Hip Hop as Critical (Pan African) Consciousness Pt. 2

Africa World Now Project

[Note: This program was produced and aired in 2016]

Image: Acclaimed Kenyan street artist & muralist, Wise 2 [https://www.singulart.com/en/artist/wise-two-5599]

Today, we will listen to Pt. 2 of a two-part series titled: Hip Hop as Critical (Pan African) Consciousness. In this series, we engage a range of artists, activist, & thinkers in deeply exploring the essence of and finding the continuities in African and Diasporic sociopolitical thought and behavior—focusing specifically on hip hop as a form of cultural expression and creative resistance.

The series engages in a substantive discourse on the viability of hip hop being a platform for developing a critical consciousness. A platform based in Pan African activity that has implications for the entire African world as well as other oppressed people. Today’s conversation, in particular, is intent on sparking a shift in our approaches to cultural production, resistance, and art as emancipation practice—it seeks to interrogate what we know?—And how we have come to know what we know?—knowledge production not simply for the sake of knowing…but for the purpose of guiding our doing—framing our activity.

We are working to move conversations beyond "mainstream" discourse about hip hop and situate it in a proper context…addressing real-time problems faced by Africans and African descendant across the globe…

It does this…by first, examining the origins and continuities in African and Diasporic dimensions of hip hop…and secondly, look @ its ability to transmit complex messages that have collective sensibilities in inform the formation of a critical consciousness…

With this, several fundamental questions arise, which asks, but are but are not limited to:

1. Why is culture such an important place for contestation?
2. How can hip hop be used as a force for creative resistance?
3. Can hip hop serve as a platform for developing a critical consciousness? If, so, in what must it be rooted?
4. What is the role of the artist?...Or More importantly what is the role and responsibility of the listeners?

Today, in Part 2 of this series…we will listen to a recent wide-ranging conversation with scholar, activist, and artist Will Boone. Dr. Boone is an Associate Professor and chair of English at Winston Salem State University where he teaches courses on African and Diasporic Studies.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Enjoy the program!