Hip Hop Culture By Fernando Orejuela Summary

This paper seeks to examine the different dimensions of hip hop, and what the hip hop culture means to different people. After reading Fernando Orejuela’s Rap and Hip Hop Culture, one would get a better understanding of the different dimensions of the hip hop culture. For instance, there is a cultural dimension that has played a tremendous role in the hip hop culture. Many of the modern styles of dancing and music have come from traditions that were passed down. According to Orejuela, this is in part because of slavery (5). “Hip hop culture has its roots in the spread of African and Latino peoples from their original homes to the Americas”, states Orejuela (5). Orejuela goes on to discuss how their customs were brought over, and have been passed

Orejuela believes that hip hop cannot be looked at superficially. For instance, “the more we treated hip hop with color-blind lenses and the more homogenized the sound became, the more difficult it was to discuss what hip hop was, is, and is yet to be” states Orejuela (xi). Orejuela went on to later describe hip hop in detail, and even gave a definition as to what hip hop entails. According to Orejuela, “Hip hop includes four related art forms – Djing, MCing, breaking (b-boying), and graffiti – that are the product of a unifying ideology” (2). Therefore, one can understand that there is more to hip hop than meets the eye, and Orejuela felt passionately about this. “As an umbrella term to refer to music alone, it fails to describe the scope of the culture, its original four elements…, ideology, historical figures, and current population that remain relevant to the hip hop’s mission” declared Orejuela

Throughout this book, it becomes quite clear that Kitwana views this generation as misunderstood. Kitwana believes that both the public and the past generations of the Black youth misunderstand this generation. According to Kitwana, one way the public misunderstands Black youths is by blaming them for certain issues. Kitwana states, “…African America [sic] youth for much of the past two decades, have been deemed the problem…as the architects of America’s declining moral values” (xx). As for the past generations, one would gather from Kitwana’s book that they are ashamed of this hip-hop generation. For example, Kitwana claims “Another component of this criticism is fear---fear of what the older generation did to make the hip-hop generation vastly different from their own” (23). The hip-hop generation, according to Kitwana hold beliefs from the previous generations. Kitwana states, “The core set of values shared by a large segment of the hip-hop generation…stands in contrast to our parent’s worldview” (7). According to Kitwana, “most of our parents, and especially civil right leaders and community activists, would rather ignore rap’s impact…than explore its role in the lives of the hip-hop generationers [sic]” (23). It is also evident that he feels passionately about the union of the public, the hip-hop