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News

Panel talks hip-hop issues

Speakers expound on social role the music plays in society today

by JOHN MICHAEL HAINES
The Daily Cougar

Hip-hop pioneer Dj Kool Herc said Wednesday that the style has grown from a means of personal expression to a potential vehicle for political change.

The discussion, which was organized by the UH chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and held in the University Center's Houston Room, included panelists from local and national organizations.

Adam Mansbach, panelist and author of Angry Black White Boy, said he is concerned with how hip-hop is effecting racial interaction.

"I wanted to examine the notion of what racists look like in this country now," he said. "There is a greater sympathy for these issues than there ever was before."

Mansbach said that hip-hop is making its way into many different parts of society.

"The second generation of hip-hop is literature, poetry, theater and the spoken word," he said.

Panelist Tory Nkrumah expressed his concerns about the movement's direction.

"If you were to look back at the 1980s, you would see that hip-hop was associated with the war on drugs," Nkrumah said. "If you were to take that thread and bring it to 2006, somewhere in there it turned into a glorification of drugs as a way to get paid."

Treatment of prisoners was one of the issues of great concern to hip-hop, panelists said. 

Panelist Nicole Porter said 225,000 people are locked up in Texas prisons and that although blacks only represent 12 percent of the population of Texas, they make up 46 percent of the prison population. 

"Ninety-nine percent of the prisoners will exit at some point in the future, and when they do, we want to make sure that they are mentally and physically healthy," Porter said. 

"A lot of times they have infectious diseases, such as HIV, or they do not have the tools necessary to gain employment." 

The discussion was held as part of a five-day hip-hop festival called B-Boy Hoedown 2006, which will run through Sunday at various venues around Houston. For more information, visit www.bboyhodown.com.
 

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