Students hip hop to 'Bad As I Wanna Be' Symposium

Author: Michael Murali

Middlebury College discussed the wide range of social and cultural issues surrounding hip hop in a three-day event titled "Bad As I Wanna Be, A Hip Hop Symposium" this past weekend. From Friday through Sunday, the College hosted a series of film screenings, lectures, panels and performances.

Chair of the Women and Gender Studies Department at Middlebury Sujata Moorti, had been working with other faculty and students on organizing the symposium for over a year.

"One thing that struck me in teaching my first class here at Middlebury was how so many students love hip hop," she said when asked about the influence for this project.

Will Nash, Associate Professor of American Studies and co-Head of Wonnacott Commons, had also worked on the symposium. This semester, he is teaching a first-year seminar called "Blues and American Culture." Nash particularly appreciated the way in which the symposium fused students' academic and extracurricular interests. "The student performance on Friday night was especially poignant," he raved.

Following a screening on Thursday night of the Marc Levin film "Godfathers and Sons," Greg Tate, a journalist for the Village Voice, delivered the keynote address on Friday night. Saturday consisted of a music workshop in the morning, followed by several panels and discussions in the afternoon and concluding with a film screening of "That Crack in the Concrete" by Tanji Gilliam and a hip hop duo performance.

The panel discussions were a particularly interesting aspect of the symposium. The "Uplift the Sex" panel, featuring Gwendolyn Pough of Syracuse University and Elaine Richardson of Penn State University examined the issues of gender in hip hop. Pough examined the "video hoes" of MTV and BET music videos and the way in which women are portrayed by the media. She discussed the ways in which black and Latina women in hip hop, while displayed merely for sex appeal, do have aspirations beyond being on music videos. Richardson gave a presentation on hip hop style, with a focus on the importance of hair in hip hop culture. She used examples of how black women are discriminated against for unconventional hair styles by giving the example of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), who was detained by a police officer because someone in her position would not have the hairstyle she had. Richardson raised some opposing issues on how hair can be seen in a positive light, such as in the case of Erykah Badu, who wore an Afro-wig during a performance as a part of Dave Chappelle's Block Party video.

When asked about the event turnout, Moorti responded that it was ultimately very well-received and said, "It was particularly heartening to see how pockets of students came to several events."

Richardson added, "The younger youth have different experiences than our generation…they are still developing a sense of themselves, consuming and participating [in what they see, read, hear, i.e. hip hop] at a different level…We need to talk about these issues."

The Hip Hop Symposium was sponsored by the Women and Gender Studies Program-Chellis House, the Academic Enrichment Fund, The Office of Institutional Diversity, Wonnacott Commons, The Music Department, The American Studies Department, Feminist Action at Middlebury, African American Alliance and Women of Color.

For those interested in future events of a similar nature, the symposium "Urban Landscapes: The Politics of Expression" will be at Middlebury from Sept. 29-30.