http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/hip+hop/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Tue, 05 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2791/bigger_than_hip_hop/ "It's bigger!" roared T.J. Crawford. "It's bigger!" the crowd shouted back, in traditional call-and-response fashion. "It's bigger than hip hop!" Crawford, chairman of the National Hip Hop Political Convention (NHHPC), deployed the hook of a song by hip hop's iconic "conscious" group, dead prez, to bring home the point: Members of what marketers have labeled the "hip-hop generation" are concerned with much more than just nodding their heads to the beat. Politics is more important--bigger!--than music for activists who have felt swept aside and demobilized by black elders whose outlook was forged in the crucible of civil rights organizing. These young crews, along with the elders who hang with them on political issues, aim to seize leadership of what's left… hip hop race activism David Moberg Wed, 28 Feb 2007 05:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3051/making_black_voices_heard/ On February 10, the short documentary A Girl Like Me, about the pressures faced by young black females living in a white-dominated society, hit number one on YouTube.com's featured videos. One of the interviewees, Jennifer, 18, looks straight into the camera and confesses: "Since I was young, I considered being lighter [skinned] as … more beautiful than being dark skinned. … I used to think of myself as ugly because I was dark skinned." The film, which had been viewed more than 450,000 times as In These Times went to press, gave voice to a population that is often talked about but rarely heard from, much less listened to. A new University of Chicago study examining the experience of black… race hip hop movies David Moberg Tue, 22 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3198/blaming_hip_hop_for_imus/ Perhaps it was inevitable that discussions provoked by the words "nappy-headed hos" would come around to rap music and the culture of hip-hop. After all, hip-hop has taken the rap for just about every social ill: misogyny, gun violence, rampant materialism, anti-Semitism, gang warfare, even the decline of the NBA. Yes, to some extent, the insulting remarks of radio shock-jock Don Imus (who called the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos," for which he's been fired and subsequently sued) were drawn from a rhetorical subculture influenced by certain strands of rap music. But to focus on hip-hop as the instigator of our coarsening culture is a grievous misdiagnosis. Hip-hop, at its best, reflects, distills, amplifies, deconstructs and re-contextualizes the… hip hop media race David Moberg