Hip Hop Planet

Olivia Nyhammer

Mrs.Young

Sep. 22, 2014

English 110

In the short story “Hip Hop Planet” written by James McBride, the reader observes how McBride goes from despising hip hop when we first hears it at a party in Harlem in 1980, to appreciating the roots and motivations leading to the genre some may look at as explicit. The music at first makes him cringe since he is a jazz lover, for over 26 years he felt rap represented everything he didn't believe in. As he grows he realizes why they are rapping about such vulgar topics, how those terrible things they are rapping about are actually what motivated them to be heard. This touches his heart and allows him to understand. 

McBride first notices how in the mid-1970’s New York City was nearly broke, therefor schools needed to cut the funding for the arts. An ambitious young man named Afrika Bambaataa stuck a speaker in his mother’s living room window then ran a wire to a turn table to his bed room and set his whole building to their feet with dance music. Dj’s and MC’s were starting to make a name for themselves, the aspects of hip hop were getting more diverse, touching more and more peoples lives. Little did Bambaataa know that he would be the center of so much history yet to be made. 

Ethnomusicologists have been known to trace hip hops roots the drum, dance, and songs of the West Africans. They rapped the stories of slaves who survived throughout the middle passage. Verbal dueling and rhyming were empowering strategies for people of that times because it was their way of getting their word out there for the world to hear and that is what McBride comes to love and understand. McBride explains, “Yet I love it, the good of it. To confess a love for a music that, at least in part, embraces  violence is no easy matter” (McBride) He finally sees that this is music made from the soul to express pain that all different kinds of people have experienced. Anyone can love rap, even a jazz fan.