By request: the professor "presents his research" to colleagues at the EMP Pop Conference (Photo by Jay Smooth). 

With any luck, Jay's shot of me getting down in a totally inappropriate venue should currently be appearing above, below or somewhere in the the neighborhood of this post. Note the amused expressions on the faces of Dr. Oliver Wang (far left) and Matos (far right). For more information on this bizarre and disturbing event, see Oliver's and/or Jah's recap (Scroll
down to April 16th).

Which reminds me, I'm not sure, but I think Julianne Sheperd (scroll down to May 20th) just challenged me to an uprock battle. I know I shouldn't feel flattered, since she challenges everyone to uprock battles, but yet somehow I do.

Friday, it was "Boogie Nation", a popping event in midtown put on by my pals Mysterio and Tiny Love. About halfway through the first battle, a well-dressed woman stepped in, noted that, "This is just like Zoolander!", and promptly left, leaving me sadly aware of how the rest of the world sees urban competitive dance. The event was hot, though...

On a more positive note, I hit Ken Swift’s Sole Lounge in Williamsburg last night. If you imagine what it would be like if a master b-boy designed his own underground club, this would be it: bouncy hardwood dancefloor, graffiti murals, great beats, great lighting, perfect size. Folks have been telling me for a while that you can tell a real b-boy or b-girl just by the way they carry themselves; they don’t even have to be dancing. I’m not sure I really understood that before last night: Kenny was wearing a pinstripe suit and dress shoes, but he still looked like he had to hold himself back from hitting a few airbabies.

On a totally different subject – or maybe not, come to think of it – one of the things I wanted to do with this blog is document the true spirit of the place where I live: Brooklyn, NYC. This was initially inspired by a news story about 1 ½ months ago, where Jadakiss was menaced by some "fans", who aimed automatic weapons at him as they drove past on the street. Lost in all the handwringing about violence and guns and stuff in hip-hop was the fact that these dudes were riding in a stolen tow truck. Now that’s some Brooklyn shit for real, son. I double-checked the story and, sure enough, they were from the BK. So I just felt like I needed to call attention to that. ("Polish your Escalades and your 64 Impalas, fools - we live in Brooklyn, baby, and we’re coming to tow your shit…and we’ve already ordered 35-inch spinners for the ill cement mixers we’re bringing out in 2006. Word.")

Anyway, I was reminded of that this morning by a piece in the Times (section 14, p. 4) about how shark sitings in the various waters around New York were a relatively common phenomenon through the 19th century. One sentence in particular stood out: "In August 1869, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote that an eight-foot shark – an ‘immense animal, floundering around furiously in the pond’ – had washed up into a swimming hole near 15th street and Hamilton Avenue. It was promptly shot, speared and pulled ashore, where, the paper reported, ‘the animal was skinned by some boys, the skin being said to make excellent sand paper.’" That’s right: they shot a shark. Welcome to Brooklyn.

Participant-Observation

I just noticed that the "Freestyle Sessions" board features pics from King Uprock’s Dollar Jam last Saturday, several of which feature me looking goofy in the background. This reminded me of two things [if you know me, you know that that is pretty much my motto]:

1. I need to figure out how to put links in the text of my blog posts. As you can see, I have accomplished that; and

2. In my opinion, there’s a real problem with what might charitably be called a "lack of self-awareness" among people who claim to be hip-hop scholars. I humbly suggest that ethnography/participant-observation can be a valuable tool in combatting that. Because, although it may not be apparent from the pics, in addition to hanging out and getting down in the cypher, I was also doing research for my current project, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Communities of Style (I’m telling you, I’m nice with the titles, man – it’s all about the rhythm).

It’s really not possible to not be self-aware when you’re doing ethnography, because your relationship to the community is the foundation of your research, and people will say something to you if they feel misrepresented. So why don’t more people do ethnography when they are writing about an art form that emerged from (or is centered within) a community that they are not part of? Like, if you’re interested enough in people to write a book about them, why wouldn’t you want to hang out with them? It’s not a rhetorical question. Why not?

One answer is that many academics who write about hip-hop come from lit crit disciplines that were created to analyze expressive arts as abstractions of social/economic circumstances, so their subjects' sense of their own role is more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. Although I think this is kind of true in some cases, simply ignoring people’s own intentions does not strike me as a productive approach to the issue. Because then all you’re really doing is substituting your own point of view for theirs, which is frankly kind of arrogant.

I turn to my esteemed colleague Dr. John Creaux on this point:

You may find me in a project slum,
Be hangin’ out with all the skid row bums
I may be sick and I may seem dumb-
That don’t mean you know where I’m comin’ from.

("Qualified", from the dope ass album In The Right Place)

Another answer is that your objectivity is compromised, which is certainly true. But, when you’re talking about cultural practices, the choice is not between subjectivity and objectivity, the choice is between subjectivity and ignorance.

The issue came up recently when I was talking to Jah (not God – the other Jah), and the question - I think wisely – was turned around: so what kind of person *does* choose subjectivity over ignorance? If you think about it, the question kind of answers itself.

One of the things that makes participant-observation uncomfortable for anyone that tries it is that – by definition – you are unfamiliar with the cultural expectations of the situation you are in. In other words, you feel like an idiot. People who are resistant to feeling that way tend to either not put themselves in that situation in the first place, or force their own interpretation on the social world around them, both of which make for bad scholarship.

But to be a good ethnographer, you have to being willing to feel like an idiot - and college professors are not known for having this quality. I would – and have - argued that my greatest strength as a scholar is that I don’t care if people think I’m stupid. Why? Because that’s how you learn stuff. When I give my card to people in the hip-hop community, they inevitably get this look in their eyes like, "Really? You have a Ph.D.? Are you sure?" Why? Because I don’t go around trying to prove I’m smart! I ask questions. I listen to people. I learn about the culture. I get clowned. I learn about the culture. I get physically pushed into a b-boy cypher (as I did Saturday by Tiny Love – thanks, Tiny!). I learn about the culture. It’s called research. Y’all should try it some time.

Public Discourse

I just got back from Union Square, where I saw a leftist standing in front of a banner that held George Bush responsible for 9/11 give a rambling 45-minute screed, then hand his megaphone over to a guy who politely disagreed with most of his points, then handed the megaphone back. Then the first guy politely defended his position. Why don’t I ever see anything like that on TV?

Malcolm Shabazz

First of all, the name thing is such a deep part of the Malcolm X myth: Malcolm Little becomes Malcolm X becomes El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, each at a decisive point in his development. But I always wondered: if he didn’t take the name "Shabazz" until 1964, what was his childrens’ last name up until then? X? Was that their legal last name? After all, as "born Muslims" they didn’t have any other last name. So did they have a different last name from their father? Did they all change their names when he did?

Eventually, it became evident that in his daily interactions he had used the name "Malcolm Shabazz" for the majority of his adult life, throughout all the changes (you can even hear Elijah Muhammed refer to him as "Malcolm Shabazz" in some of those old clips from when he was still in the Nation of Islam). And for me, that name really captures the essence of who he was; the ultimate distillation of all his names put together. Malcolm Little + Malcolm X + El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz = Malcolm Shabazz. It’s as if, in his own life, he didn’t want to deny any aspect of who he had been. Think about how hard that is to do when your whole life is committed to self-improvement, and it can only make you admire him even more. It’s like if every time you met someone new, you had to show them a picture of yourself from junior high school – "that’s what I used to be like". That to me is true bravery. The bravery of a real human being, not a myth.

I remember that when Spike Lee’s Malcolm X came out in 1992, the main thing that struck me about it was that it was a movie. When I mentioned this to people, they had no idea what I was talking about and I couldn’t really explain it at the time. But I guess what I meant was that - although I hadn’t really thought about it until the movie came out - I had a very clear sense of Malcolm being an actual person who really lived in real places and interacted with people that you, personally, could actually meet. And a movie, by its very nature, could not express that. In some fundamental way, the Malcolm of my mind was not a character – he was a person. Malcolm Shabazz. Of course, that’s technically true of any historical figure that they make movies about. Nevertheless, I didn’t feel that way when I saw Ali or Frida or even Steal This Movie, which was about Abbie Hoffman, who I actually did meet. There was something about Malcolm Shabazz that just exuded "real person"-ness: humanity.

I thought about this a lot yesterday, when I went to see Malcolm X: A Search For Truth, an exhibit of Malcolm Shabazz’s papers and personal effects which runs at the Schomburg Center in Harlem through the end of the year. I still can’t explain it, but there’s something about the simple act of seeing his stuff that is just overwhelming. And it’s not like I’ve never seen famous people’s stuff before. I mean, I’ve seen everything from Jimi Hendrix’s guitars to to Gandhi’s bed. But, man, to see Malcolm’s Quran. To see his handwritten diary from his last trip to Africa. To see the letters that he wrote from prison, starting with a series of regular - though very introspective - prison letters until suddenly there’s one that begins, in all capital letters, with AS-SALAAM ALAIKUM. I’m telling you, a chill ran down my spine. You are actually seeing the moment his life changed, in his own handwriting.

And, as someone who lectures for a living, I can’t even explain what it felt like to look down at a table that contained Malcolm’s handwritten lecture notes, and - without even intending to - trying to work out the lecture he was going to give, "Oh, I see, he wants to start off with this subject, and make sure to use that phrase, then connect it with this and bring it back to that."

You know, I’d always been a little mystified that the highest compliment you can give someone (at least a guy) in Yiddish is to say that he is a mensch – literally, a "person". I’d always taken it to mean that he exemplified the qualities one would want to see in a human, but now I realize it also has to do with your own relationship to the individual in question: He is not only great, but I can relate to him. He makes me understand the potential that we all have as people. He is a person.

Malcolm was a person. A mensch. The effect was enhanced by the guard, who informed me that the pleasant woman standing next to me was "one of his daughters" (I don’t know which one – but it was not Atallah, the only one would I would recognize offhand).

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Joe's Guns-For-Numchuks Program

I am starting a movement to bring back nunchaku, the Japanese weapon known colloquially as numchucks (consisting of two sticks attached by a chain or rope). They’re better than guns in every way. They’re cheaper, you look cooler using them, it’s fun to say, plus I’m pretty sure they’re still illegal in New York, so it’s not like you’d be selling out. How different all of our lives would be if 50 Cent had been smacked 9 times with numchucks instead of shot. Plus, I just checked online and the price of numbchucks hasn’t gone up since I bought mine in 1980. Hope your pension plan didn’t invest in numchucks!

Oh, and as long as I’m being nostalgic, I’d also like to request the return of MC’s who have beef showing up at each other’s concerts and demanding to battle live right then-and-there. Thank you.

Hip-Pop Culture

This is my first post, and it’s here mainly so that when I finally feel like posting it will be my second post and not my first, so less pressure. Trying to get a little joementum going, as senator Loverman once put it.

But as long as I’m talking about origins, let me tell you my theory about where the word "hip-hop" comes from. Now we all know that Bambaataa was the first to apply it to the culture, and that the phrase was floating around (I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t remember which MC is actually credited with originating it, I think either Busy Bee or Coke La Rock). But before that there was a common phrase used by Black radio deejays and announcers that went something like:

"This next song/performer will make your knees freeze,
your back crack,
your liver quiver,
your hip pop & jump out the socket…"

I even have a bootleg James Brown tape from 1974 where his announcer Danny Ray says it, too (actually, with the addition of "will make your bladder splatter", which I don’t think I would like).

The music of course was called b-beat. From "breakbeat". But you could hear it had a back crackin’, hip-poppin’ quality to it. Say it (out) loud. Now remember how fast "word is bond" became "word is born" and "Making G’s" turned into "Making cheese". So, hip-hop. Just a thought. Anyway, welcome to my blog.