hello everybody how are you doing good
okay now I want you to raise your hand
if you would ever heard a hip-hop song
twice a lot of people okay cool
that’s great come on brother you want to
hear story about that region and the
bear and gather round boys and order to
miss none of this that one got the most
dancing but I think most people raised
their hair when I played the 1979 hit
from the Sugar Hill Gang called rapper’s
delight’ now why did you consider this
to be hip-hop was it because there was
rapping the first song I played for you
was made in 1941 and they were clearly
people rapping even though the word
hip-hop hadn’t been invented yet okay
was it the beat was it the texture you
can answer yes to all of these questions
and still be correct because hip hop is
a culture and culture is defined by all
of its attributes not just a single
aspect so I want us to continue on this
journey and getting on the same page
about hip-hop so I want us to make a
hip-hop song together now what I
realized is I need the clicker in order
to do this so in 2014 a friend of mine
named mark who played an important part
in the beginning of my hip-hop career
gave this Ted
on music and let’s watch what Mark does
in this talk basically is he takes the
theme song from Ted and he finds a break
beat in it and he loops it into a beat
so what I’m gonna do is well mark and I
went to college together and what we
used to do there was he would make the
beats and now make the wraps so what I’m
gonna do here is I’m gonna add raps to
what Mark did already over the TEDTalk
beat I’ll play the intro a little longer
so you might get a little bit of info as
to what he did guys recognize that as
the beginning of the TED talk right what
he did was he slowed it down into the
okay Ted is a global community giving
people from every discipline and culture
opportunity to seek a deeper
understanding of the world we believe
passionately in the power of the words
you speak ideas and change attitudes and
ultimately lives of men and women around
the world my parent house of three
knowledge from the world’s most
inspiring new column curious souls with
the generous goal to engage with each
other through the stories you told
through shared times and online our
mission to find best by one line one
line and that one line is how can we
best spread great ideas right now I’m
gonna do that one more time so you
understand what I’m saying now I saw a
lot of people raise their head what I
said
what is hip-hop so I assume you’ve all
been to a hip-hop concert so when I say
what is the one line how can we best for
our great ideas I want us all to say it
together I’ll do to rap one more time so
in the same page right Ted is a global
community given people from every
discipline and culture opportunity to
seek a deeper understanding of the world
we believe passionately in the power of
the word you to speak ideas and change
attitudes and ultimately lives of men
and women around the world a
clearinghouse of free knowledge from the
world’s most inspired with a new college
a community of curious Souls
with the generous goal to engage with
each other through the stories we’ve
told through shared times and online our
mission described best by one line one
line how can we best spread great ideas
right I have to answer to that question
and the answer is hip-hop the tools and
core elements of hip-hop give us all
what we need to share knowledge and
share ideas it doesn’t matter where
you’re from or what language you speak
there are four core elements of hip-hop
the first is DJing a DJ is needed
because only someone were to turn tables
to keep a breakbeat going long enough
for anyone to rap or dance to now this
was covered in this Marc talk and I went
over it briefly when he took the TED
theme song and turned it into a break
beat and looted right the second element
is MC or rapping we covered this when I
just took the Ted mission statement and
transformed it into lyrics for a rap
song the third element is b-boying now I
don’t really have time or enough space
to show off my moves so I’ll just show
you this picture b-boying is also known
as breakdancing now the final element is
graffiti or writing all of us who live
here in Berlin or who are visiting can
think of the murals we see on the Berlin
Wall near the East Side Gallery right
you can think of modern artists like
Hebrew Brantly
Banksy and Shepard Fairey the street
artists of today are the graffiti
artists of the past and so now that
we’re clear on what hip-hop is let’s go
on to exactly what culture is I have
three definitions I like to own in
threes so we had three songs now we got
three definitions first culture is the
characteristic features of a way of life
shared by people in a place or time an
example of this would be the
Scandinavian region of the globe in the
1300s right Viking culture equality
between genders on the battlefield multi
deity worship and so on and so forth
second definition culture is the arts
and other manifestations of human
intellectual achievement regarded
collectively this definition makes me
think of the ancient Greek times right
time of philosophy that created a lot of
art architecture things that we still
draw from today the final definition is
my favorite and it’s the longest so
there we go culture is the integrated
pattern of human knowledge belief and
behavior that depends upon the capacity
for learning and transmitting knowledge
to succeeding generations my favorite
part about this is transmitting
knowledge to succeeding generations this
puts culture in the context of survival
the will to survive is the most common
human trait and we cannot survive
without culture one of the first things
we teach our young speaking reading and
writing so they communicate and it can
also understand communication
communication is key
for survival and culture is key for
survival hip-hop culture itself was
created in the late 1970s during a very
difficult time in my hometown city of
New York okay
the city was almost bankrupt
unemployment was really high there was a
very big drug problem and it was a very
violent time and hip-hop guided people
and gave them a way to survive this
particular time okay rap songs gave
stories warnings parties gave people
outlets and murals gave people a voice
okay now all the elements of hip-hop
cultural artistic and art is a very very
effective way to communicate we’ve all
heard the term a picture’s worth a
thousand words
right what would the Last Supper mean to
any of us with it without Leonardo da
Vinci’s painting all right this tells us
a lot what would Barack Obama’s 2008
campaign have been without the street
artists Shepard Fairey’s poster right
these pictures just with their title and
description can’t communicate as as much
as they can by you looking at them when
you look at them you immediately receive
a lot of information proving that visual
art is more efficient than the written
word hence the phrase a picture is worth
a thousand words
now as impactful as these images are I
think that music is even more impactful
two nights ago when I was preparing for
this TED talk right my neighbors decide
they want to yeah seriously my neighbors
decided they went to blast their music
now luckily they have good taste the
first one they were blasting was by
Frank Ocean and then they went into like
a prince medley now I was in my
apartment and whether I want to hear it
or not
their music reached me music reaches all
of us whether you want it to or not okay
not only did it reach me I could feel it
music has a vibration right so you can
literally feel it and that’s why music
serves as a platform for our experience
right why do nations have anthems and
war songs instead of just a flag okay
why does the bride walk down now to
music instead of just holding up a sign
right
because music can guide our perception
of a particular experience
hip-hop music has always been used to
God social and political perceptions
okay in 1991
actually before we go there in terms of
guiding perception let’s talk about what
people have said about hip-hop okay
Rolling Stone magazine the Chicago
Tribune and timeout London all named
Public Enemy song fight the power as one
of the most influential songs in history
all right Public Enemy is a very
old-school hip-hop group from the late
80s and early 90s right now back to us
named before in 1991 the Slobodan
Milosevic regime in Serbia had an armed
crackdown in Belgrade and they picked
out the radio station b92
and they banned them from transmitting
the news they said you can’t play news
no more news on the radio so what the
b92 do they played Public Enemy’s fight
the power over and over again to subvert
the band because they could express in
music what they could not say now why
did this group all the way in Serbia
choose a song made by a bunch of guys in
Long Island New York City because it was
hip-hop music and no genre and no
culture is more efficient than hip-hop
at transmitting knowledge in 2014 there
was a study by music match called the
largest vocabulary in music the genre of
hip-hop was found to have an average of
478 unique words per song the only genre
that comes even close is pop with 302
okay the average hip-hop song has 1,900
words in it when you also consider the
use of slang metaphor and dialect the
depth of this music gets expanded right
have anybody heard of the hit Broadway
play Hamilton okay
we know it’s not here but lin-manuel
Miranda the creator of this play when he
went on 60 minutes I want to read his
quote exactly he went on 60 minutes to
talk about his play and he talked about
why he used hip-hop he said I believe
that rap is uniquely suited to tell
Hamilton’s story because it has more
words per measure than any other musical
genre
it has rhythm it has density and if
Hamilton had anything in his writing it
was this density right so lin-manuel
Miranda used the power of hip-hop to put
20,000 words in his play the audience is
hearing up to 144 words per minute the
statistical analysis agency 538 said
that if Hamilton were used had used
another genre the play would have taken
four to six hours okay he did it and
under two and a half because of this
power and efficiency of hip-hop our
primary form of communication is the
word right we speak them we read them
and write them we sing them in hip-hop
we also rap them and in some cases spell
them out and intricate dance moves okay
and that is because it’s so efficient
nothing communicates as well as hip-hop
this is the only culture that analyzes
creates and identifies trends and human
culture this fast it is the only culture
that transfers transcribes and transmits
this much knowledge okay so what I want
you to do when you leave here if you
aren’t already I want you to listen to
some hip-hop music right if you’re not
already you’ll hear a lot of stories
about your neighbors you hear stories
from people far away from you and you’ll
hear what they’re going through you’ll
be informed about trends in fashion
technology science and play no just
having fun and beyond just listening to
hip-hop I want you to be inspired by it
whether or not you choose to learn how
to rap or paint big murals or dance you
too can harness this energy to effect
change in your community think about it
if a group of kids in 1970s New York to
create a movement that would one day
become the most dominant culture in the
world you can do the same my name is Ian
Lawrence I’m better known as the hip-hop
artist stimulus and I thank you for your time
okay now I want you to raise your hand
if you would ever heard a hip-hop song
twice a lot of people okay cool
that’s great come on brother you want to
hear story about that region and the
bear and gather round boys and order to
miss none of this that one got the most
dancing but I think most people raised
their hair when I played the 1979 hit
from the Sugar Hill Gang called rapper’s
delight’ now why did you consider this
to be hip-hop was it because there was
rapping the first song I played for you
was made in 1941 and they were clearly
people rapping even though the word
hip-hop hadn’t been invented yet okay
was it the beat was it the texture you
can answer yes to all of these questions
and still be correct because hip hop is
a culture and culture is defined by all
of its attributes not just a single
aspect so I want us to continue on this
journey and getting on the same page
about hip-hop so I want us to make a
hip-hop song together now what I
realized is I need the clicker in order
to do this so in 2014 a friend of mine
named mark who played an important part
in the beginning of my hip-hop career
gave this Ted
on music and let’s watch what Mark does
in this talk basically is he takes the
theme song from Ted and he finds a break
beat in it and he loops it into a beat
so what I’m gonna do is well mark and I
went to college together and what we
used to do there was he would make the
beats and now make the wraps so what I’m
gonna do here is I’m gonna add raps to
what Mark did already over the TEDTalk
beat I’ll play the intro a little longer
so you might get a little bit of info as
to what he did guys recognize that as
the beginning of the TED talk right what
he did was he slowed it down into the
okay Ted is a global community giving
people from every discipline and culture
opportunity to seek a deeper
understanding of the world we believe
passionately in the power of the words
you speak ideas and change attitudes and
ultimately lives of men and women around
the world my parent house of three
knowledge from the world’s most
inspiring new column curious souls with
the generous goal to engage with each
other through the stories you told
through shared times and online our
mission to find best by one line one
line and that one line is how can we
best spread great ideas right now I’m
gonna do that one more time so you
understand what I’m saying now I saw a
lot of people raise their head what I
said
what is hip-hop so I assume you’ve all
been to a hip-hop concert so when I say
what is the one line how can we best for
our great ideas I want us all to say it
together I’ll do to rap one more time so
in the same page right Ted is a global
community given people from every
discipline and culture opportunity to
seek a deeper understanding of the world
we believe passionately in the power of
the word you to speak ideas and change
attitudes and ultimately lives of men
and women around the world a
clearinghouse of free knowledge from the
world’s most inspired with a new college
a community of curious Souls
with the generous goal to engage with
each other through the stories we’ve
told through shared times and online our
mission described best by one line one
line how can we best spread great ideas
right I have to answer to that question
and the answer is hip-hop the tools and
core elements of hip-hop give us all
what we need to share knowledge and
share ideas it doesn’t matter where
you’re from or what language you speak
there are four core elements of hip-hop
the first is DJing a DJ is needed
because only someone were to turn tables
to keep a breakbeat going long enough
for anyone to rap or dance to now this
was covered in this Marc talk and I went
over it briefly when he took the TED
theme song and turned it into a break
beat and looted right the second element
is MC or rapping we covered this when I
just took the Ted mission statement and
transformed it into lyrics for a rap
song the third element is b-boying now I
don’t really have time or enough space
to show off my moves so I’ll just show
you this picture b-boying is also known
as breakdancing now the final element is
graffiti or writing all of us who live
here in Berlin or who are visiting can
think of the murals we see on the Berlin
Wall near the East Side Gallery right
you can think of modern artists like
Hebrew Brantly
Banksy and Shepard Fairey the street
artists of today are the graffiti
artists of the past and so now that
we’re clear on what hip-hop is let’s go
on to exactly what culture is I have
three definitions I like to own in
threes so we had three songs now we got
three definitions first culture is the
characteristic features of a way of life
shared by people in a place or time an
example of this would be the
Scandinavian region of the globe in the
1300s right Viking culture equality
between genders on the battlefield multi
deity worship and so on and so forth
second definition culture is the arts
and other manifestations of human
intellectual achievement regarded
collectively this definition makes me
think of the ancient Greek times right
time of philosophy that created a lot of
art architecture things that we still
draw from today the final definition is
my favorite and it’s the longest so
there we go culture is the integrated
pattern of human knowledge belief and
behavior that depends upon the capacity
for learning and transmitting knowledge
to succeeding generations my favorite
part about this is transmitting
knowledge to succeeding generations this
puts culture in the context of survival
the will to survive is the most common
human trait and we cannot survive
without culture one of the first things
we teach our young speaking reading and
writing so they communicate and it can
also understand communication
communication is key
for survival and culture is key for
survival hip-hop culture itself was
created in the late 1970s during a very
difficult time in my hometown city of
New York okay
the city was almost bankrupt
unemployment was really high there was a
very big drug problem and it was a very
violent time and hip-hop guided people
and gave them a way to survive this
particular time okay rap songs gave
stories warnings parties gave people
outlets and murals gave people a voice
okay now all the elements of hip-hop
cultural artistic and art is a very very
effective way to communicate we’ve all
heard the term a picture’s worth a
thousand words
right what would the Last Supper mean to
any of us with it without Leonardo da
Vinci’s painting all right this tells us
a lot what would Barack Obama’s 2008
campaign have been without the street
artists Shepard Fairey’s poster right
these pictures just with their title and
description can’t communicate as as much
as they can by you looking at them when
you look at them you immediately receive
a lot of information proving that visual
art is more efficient than the written
word hence the phrase a picture is worth
a thousand words
now as impactful as these images are I
think that music is even more impactful
two nights ago when I was preparing for
this TED talk right my neighbors decide
they want to yeah seriously my neighbors
decided they went to blast their music
now luckily they have good taste the
first one they were blasting was by
Frank Ocean and then they went into like
a prince medley now I was in my
apartment and whether I want to hear it
or not
their music reached me music reaches all
of us whether you want it to or not okay
not only did it reach me I could feel it
music has a vibration right so you can
literally feel it and that’s why music
serves as a platform for our experience
right why do nations have anthems and
war songs instead of just a flag okay
why does the bride walk down now to
music instead of just holding up a sign
right
because music can guide our perception
of a particular experience
hip-hop music has always been used to
God social and political perceptions
okay in 1991
actually before we go there in terms of
guiding perception let’s talk about what
people have said about hip-hop okay
Rolling Stone magazine the Chicago
Tribune and timeout London all named
Public Enemy song fight the power as one
of the most influential songs in history
all right Public Enemy is a very
old-school hip-hop group from the late
80s and early 90s right now back to us
named before in 1991 the Slobodan
Milosevic regime in Serbia had an armed
crackdown in Belgrade and they picked
out the radio station b92
and they banned them from transmitting
the news they said you can’t play news
no more news on the radio so what the
b92 do they played Public Enemy’s fight
the power over and over again to subvert
the band because they could express in
music what they could not say now why
did this group all the way in Serbia
choose a song made by a bunch of guys in
Long Island New York City because it was
hip-hop music and no genre and no
culture is more efficient than hip-hop
at transmitting knowledge in 2014 there
was a study by music match called the
largest vocabulary in music the genre of
hip-hop was found to have an average of
478 unique words per song the only genre
that comes even close is pop with 302
okay the average hip-hop song has 1,900
words in it when you also consider the
use of slang metaphor and dialect the
depth of this music gets expanded right
have anybody heard of the hit Broadway
play Hamilton okay
we know it’s not here but lin-manuel
Miranda the creator of this play when he
went on 60 minutes I want to read his
quote exactly he went on 60 minutes to
talk about his play and he talked about
why he used hip-hop he said I believe
that rap is uniquely suited to tell
Hamilton’s story because it has more
words per measure than any other musical
genre
it has rhythm it has density and if
Hamilton had anything in his writing it
was this density right so lin-manuel
Miranda used the power of hip-hop to put
20,000 words in his play the audience is
hearing up to 144 words per minute the
statistical analysis agency 538 said
that if Hamilton were used had used
another genre the play would have taken
four to six hours okay he did it and
under two and a half because of this
power and efficiency of hip-hop our
primary form of communication is the
word right we speak them we read them
and write them we sing them in hip-hop
we also rap them and in some cases spell
them out and intricate dance moves okay
and that is because it’s so efficient
nothing communicates as well as hip-hop
this is the only culture that analyzes
creates and identifies trends and human
culture this fast it is the only culture
that transfers transcribes and transmits
this much knowledge okay so what I want
you to do when you leave here if you
aren’t already I want you to listen to
some hip-hop music right if you’re not
already you’ll hear a lot of stories
about your neighbors you hear stories
from people far away from you and you’ll
hear what they’re going through you’ll
be informed about trends in fashion
technology science and play no just
having fun and beyond just listening to
hip-hop I want you to be inspired by it
whether or not you choose to learn how
to rap or paint big murals or dance you
too can harness this energy to effect
change in your community think about it
if a group of kids in 1970s New York to
create a movement that would one day
become the most dominant culture in the
world you can do the same my name is Ian
Lawrence I’m better known as the hip-hop
artist stimulus and I thank you for your time
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