It's Like Dis + The Beat Tape #JDISSERTATING

Afternoon Marauders

The Beat Tape

((Listen)) to it click here

Dedicated to my Brother Gravity...

It's Like Dis

Hey yo Jus, it's time
Word, word, it's time, man

There's no final hour for this
When those you learn from leave traces to find your way
Into not just your life's work, but the work of many lives
Your journey found way into the welcome of homes of many brave men and women that weathered this nation's loud storms
You once told me we're in the business of thinking
And I thought about this and always imagined the great things you would do while remembering the moments you invited us to take part in to think too

Your work has always been a shared space
A ground of acknowledgments for those that stood taller than we ever could amidst challenges learners have yet to give the kind of thought and time for
When we wrap a talk up our sense of honoring friendship and who and what we talk about is crystallized and though our sense of humor has never wavered I know how sincere you are and how much you've grappled with internally to maintain not just a sense of honor, sense of humor, but also a sense of balancing friendship with education, scholarship with brotherhood, being a son with now being a father...all these things are a part of our lives too.

To understand today's milestone we gotta revisit all the places and spaces
Stories and circumstances that lead to us gathering through broadband access in a world that's ill, we celebrate amidst a tragic feed of what's going on in today's complicated stream of unconscious leadership, confusion and noise

To say I'm proud of you ain't it...it's bigger than that

I'm proud to be a part of what you do and have come to realize that friendships can be timeless too...can endure and play different roles depending on the situation that presents itself when we wake up to a new day, different beats

For all you've worked for, much love.

Check.

Lee aka B.Chess

Malcolm X & the Sudanese Documentary

Malcolm X & the Sudanese Documentary click here

Thankful for documentaries such as this one that place the focus on individuals such as Ahmed Osman who truly impacted Malcolm's progress forward and his plans prior to being taken from us. These are the stories that push us to learn more and that push us to preserve Malcolm's legacy and initiate study and understanding into his ideas for a better tomorrow. Respect to Hisham Aidi and the filmmakers of this wonderful documentary. Below are some other resources connected to this documentary.

Malcolm X Visit to Dartmouth Campus: click here

Important resource to study for one of Malcolm's final public speeches.

archive.org: One of my personal favorite resources. One I don't often tap into enough. I look forward to digging through this digital resource for anything and everything related to Malcolm X. Check in with the Internet Archive!

Hisham Aidi - Show some love to one of the individuals involved with this documentary @HishamAidi. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Dr. A.D. & Prof. De Senso

From Lawyers to Language Practices
Two Hip Hop Professors & the Living Legacy

of 2 Live Crew by Sarah Hartman-Caverly
of Thun Library

Article: click here

Fly By Night #HHtheAtre

Fly By Night

Peace to Thes One!

Mogul

Mogul

"Mogul is a variant of the word Mongol, which we often use to refer to the empire once led by the famous (or infamous) Genghis Khan. The Mogul Dynasty conquered India in the 16th century, and remained in power for hundreds of years. As a result the word mogul became synonymous with "leader" or "ruler" (Vocabulary.com).

As I listened to the most recent podcast conversation between Premium Pete and Co-Founder of Loud Speakers Network Chris Morrow (Podcasting in 2019), I caught mention of plans for a potential Mogul episode about Combat Jack's life. It made me go back to all those times I listened to the Combat Jack Show and heard Combat urge listeners to check in and listen to the Mogul series he'd just produced about the life & death of Chris Lighty. I don't know what it was at the time, or why I never checked for it. I suppose I was most interested in the Combat Jack Show itself, or maybe was discouraged from thinking that Mogul was only accessible through a streaming service I didn't have access to. No excuses, I slept. And as I listened to the idea of a Mogul episode dedicated to Combat, I thought about Combat's episode on Lighty a lot more and made the decision to search for the episode, found it, and checked in. Once I started, I couldn't stop. By the end, I recognized the labor of love that Combat put into what seemed like a lifetime project that only someone like Combat could've accomplished. 

As I reflect back on the transitions of the Combat Jack Show, Mogul started to feel like a vision that I listened to Combat develop over the years. A whole other way of telling a story, the next step up into the podcast platform that Combat & crew were creating in our imaginations. It was a story told in a way that simply couldn't be captured any other way or by anybody else. You felt Combat's connection to the story and those interviewed that shared their reflection on the rise of Chris Lighty from the burning borough of the Bronx all the way to a conversation of mental illness and the last chapter of Lighty's physical time here on earth. There's something powerful in the way this story is presented. I'm reminded of when I listened to Chinky of Queensbridge reflect on Prodigy's impact on her life in the Realness Podcast. There were so many more layers to this project, so much more time and effort, "blood, sweat and tears" type work. In some ways I hope taking the time to hear this show honors Combat's vision for this type of storytelling, but also recognizes what Combat was teaching us in so far as how these stories can be put together, documented, and presented in a way that a mind can't forget.

Prior to this episode, I didn't know much about Chris Lighty. What I did know was the familiarity of the voices of the microphone masters he was associated with. As Combat Jack did during his time on the mic, I want to encourage visitors to check in on the Mogul podcast. I can only imagine what a Mogul podcast about Combat Jack would sound like and to hear those that were closest to Combat reflect. To imagine Premium Pete, Dallas Penn, A-King, Chris Murrow, and Combat's family coming back together to honor their dear friend who was an ever present voice in our lives for so many pivotal years in podcasting Hip Hop. I gotta say though, I wasn't feeling the idea of a Mogul episode about Combat being a 2 episode program. If anything, hopefully that Mogul blueprint can be honored in a way that reflects the inception of the idea itself. 

Below are links to a number of stories on Mogul including the 6 part series produced by Combat Jack. RIP.

The Life & Death of Chris Lighty: Soundcloud / ((listen))

The Making of Mogul, the Life & Death of Chris Lighty: Soundcloud / ((listen))

'Mogul': Even in Death, Chris Lighty Takes Hip Hop to Another Level: NPR The Record / Read

Critical Approaches to Hip Hop 2019

This semester, Spring 2019 Hip Hop Alumni introduced a first of its kind course at Penn State Berks cross listed with African American and Interdisciplinary studies AMST226N: Critical Approaches to Hip Hop

James aka SkydeJames of HHA

The course examines the politics of hip hop art and culture by placing hip hop in a broad historical context tracing its aesthetic and cultural roots from Africa to Jamaica to 1970s New York City and then forward 1980s and beyond. For more information on the course contact Professor Justin De Senso at jxd367@psu.edu.

Below are shots from the Penn State Berks Thun Library with a display for Hip Hop Stacks in recognition of the new Critical Approaches to Hip Hop course at PSU, 2019. Shout out to the Thun librarians!

HHA Op-Ed Truthout.org #Speakout

Teaching the Roots of Trumpism

One Semester In by Justin De Senso

Truthout / Speakout

Op-Ed: click here

Hip Hop Alumni (HHA)

Return of the #BoomBap93 #JDISSERTATING

#listening to KRS-One

Return of the Boom Bap

#BoomBap93 @hiphopalumni

#TBW2016cj

Illustration by Z.Hill of Rhyanes entering juvenile prison

Creative Expressions of Masculinity 

In & Out of Juvenile Detention

This summer HHA instructor Lecroy Rhyanes is teaching at the UTEP College of Liberal Arts.  Check the hashtag #TBW2016cj.  Below is a course description and history.

This hybrid course will explore how incarcerated youth express gender identity through the creative arts.  We will pay particular attention to how such youth understand and articulate what it means to be a man. Students in this course will analyze primary sources, including poetry recordings, Hip Hop music, and stories created by incarcerated youth from the borderlands.

Course meetings will take place once a week in the evening face to face along with an interactive online learning component that will utilize both multi and social-media resources.  Online work will consist of reflective responses to the course text titled Hidden Truth, Young Men Navigating Lives In and Out of Juvenile Prison by Adam Reich and The Beat Within, a weekly publication of writing and art from incarcerated youth. The Beat Within, founded in 1996, shortly after the death of Hip Hop icon Tupac Shakur, celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2016.

The primary sources to be utilized for this course date back to the Instructor Lecroy Rhyanes’ volunteer activities inside of juvenile detention centers in El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Between 2006-2014, Rhyanes encouraged incarcerated youth to write poetry to send to The Beat Within and recorded hundreds of poems, Hip Hop songs, and music composed by the youth.  The primary goal was to engage youth in creative learning and share the recordings amongst the youth in the prison, their families, the prison staff, and the community. The program was called Voices Behind Walls (VBW), a volunteer creative expression and arts program.

Students in this course will analyze how creative expression programs such as VBW, The Beat Within, and The Hidden TREWTH - Reich’s newspaper program facilitated inside juvenile detention - help incarcerated youth reflect on who they are and where they’re from. Primary sources, such as the VBW recordings will provide examples of how male youth living on the border understand themselves, their lives, and who they are as men through rhyme.  Most of the incarcerated youth that participated in VBW, we will discover understand masculinity through Hip Hop, and these “Hip Hop masculinities” are inseparable from criminalized understandings of maleness (to be tough, violent, or gangsta).  At the same time, Hip Hop is also inseparable from its ability to reconnect youth to community, knowledge of self, and using creative expression as restorative practice.  With these ideas in mind, this course ultimately aims to explore the possibilities of creative expression as well as how incarcerated youth experience and articulate gender.

#HHArchives PS Berks Students Host Die-In

A write up with photographs from a Penn State Berk's Contributor from December 13, 2014 

Penn State Berks' Students Host Die-In

"He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

On Monday December 8, Penn State Berks students came together for a "die-in" located in the Perkins Student Center lobby. A die-in is a form of peaceful protest where people lie down on the ground and simulate being dead. The die in made its way on the WFMZ news - watch here. Signs that hung on the auditorium doors read "Now who do you call when cops kill" and "Justice For Mike Brown".

Another die-in was held in Thun Library on Wednesday, December 10. Professors even got involved - Professor Justin De Senso lies on the ground in the bottom left corner below.  

 
Original Post: click here

The Popular Arts in America HH History

 The Popular Arts in America:

The History of Hip Hop

#AFAM126_2016

The Pennsylvania State University

Summer 2016

June 27 - August 3, 2016

Online

This summer HHA is teaching an online course 'The Popular Arts in America: The History of Hip Hop' #AFAM126 at Pennsylvania State University Summer 2016 June 27 - August 3, 2016 with Professor Justin De Senso.  For more information contact jdesenso@gmail.com. Check the hashtag #AFAM126_2016.
 

English Teacher's HH Curriculum

English Teacher's Hip-Hop Curriculum Gets Students Writing

QUOTES... for the full article click on the source link below.

"Lauren Leigh Kelly, an English teacher at Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills, N.Y., and an adjunct English instructor at Teachers College, Columbia University, has found that incorporating rap and hip-hop culture into the literacy curriculum can help connect instruction to students’ individual backgrounds and foster their interest in writing."

"In 2011, Kelly designed a Hip-Hop Literature and Culture class at her school to engage students in the study of hip-hop texts, including songs, films, and music videos, as a means to develop media literacy and critical-analysis skills."

“So [I was] having them relook at the texts that they loved already or were curious about and ask really deep questions of them,” Kelly explained. “They were pulling out more questions, more evidence—they were looking at the voices that weren’t heard, like who are we not seeing or hearing and what would they be saying if we could.”

#tweetcite

"English Teacher @djdutchesss #HipHop Curriculum Gets Students Writing" @EdWeekTeacher @gatesfoundation http://bit.ly/29rjnfL by @EPMcNeil

For more information about Lauren Leigh Kelly visit laurenleighkelly.com 

Yin & Yang

Artwork by Tonio48

Yin and Yang

JKD Symbol Explained

by Bruce Lee

"JKD is based on the symbol of Yin and Yang, a pair of mutually complementary and interdependent forces that act continuously, without cessation, in this universe. In the above symbol, the Yin and Yang are two interlocking parts of 'one whole,' each containing within its confines the qualities of its complementaries. Etymologically, the characters of Yin and Yang mean darkness and light. The ancient character of Yin, the dark part of the circle, is a drawing of clouds and hill. Yin can represent anything in the universe as: negativeness, passiveness, gentleness, internal, insubstantiality, femaleness, moon, darkness, night, etc. The other complementary half of the circle is Yang, which in its ancient form is written with the lower part of the character signifying slanting sunrays, while the upper part represents the sun. Yang can represent anything as positiveness. activeness, firmness, external, substantiality, maleness, sun, brightness, day, etc. The common mistake of most martial artists is to identify these two forces, Yin and Yang as dualistic (thus the so-called soft styles and the firm styles). Yin/Yang is one separate force of one unceasing interplay of movement. They are conceived of as essentially one, or as two co-existing forces of one indivisible whole. They are neither cause and effect, but should be looked at as sound and echo or light and shadow. If this 'oneness' is viewed as two separate entities, realization of the ultimate reality of JKD won't be achieved. In reality, things are 'whole' and cannot be separated into two parts. When I say the heat makes me perspire, the heat and perspiring are just one process as they are co-existent and the one could not exist but for the other. If a person riding a bicycle wishes to go somewhere, he cannot pump on both pedals at the same time or not pumping them at all. In order to go forward, he has to pump on one pedal and release the other. So the movement or going forward required this 'oneness' of pumping and releasing. Pumping is the result of releasing and vice versa, each being the cause and result of the other Things do have their complementaries, and complementaries co-exist. Instead of mutually exclusive, they are mutually dependent and are a function each of the other. In the Yin/Yang symbol there is a white spot on the black part and a black on the white one. This is to illustrate the balance in life, for nothing can survive long by going to either extremes, be it pure Yin (gentleness) or pure Yang (firmness). Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked. while the bamboo or willow survive by bending with the wind. In JKD, Yang (firmness) should be concealed in Yin (gentleness) and Yin in Yang. Thus a JKD man should be soft yet not yielding, firm, yet not hard." SOURCE

#HHbeAtz Volume 1 Nick Deals #HHArchives

Nick Deals HHbeAtz ((listen))
YouTube: click here 

#HHArchives

This beats were passed on to us from Nick Deals in 2009 for the development of Hip Hop Alumni's online web presence.  At the time we wanted to feature background music on the homepage and decided on the ninth track which you could hear at the Soundcloud link below.  At the time the tracks were untitled.  We've added the CD to our #HHArchives with titles by #Lee.  The link above will provide ((listen)) to ((Gymkata)) and the Soundcloud link below is for the ((Shaolinen)) instrumental.

((Shaolinen)) click here HHA Soundcloud

  

#HHbeAtz Volume 1

Beats Produced by Nick Deals

Track titles by #Lee

1. Introducing

2. Beat Rituals

3. Wild Wild East

4. Street Midas

5. The Last One

6. Eastern Promise

7. Barricades

8. NJ Brothers

9. Shaolinen ((listen))

10. Keys Demo

11. What I Do It 4

12. Gymkata ((listen))

13. The Keep

14. Shields

15. Get It

16. Stuntmen

17. Masters of the Universe

18. Short Clips Finale

19. Introducing Revisited

#HHArchives

Ruben Salazar Man in the Middle

Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle

A Documentary by Phillip Rodriguez

Here's an article about the El Paso premier at UTEP in 2014.

(click on image for an Expanded View)

Moon Over Malcolm | Phil Darius Wallace

(click on image for Expanded View)

Moon Over Malcolm

The Transformation of Malcolm X

A story published in the Tejano Tribune about Phil Darius Wallace's one man act "Moon Over Malcolm: The Transformation of Malcolm X" in El Paso, Texas on February 24, 2014.

Introducing #HHArchives Abington Poetry Slam 2002

Introducing the #HHArchives

We're all libraries of information and experiences. A lot of stories. It's difficult to document these things in a way that matters, in a way that is accessible, and in a way that will last.  Over the past twenty years using the internet, it seems to me Google will be the only place online that won't break links.  #HHArchives is an attempt to share pieces of information we've saved over the years that hold meaning to what we've done, what's inspired the things we do today, and what reminds us of what we hope to accomplish tomorrow.

Below are clippings from a Time Chronicle article that I saved of Justin De Senso's Penn State University Abington poetry slam in 2002. 

"It's about learning about yourself and learning about language. To express oneself truly is one of the meanings of life for me." - Justin De Senso

#Lee

Dear Dilla by Phife Dawg / VIDEO

'Dear Dilla' Video by Phife Dawg
Watch: click here

Memories of art that will forever live with us.  Rest in peace Phife Dawg and J Dilla.

#Lee  

Julian Alexander NMSU HHA Alumni

click on image to enlarge and read

Where Minorities Stand in the World of Entertainment

by Julian Alexander, filmmaking graduate

from the Creative Media Institute

at New Mexico State University

When the Beat Was Born Interview

When the Beat Was Born Interview
with author Laban Carrick-Hill

and illustrator Theodore Taylor III

by Lee Rhyanes

DOWNLOAD (PDF): click here

If unable to access via link please email

hiphopalumni@gmail.com for PDF*

In 2016, When the Beat Was Born, DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop

was selected for the Texas Bluebonnet Award after receiving a total of

15,146 votes from grade school children throughout Texas.

Read more about the text and the authors by downloading the 

When the Beat Was Born Interview from the link above.

Peace.