"Why white kids love hip hop"
Lecturer to discuss transcending power of rhyme
Sean McGahan
Issue date: 2/23/07 Section: Campus
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What has changed is the amount - and diversity - of the people listening, he said.
"Why White Kids Love Hip Hop" 8 p.m. tonight in Neckers Hall's Van Lente Auditorium
Kitwana, an author and co-founder of the National Hip Hop Convention is scheduled to speak at 8 p.m. tonight in Neckers Hall's Van Lente Auditorium on "Why White Kids Love Hip Hop." He said the speech would focus on the ability of hip hop artists to bring about a political message, among other things.
Kitwana said he intends to show those in attendance the power of the genre.
"I'm trying to convey to young people that they have the power to change this society and shape it into what they want it to be, and hip hop right now, more than any other force on the national scene, is offering hope and possibility," he said.
He said commercial hip hop has continued to follow the same formula for decades, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
"I think it's very easy to dismiss all corporate hip hop as just this kind of pimps, players, g's and hoes music, and I think that that's true much of the time, but I don't think it's true all of the time," he said. "Even within the corporate manifestation of hip hop, sometimes there are political messages that slip through, whether it's Kanye West making statements that George Bush doesn't like black people or Jadakiss saying why did Bush knock down the towers?"
He said increasing amounts of young people of all races are attracted to hip hop because, in its truest form, it portrays a message about society.
"American society has failed young people, and it doesn't look for ways to incorporate them into society but to view them as problems," he said. "As society has done that, hip hop has embraced young people and given young people the tools to survive within American society."
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