[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
it’s about time I was on some ol hurry
up and waited trying to bust out the
gate and beat fate but lately I’m movin
in my time not your time cuz it’s not
your cheese it’s mine yo when I ride my
intertwine my mind with the divine the
moment when the divine exponent is
trying its atonement kind of like CP
time when you would sink unbeknownst to
the conscious mind
it’s an ill mind still time Bill Denver
fine still get in mind in the nine
divine I hang a shingle and mingle with
the masterminds because for me and mine
it’s about time thank you
so my name is Rob Jackson I got
introduced but I’m also known as blue
black of the unspoken hurt on November
3rd 1997 me and my partner in rhyme
the Honorable Asha rule released an EP
on seven heads records entitled
cosmology now the the EP or the rhyme
that I just said was on that EPS music
in a song called it’s about time and
oddly enough I was living in
Charlottesville in 1997 when it’s about
time came out now when I was asked to
give a title for this talk I didn’t know
check-check thank you when when I was
asked to give a title for this talk I
didn’t know what day this talk was going
to be but today I’m here in Charleston
Virginia on November 3rd 2017 the 20th
anniversary of that rhymes release
giving a talk entitled it’s about time
so I usually bug out on stuff like that
but I’m starting to get a little
familiar with these occurrences and I’m
starting to refer to them as hip-hop
moments
they’re like little reminders for me
that no matter where you go there you
are but I’m here today to talk about the
meaning and value of hip-hop and even
though hip-hop has changed a lot since
it was born in 1973 the meaning and
value of hip-hop has remained the same
over time so by a short hands how many
people in the audience know what hip-hop
is okay all right by show of hands how
many people would say I am hip-hop okay
so most people have no idea what hip-hop
is and I completely understand why the
companies and organizations that are
currently investing in hip-hop are not
really investing in hip-hop
they’re either using hip-hop to make
money or they’re using hip-hop to market
a product or service or brand but
hip-hop is a uniquely American 21st
century institution that we don’t fully
appreciate because of the frames we use
to talk about it it’s time to have a
sustained dialogue about what hip-hop is
and what it is not where we can change
the frame and decouple it from the
things that we normally associate with
it hip-hop needs a space or a place
where people can go explore experiment
and reflect on hip hop’s cultural
production process from meaning to
production to consumption we’re national
and international partners can come
together and from media from academia
from advertising and talk about hip-hop
as a 21st century institution now before
I go too deep and start losing people in
the audience hip-hop is not rap music
okay so many people in audience way
and some people like thank you for
saying that so let me explain wrapping
is something you do and in 2017 a rapper
there’s a profession or an occupation in
the music industry which is all about
making hits selling records and touring
and thanks to technology anybody can say
anything and put it to a beat to make
rap music but that’s not necessarily
hip-hop see historically hip-hop has
been talked about as a fad a style a
culture a movement an industry and even
a nation but for me hip-hop is a way of
life and hip-hop wouldn’t exist unless
people like me assigned a meaning and a
value to it and then shared that meaning
and value at other people who would then
share that meaning and value with
someone else so that’s how hip-hop works
and that’s how hip-hop has traveled all
over the world I teach an online history
class called hip-hop America where I
begin talking about the history of
hip-hop from the pioneers perspective I
asked the students to use their
historical imagination to see what the
Pioneers saw and then I changed the
frame and I say hip-hop is a socially
constructed identity or a personal
identity that we embody or personify and
then we project onto the world until it
becomes who we are in the world and then
what we’re known for then I changed the
frame again and I say hip-hop is a
social identity that we share and
co-create with other people but this
social identity predates our involvement
in the music industry see hip-hop is and
hip-hop operates under its own authority
so hip-hop determines what decides what
is and is not hip-hop
so in a way you could say hip-hop is
socially conservative in that it seeks
to retain its meaning and value over
time for example hip-hop is nostalgic
like when people talk about back in the
day or when they talk about the Golden
Age of hip-hop but at the same time
hip-hop is extremely progressive because
it’s constantly changing and adapting to
new circumstances and giving new meaning
and value to the anecdotes the
archetypes and stereotypes that already
give meaning and value to our lives so
when I talk about hip-hop in this frame
I often refer to it as the changing same
but what most people don’t know about
hip-hop is that it has ethics not morals
like right or wrong but ethics or
personal standards of conduct that
govern our collective behavior see these
ethics help us keep the alignment
between our personal identity and our
social identity to create a timeless
authentic brand that we manifest as
individuals or collectively as hip-hop I
describe these ethics as don’t bite keep
it fresh and don’t fall off okay
don’t bite means don’t copy make up your
own moves make up your own rhymes the
original be unique but that’s not enough
you have to be prolific or at the very
least you have to make more because what
you did before is not good enough
anymore therefore you have to keep it
fresh and new and finally don’t fall off
means don’t stop kind of think of it
like riding a bike don’t stop keep on
and in in hips high hip hop’s wisdom
they left us some jewels that we can use
in the 21st century especially in this
information economy that we’re in
keep looking searching seeking finding
and that comes from the hook in a song
called planet rock
so together all of these efforts help
one rise above their circumstances to be
ascendant or emerging in character hip
hop would say to be fly or to come up
and you can do this all by staying up on
the new next thing see the people who
identify themselves as hip hop are
engaged in the vigorous pursuit of an
idealized self where we are constantly
investing ourselves applying ourselves
and enriching ourselves in an ongoing
process of original self creation where
one is consistently being who we are and
always have been but continuously
reinventing ourselves to become who we
would like to be and in this way hip-hop
has learned to recreate itself into
personalized works of art now art is
traditionally talked about in terms of
materials and techniques and art history
is all about identifying the value in
cultural objects but in hip-hop
we are the cultural object the primary
material is identity and I am is the
artistic material of life the subject of
our art is the individual but the object
of our art is the idealized self that is
being created so let’s say it another
way hip-hop is artistic self fashioning
with the private goal of self creation
but the public goal of social solidarity
so listening let’s think about it like
romantic individualism meets the
modernist avant-garde always out front
always moving forward just a little bit
ahead of the curve
so maybe we should talk about hip-hop
the way historians talk about art from
30,000 feet up and then we could have
conversations about hip-hop that are
classic romantic modern and postmodern
and then we could have parallel
conversations about the consumer
technologies that have enabled or an
empowered hip-hop to broadcast and
distribute my ethics in our brands all
over the world see hip-hop has been
constructing authentic brands from
identities and broadcasting them all
over the world for 44 years and we are
very comfortable with social media
because like hip hop social media
exposes us to a wide array of self
representations where we are free to
render depict or construct ourselves in
the world as desired we’re constantly
borrowing bits and pieces of identity
and assembling them as necessary or as
needed to be anything at any given time
as long as it’s consistent with our
personal brand so let me recap it’s time
to have a sustained dialogue about what
hip-hop is and what it is not
hip-hop needs a place or space where
people can go to explore experiment and
reflect on hip hop’s cultural production
process and we need to bring together
partners from media academia and
advertising to talk about hip-hop as a
21st century institution so let me close
with another one of those hip-hop
moments on August 11th 2017 Google
commemorated the 44th birthday of
hip-hop with the doodle that explained
how when and where hip-hop was born it
was fantastic it was animated it was
interactive and it was hip hop on the
big digital stage
but that night here in Charlottesville
there were some protesters with torches
that made their way to the lawn and the
next day violence broke out about a
block away from where I’m standing and
it made me feel the kind of way about
giving his talk
but on August 13th 2017
President Barack Obama responded to the
events in Charlottesville with a tweet
that became the most liked tweet in the
history of Twitter so here we have the
44th President of the United States
using social media to respond to the
events in Charlottesville just two days
after hip hop turn 44 so I don’t know if
President Obama considers himself to be
hip hop but he used his authentic
personal brand to reframe the events in
Charlottesville and give them new
meaning and value so if he’s not hip hop
he’s the closest to being hip hop we
have ever seen in an American president
and I know that if we don’t have this
sustained dialogue about what hip-hop is
and what it is not
then hip-hop has the potential to become
even more like the president we have now
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
it’s about time I was on some ol hurry
up and waited trying to bust out the
gate and beat fate but lately I’m movin
in my time not your time cuz it’s not
your cheese it’s mine yo when I ride my
intertwine my mind with the divine the
moment when the divine exponent is
trying its atonement kind of like CP
time when you would sink unbeknownst to
the conscious mind
it’s an ill mind still time Bill Denver
fine still get in mind in the nine
divine I hang a shingle and mingle with
the masterminds because for me and mine
it’s about time thank you
so my name is Rob Jackson I got
introduced but I’m also known as blue
black of the unspoken hurt on November
3rd 1997 me and my partner in rhyme
the Honorable Asha rule released an EP
on seven heads records entitled
cosmology now the the EP or the rhyme
that I just said was on that EPS music
in a song called it’s about time and
oddly enough I was living in
Charlottesville in 1997 when it’s about
time came out now when I was asked to
give a title for this talk I didn’t know
check-check thank you when when I was
asked to give a title for this talk I
didn’t know what day this talk was going
to be but today I’m here in Charleston
Virginia on November 3rd 2017 the 20th
anniversary of that rhymes release
giving a talk entitled it’s about time
so I usually bug out on stuff like that
but I’m starting to get a little
familiar with these occurrences and I’m
starting to refer to them as hip-hop
moments
they’re like little reminders for me
that no matter where you go there you
are but I’m here today to talk about the
meaning and value of hip-hop and even
though hip-hop has changed a lot since
it was born in 1973 the meaning and
value of hip-hop has remained the same
over time so by a short hands how many
people in the audience know what hip-hop
is okay all right by show of hands how
many people would say I am hip-hop okay
so most people have no idea what hip-hop
is and I completely understand why the
companies and organizations that are
currently investing in hip-hop are not
really investing in hip-hop
they’re either using hip-hop to make
money or they’re using hip-hop to market
a product or service or brand but
hip-hop is a uniquely American 21st
century institution that we don’t fully
appreciate because of the frames we use
to talk about it it’s time to have a
sustained dialogue about what hip-hop is
and what it is not where we can change
the frame and decouple it from the
things that we normally associate with
it hip-hop needs a space or a place
where people can go explore experiment
and reflect on hip hop’s cultural
production process from meaning to
production to consumption we’re national
and international partners can come
together and from media from academia
from advertising and talk about hip-hop
as a 21st century institution now before
I go too deep and start losing people in
the audience hip-hop is not rap music
okay so many people in audience way
and some people like thank you for
saying that so let me explain wrapping
is something you do and in 2017 a rapper
there’s a profession or an occupation in
the music industry which is all about
making hits selling records and touring
and thanks to technology anybody can say
anything and put it to a beat to make
rap music but that’s not necessarily
hip-hop see historically hip-hop has
been talked about as a fad a style a
culture a movement an industry and even
a nation but for me hip-hop is a way of
life and hip-hop wouldn’t exist unless
people like me assigned a meaning and a
value to it and then shared that meaning
and value at other people who would then
share that meaning and value with
someone else so that’s how hip-hop works
and that’s how hip-hop has traveled all
over the world I teach an online history
class called hip-hop America where I
begin talking about the history of
hip-hop from the pioneers perspective I
asked the students to use their
historical imagination to see what the
Pioneers saw and then I changed the
frame and I say hip-hop is a socially
constructed identity or a personal
identity that we embody or personify and
then we project onto the world until it
becomes who we are in the world and then
what we’re known for then I changed the
frame again and I say hip-hop is a
social identity that we share and
co-create with other people but this
social identity predates our involvement
in the music industry see hip-hop is and
hip-hop operates under its own authority
so hip-hop determines what decides what
is and is not hip-hop
so in a way you could say hip-hop is
socially conservative in that it seeks
to retain its meaning and value over
time for example hip-hop is nostalgic
like when people talk about back in the
day or when they talk about the Golden
Age of hip-hop but at the same time
hip-hop is extremely progressive because
it’s constantly changing and adapting to
new circumstances and giving new meaning
and value to the anecdotes the
archetypes and stereotypes that already
give meaning and value to our lives so
when I talk about hip-hop in this frame
I often refer to it as the changing same
but what most people don’t know about
hip-hop is that it has ethics not morals
like right or wrong but ethics or
personal standards of conduct that
govern our collective behavior see these
ethics help us keep the alignment
between our personal identity and our
social identity to create a timeless
authentic brand that we manifest as
individuals or collectively as hip-hop I
describe these ethics as don’t bite keep
it fresh and don’t fall off okay
don’t bite means don’t copy make up your
own moves make up your own rhymes the
original be unique but that’s not enough
you have to be prolific or at the very
least you have to make more because what
you did before is not good enough
anymore therefore you have to keep it
fresh and new and finally don’t fall off
means don’t stop kind of think of it
like riding a bike don’t stop keep on
and in in hips high hip hop’s wisdom
they left us some jewels that we can use
in the 21st century especially in this
information economy that we’re in
keep looking searching seeking finding
and that comes from the hook in a song
called planet rock
so together all of these efforts help
one rise above their circumstances to be
ascendant or emerging in character hip
hop would say to be fly or to come up
and you can do this all by staying up on
the new next thing see the people who
identify themselves as hip hop are
engaged in the vigorous pursuit of an
idealized self where we are constantly
investing ourselves applying ourselves
and enriching ourselves in an ongoing
process of original self creation where
one is consistently being who we are and
always have been but continuously
reinventing ourselves to become who we
would like to be and in this way hip-hop
has learned to recreate itself into
personalized works of art now art is
traditionally talked about in terms of
materials and techniques and art history
is all about identifying the value in
cultural objects but in hip-hop
we are the cultural object the primary
material is identity and I am is the
artistic material of life the subject of
our art is the individual but the object
of our art is the idealized self that is
being created so let’s say it another
way hip-hop is artistic self fashioning
with the private goal of self creation
but the public goal of social solidarity
so listening let’s think about it like
romantic individualism meets the
modernist avant-garde always out front
always moving forward just a little bit
ahead of the curve
so maybe we should talk about hip-hop
the way historians talk about art from
30,000 feet up and then we could have
conversations about hip-hop that are
classic romantic modern and postmodern
and then we could have parallel
conversations about the consumer
technologies that have enabled or an
empowered hip-hop to broadcast and
distribute my ethics in our brands all
over the world see hip-hop has been
constructing authentic brands from
identities and broadcasting them all
over the world for 44 years and we are
very comfortable with social media
because like hip hop social media
exposes us to a wide array of self
representations where we are free to
render depict or construct ourselves in
the world as desired we’re constantly
borrowing bits and pieces of identity
and assembling them as necessary or as
needed to be anything at any given time
as long as it’s consistent with our
personal brand so let me recap it’s time
to have a sustained dialogue about what
hip-hop is and what it is not
hip-hop needs a place or space where
people can go to explore experiment and
reflect on hip hop’s cultural production
process and we need to bring together
partners from media academia and
advertising to talk about hip-hop as a
21st century institution so let me close
with another one of those hip-hop
moments on August 11th 2017 Google
commemorated the 44th birthday of
hip-hop with the doodle that explained
how when and where hip-hop was born it
was fantastic it was animated it was
interactive and it was hip hop on the
big digital stage
but that night here in Charlottesville
there were some protesters with torches
that made their way to the lawn and the
next day violence broke out about a
block away from where I’m standing and
it made me feel the kind of way about
giving his talk
but on August 13th 2017
President Barack Obama responded to the
events in Charlottesville with a tweet
that became the most liked tweet in the
history of Twitter so here we have the
44th President of the United States
using social media to respond to the
events in Charlottesville just two days
after hip hop turn 44 so I don’t know if
President Obama considers himself to be
hip hop but he used his authentic
personal brand to reframe the events in
Charlottesville and give them new
meaning and value so if he’s not hip hop
he’s the closest to being hip hop we
have ever seen in an American president
and I know that if we don’t have this
sustained dialogue about what hip-hop is
and what it is not
then hip-hop has the potential to become
even more like the president we have now
thank you
[Applause]
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