MiX TAPEStry

Duke University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:

Performance: Sept. 28th 3-5PM ET


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Hip Hop is a cultural movement that began among African American and Latino communities in the South Bronx in the late 1970s. Portions of the culture began spreading into the mainstream during the early 1980s; by the 1990s, hip hop culture had spread all over the world.

The movement is said to have begun with the work of DJ Kool Herc, though the word "Hip-Hop" is believed to have been first used in the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang.

DJing

DJing

All activities in MiX TAPEstry will be tied to Hip Hop Culture:

  1. Break dancing, a specific, athletic style of dance almost always done to Hip Hop music.
  2. MCing, the art of writing and performing rhymes, usually over rhythm-heavy music.
  3. DJing, the use of turntables to manipulate records and create new music.
  4. Graffitti an urban art form where words and pictures are drawn with spray paint on walls, trains and other "urban bulletin boards."
My emancipation don't fit your equation. Lauryn Hill

The whole practice of graffiti deals with the reacquistion of spatial environments, and is a means of communication rooted in how identity relates to space. In MiXTAPEStry, the space being acquired is virtual. So by linking writing, music, history, and performance together we are, in effect, creating a digital simulation of Hip Hop culture in both locations. This can be thought of as an example of digital "call and response" in the tradition of hip hop music.

Remember: "It ain't where you're from..it's where you're at", and not just in a spatial or formal context but, also in a mental and more subjective fashion.

By John Jennings

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