiration it offers to take ownership in the nation, and its ability to captivate folks across racial, political, and class boundaries, makes it truly revolutionary.
The origin story of hip-hop—one that involves Kool Herc DJing a house party on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx—has become received wisdom. But Joseph C. Ewoodzie Jr. argues that the full story remains to be told. In vibrant prose, he combines never-before-used archival material with searching questions about the symbolic boundaries that have divided our understanding of the music. In Break Beats in the Bronx , Ewoodzie portrays the creative process that brought about what we now know as hip-hop and shows that the art form was a result of serendipitous events, accidents, calculated successes, and failures that, almost magically, came together. In doing so, he questions the unexamined assumptions about hip-hop's beginnings, including why there are just four traditional elements—DJing, MCing, breaking, and graffiti writing—and not others, why the South Bronx and not any other borough or city is considered the cradle of the form, and which artists besides Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash founded the genre. Ewoodzie answers these and many other questions about hip-hop's beginnings. Unearthing new evidence, he shows what occurred during the crucial but surprisingly underexamined years between 1975 and 1979 and argues that it was during this period that the internal logic and conventions of the scene were formed.
The origin story of hip-hop-one that involves Kool Herc DJing a house party on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx-has become received wisdom. But Joseph C. Ewoodzie Jr. argues that the full story remains to be told. In vibrant prose, he combines never-before-used archival material with searching questions about the symbolic boundaries that have divided our understanding of the music. In Break Beats in the Bronx, Ewoodzie portrays the creative process that brought about what we now know as hip-hop and shows that the art form was a result of serendipitous events, accidents, calculated successes, and failures that, almost magically, came together. In doing so, he questions the unexamined assumptions about hip-hop's beginnings, including why there are just four traditional elements-DJing, MCing, breaking, and graffiti writing-and not others, why the South Bronx and not any other borough or city is considered the cradle of the form, and which artists besides Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash founded the genre. Ewoodzie answers these and many other questions about hip-hop's beginnings. Unearthing new evidence, he shows what occurred during the crucial but surprisingly underexamined years between 1975 and 1979 and argues that it was during this period that the internal logic and conventions of the scene were formed. © 2017 The University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.
Thesis (Ed. D.)--Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1991. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [289]-302). Photocopy. s
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