zutopia

interventions

so the conference - folks from allover the world. brilliant peruvian woman scholar on the failure of prose, a harvard fellow presented on ursula ruckers "the unlocking". she contended that the poem failed in its admittance that there is no place for women in hip hop. more interesting was the underlying contention that women were not "cool" and could not be within the genre, and the keynote was on silence.

a turkish professor presented a paper on the "recitation and repition of the Other" leading to belief. he spoke in relation to islam and the primacy of recitation of the Quran (the word of God), God being "the Other". authorship is therefeore denied the subject. i contended that this recitation and repition not only leads to belief in the other - but by internalizing the words, producing sound through our bodies, we actually BECOME the other. dont mean to sound like a god, or rather earth:).

anyhoo, using this model, the implications for hip hop, its influence etc. are telling. folks all over the world are repeating "the other" - this time "the other" being inner city black youth - becoming the other (like qano's ghanaian homeboy/mc "snoop") and given the storytelling capabilities of the genre the subject is then able to author his (cuz girls dont rhyme:-) own stories, becoming, well becoming himself... but got me thinking. what is it that ive been reciting, repeating. rap? rock? the quran? parents? friends? lovers? marketing campaigns? astrology? french philosophers? black nationalists? nothing in particular, thats for sure. so am i becoming nothing? or everything? what will i author?


ps. pick up/download some jean grae. she's cool as shit.

posted by z.a.k. @ 5:36 AM