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Published February 23, 2004; Category: EVENTS
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Hip-hop gets a bad rap, according to Becca Heller '05, lead organizer behind "Hip Hop Identities and Poetic Race Relations," a conference to be held at Dartmouth Friday, Feb. 27, and Saturday, Feb. 28. The conference seeks to promote aspects of hip-hop culture, including poetry, dance, turntable scratching, beatboxing and muralism, which challenge the dominant popular image of hip-hop promoted by certain artists in the recording industry.
"Hip-hop began by bringing communities and neighborhoods together on the streets of the South Bronx," said Heller. "For years, the positive and affirming aspects of the movement have been obscured by violent or misogynistic messages from certain pop rappers."
Heller leads a group of students, faculty members, administrators and community members committed to exploring hip-hop as a social movement with a positive message.
Drawing on artists, performers, academics and youth, the conference is headlined by Tricia Rose, Professor of American Studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz and winner of the American Book Award for her book Black Noise: Black Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Rose will speak from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 28, in Filene Auditorium.
Other presenters will include William Cook, Israel Evans Professor of Oratory and Belles Lettres at Dartmouth; Roger Bonair-Agard, the poet, rapper and playwright, as well as Dartmouth students, faculty members and members of the many performing troupes who will attend the event. These include: Soul Scribes, SHEBA, Lenelle Moise, The Libra Project, Mahina Movement, Young Chozen, Artists for Humanity, Boston's Project Hip-Hop and MC Akrobatik.
Although several other colleges have held scholarly conferences on hip-hop, few have used them as an opportunity to promote cultural understanding, Heller said. She is helping to plan follow-up conferences to be held at Brown in April and at Harvard in May.
"In spite of several decades of effort, racial and ethnic divisions still exist on college campuses," she said. "It's time to address these issues in a nontraditional format and in a language that is meaningful to all participants."
A schedule is on the conference website, www.dartmouth.edu/~eoaa/hiphop.htm.
By JAMES DONNELLY
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