Hip-Hop Bringing Knowledge from the Streets to Academia

There have been a number of writings, recordings and television specials recently celebrating and discussing the “30th anniversary” of hip-hop. Since the late 1970s, hip-hop culture has steadily gained intellectual credibility, commercial momentum and an international recognition that has distinguished it from every other aspect of United States culture. Although the black American experience provides the theoretical framework for hip-hop’s origins, one unique feature of the culture has been its ability to translate across cultural, ethnic, racial, geographic and generational boundaries.

On the heels of hip-hop’s emergence as a global presence has come a group of educators working to connect the inner workings of the culture to formal academic curriculum. To understand how hip-hop culture fits into the larger context of the educative process, it is useful to incorporate the work of Howard Gardner. Gardner argued a theory of multiple intelligences, contending that there are a variety of mental operations associated with intelligence. The four “elements” of hip-hop culture — rapping/MC’ing, DJ’ing, b-boying and b-girling (or breakdancing), and graffiti — directly cater to at least four of these intelligences: linguistic, musical, kinesthetic and artistic.

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