Hip Hop Culture and Black Americans Race
Smitherman History of Black Oral practices in relation to Hip Hop.
To the majority of African American youth, hip hop has been a component of their cultural characteristics since the 1960s. This was when Black power movements fought for Africa American civil rights. The phrase hip hop is used to refer to urban youth culture in America. Smitherman explains that hip hop came out of African verbal tradition and black background, also, a long history and duration of relations between black and Latino urban culture. Hip hop has been a product of the post-civilization age when Africa Americans were fighting for their civil rights. Africa American urban youths used hip-hop culture to express their poor living conditions. Hip hop in addition to being used as a cultural phenomenon was also a form of communication and dialogue for a resistance, laid down communicative actions that comprised a text of opposition against white Americans racial discrimination, and its Euro-centric cultural supremacy. Hip hop played a vital role as a political voice for these young African Americans.
The element of race has been identified in Smitherman’s analysis in different ways; the white Americans used the psychology, social and economic benefits for their own benefits. They used to describe the Americans who were descendants of Africa’s hair as nappy and non-straight. This feature was meant to indicate the inferiority of Africa Americans’ race. Also, the element of race is observed when the Boston magazine on its cover used the phrase H.N.I.C. referring to Dr. Gate who was the head of the Afro-American studies unit at Harvard University.
Hip Hop has shifted from initial understanding and is currently used by youth in the twentieth century to express their opinions on issues to do with unemployment, police brutality, increasing strict depiction of young and interior city dwellers; hip hop is black urban renewal.