Hip-Hop(e) The Cultural Practice and Critical Pedagogy of International Hip-Hop GROUNDING IN FREIRE S PRINCIPLES OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

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2 INTRODUCTION Hip-Hop(e) The Cultural Practice and Critical Pedagogy of International Hip-Hop MICHAEL VIOLA & BRAD J. PORFILIO To speak a true word is to transform the world. PAULO FREIRE (2000, P. 68) It had always been my desire to write, to seek through the written word the expression of my relation to the world and the world to me. W. E. B. DU BOIS (1983, P. 268) GROUNDING IN FREIRE S PRINCIPLES OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY Given the totalizing effects of an economic crisis felt throughout the world and the globalizing effects of structural adjustment programs, massive unemployment, racist xenophobia, and educational violence, the writings of Paulo Freire are important to revisit. Freire can be credited for establishing a revolutionary archive of work that focused upon the possibilities of education its history, contradictions, and tendencies. Furthermore, Freire developed a pedagogical method that refused to see human consciousness as stagnant or in isolation from various social forces. Viewing change as a quality inherent in society, Freire s writing focused on how and when human consciousness was able to conceptualize change (critical thinking) and why society sometimes appears not to be (naïve thinking). He delineates the two types of thinking as such:

3 2 INTRODUCTION Critical thinking contrasts with naive thinking, which sees historical time as a weight, a stratification of the acquisitions and experiences of the past, from which the present should emerge normalized and well-behaved. For the naive thinker, the important thing is accommodation to this normalized today. For the critic, the important thing is the continuing transformation of reality. (2000, p. 73) Freire s method was dialectical as he illuminated social forces as they came into contact with seemingly fixed educational and social institutions. As such, Freire viewed education not as a fixed field, but one that can be changed according to individual and collective needs, wants, and desires. Unlike mainstream educational approaches where one s methodology is confirmed by formally connecting logic and empirical evidence, Freire s method was verified in the struggle of bringing a new, democratic, and free world into being through the transformation of social practices and structures. Viewing education in constant transformation composed of interacting and contradictory forces, Freire strongly believed that educators, researchers, and cultural workers must take a position. His writings consistently posited are we fighting against the forces of change in order to maintain the present state of affairs? Or whether we are helping to change the world anew? Of great importance for Freire was the role of cultural production in educational projects guided by the ideals of social transformation and human liberation. Together with a team of critical educators, Freire immersed himself with landless peasants in Brazil, taught them to read and write, as well as learned of their everyday struggles. Through informal talks and discussions, Freire gathered an inventory of the basic vocabulary of the community that could be referenced to understand the most evident economic, social, educational, cultural, and political problems of the area. Cultural circles were formed where community members dialogued and shared their ideas, experiences, and views pertaining to these concepts presented as images. Through collective discussion participants coded and decoded their experiences to develop an analysis of what he called generative themes. Through the investigation and analysis of generative themes (levels of abstraction) in connection with the larger thematic universe (totality), Freire assisted participants in developing a critical form of thinking about their world. Freire s writing reminds us that culture is an essential terrain situated within arenas of battle between oppressed peoples fighting for their survival against the hegemony of White supremacy and global capital. African American social theorist, W. E. B. Du Bois echoed such a sentiment analyzing a myriad of his community s social practices, including African American hymns and songs. Du Bois maintained that these various forms of cultural and political expressions were important sites in forwarding new ideas, imaginations, and strategies of transformation. For instance, in homage to the roots of African American music, Du Bois placed at the beginning

4 INTRODUCTION 3 of each chapter in his most famous book, The Souls of Black Folk, a hymn from a Negro folk song. In the final chapter of his historic text, titled Of the Sorrow Songs, Du Bois explains that as a young child the music and cultural production of Negro spirituals stirred him, full of the voices of my brothers and sisters, full of the voices of the past (1989, p. 178). Du Bois maintains that historically, song was one of the few channels that slaves could speak to one another and to the world. Du Bois states (1989), And so by fateful change the Negro Folk-song the rhythmic cry of the slave stands to-day not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas. It has been neglected, it has been, and is, half despised, and above all it has been persistently mistaken and misunderstood; but notwithstanding, it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the Negro people. (p. 206) Parallels can be made of Du Bois insights and the emergence of global hip-hop as a cultural form and a means of articulating conditions in what the late social theorist Manning Marable has called global apartheid. Specifically, through their lyrics and cultural work, global hip hop intellectuals articulate their understandings and resistance to the racialized division and stratification of resources, wealth, and power separates Europe, North America, and Japan from the billions of mostly black, brown, indigenous, undocumented immigrant and poor people across the planet (Marable, 2004). In theorizing global hip-hop as a site of contestation as well as social transformation Paulo Freire offers yet another reminder, When a word is deprived of its dimension of action, reflection automatically suffers as well; and the word is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism (2000, p. 87). Freire continues, Denunciation is impossible without a commitment to transform, and there is no transformation without action. On the other hand, if action is emphasized exclusively to the detriment of reflection, the word is converted into activism. The latter action for action s sake negates the true praxis and makes dialogue impossible (2000, p. 88). Thus, for Freire, the development of critical consciousness and the act of denunciation were crucial steps for those struggling against lived conditions of exploitation and oppression. However, Freire further explains, If it was possible to change reality simply by our witness... we would have to think that reality is changed inside of our consciousness. Then it would be very easy to be a liberatory educator! All we would have to do is an intellectual exercise and society would change! No, this is not the question. To change the concrete conditions of reality means a tremendous political practice, which demands mobilization, organization of the people. (Freire & Shor, 1987, p. 134)

5 4 INTRODUCTION Freire s pedagogy revolves around the central idea of praxis where human beings as subjects can examine their experiences, reflect upon their conditions, and collectively act to change the material world. Such praxis requires cultural workers and committed educators who are immersed with the producing classes the youth, immigrant workers, militant teachers, and majority of citizens organizing to create the very foundations for a more just and peaceful society (Viola, 2009). Unfortunately, critical pedagogy has been quarantined within North American institutions of higher learning from its origins as an oppositional project for human liberation as scholars have ultimately distanced their analysis from the labor-capital problematic. As such, the analysis of human experiences has been detached from broader social relations and historical conditions. As editors of this volume, we believe Freire offers powerful insights as to how the articulation of human experience through such cultural practices as global hip-hop can enable one to study beyond the personal and link various social oppressions to the expansion of the capitalist world economy. Such a methodology provides transformative possibilities to the warnings made by feminist scholar Teresa Ebert that capitalism has always privileged experience because the logic of experience (local and individualistic) distracts critical inquiry and transformative action away from the system of capital (1996, p. 20). Freire utilized a critical methodology that did not oppose experience tout court, but rather historicized it and exposed the class relations that have helped shape and frame it. The research project of Freire is crucial in these times to refute the dangers where human experiences are creatively articulated, documented, and described albeit isolated from an underlying system of production that gives form to a less pleasant and recognizable reality. To be sure, Freire s critical pedagogy has been criticized for its explicit foregrounding of social class (hooks, 1994). Freire and other scholars of critical pedagogy that include Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, Donaldo Macedo, Antonia Darder, Joe Kincheloe, Sandy Grande, Ernest Morrell, and many others, have been receptive to such critiques, as the field has been adept in confronting issues of difference, identity, culture, and the politics of the body ensnared by racist and patriarchal representations. Nevertheless, Freire was adamant in his belief that social class was an important site of theoretical intervention. He illustrated this point as he connected the ideologies of racism with the structures of class exploitation. Freire is clear, One cannot reduce the analysis of racism to social class, one cannot understand racism fully without a class analysis, for to do one at the expense of the other is to fall prey into a sectarianist position, which is as despicable as the racism that we need to reject (2000, p. 15). Surely, new social, political, and cultural practices have arisen since Freire conveyed such insight. Critical scholars, radical educators, and committed activists must continue to confront the barbarism of our present moment marked by escalated

6 INTRODUCTION 5 social inequalities, heightened xenophobia, and patriarchal exploitation. In addition, we must also account for innovative formations of hope and possibility. Of particular interest in this volume is the recognition that diverse global identities are utilizing new forms of cultural production articulated through hip-hop to confront a myriad of social oppressions set in motion by global capitalism. Freire s work is not a finished project, but rather an undertaking that scholars of critical pedagogy must continually reinvent and augment in order to effectively challenge the racist xenophobia, (neo)colonial subjugation, and violent exploitation that continues to torment people of color throughout the world (McLaren, 2005). Freire states, The progressive educator must always be moving out on his or her own, continually reinventing me and reinventing what it means to be democratic in his or her own specific cultural and historical contexts (qtd. in Rabaka, 2010, p. 287). Taking up this call, we have organized this anthology in order to further theorize the emerging field of global hip-hop its conditions, contradictions, and cultures as well as its use value for radical social transformation in the classroom and in the streets. THE CONTESTED TERRAIN OF GLOBAL HIP-HOP It has been more than thirty-five years since the subjugated youth gathered in New York City in response to the unjust social conditions impacting their schools, families, and communities (Forman & Neal, 2004; Chang, 2005; Dimitriadis, 2001). Through various and innovative forms of cultural production such as break dancing, graffiti art, spoken word, and song racialized youth have offered powerful analysis and critique of their schools and social conditions (Hill & Ladson- Billings, 2009). Over the past three decades, hip-hop has become a site of contestation with a corporate music industry incredibly adept at redirecting hiphop s social energies away from critical expressions of struggle, protest, and resistance toward messages of materialism, greed, and individualism. The music that dominates the top of the charts speaks to this shift with social messages propagating individualistic pursuits of extravagant cars, flashy jewelry, and stylish clothes. Furthermore, the hip-hop icons of today often describe themselves as successful entrepreneurs ( hustlers in the game ) with their standpoint aligning more closely with White, male, corporate executives who promote a materialistic, misogynist, homophobic, and violent gangsta image of hip-hop culture (George, 2005; Magubane, 2006; Dyson, 1996; Porfilio & Carr, 2010). Beyond the hegemonic characterization of hip hop, there is an emergent hiphop culture that is radical, transformative, and international in scope. Youth across the globe have been inspired by the music and cultural work of hip-hop artists with