HUM 125: Hip-Hop Theory & Culture Midterm Review

• Exam: Wednesday, November 3, 2010.

• Disc 3 Discussion Group: Friday, November 5, 2010

Dr. Black: Sociology and History of African Americans:

• What are the three dimensions of neighborhood social disorganization?
1. The prevalence, strength and interdependence of social networks.
2. The extent of collective supervision and the degree of personal responsibility assumed
by the residents in addressing community problems.
3. Residential participation rates in voluntary formal and informal organizations.

• What are the four characteristics of oppositional culture?

▪ An oppositional culture devalues...
1. work
2. schooling
3. marriage
4. the above and stresses attitudes and behaviors that are anti-thetical [def:“directly
opposed or contrasted”] and often hostile to success in the larger economy.

Second Reflection Paper:

• What are Chuck D's Three E's of healthy community development?
1. Education
2. Economy
3. (Law) Enforcement

• What are Afrika Bambaataa's four basic elements of Hip-Hop Culture?

1. MC'ing (Rapping)
2. DJ'ing
3. B-Boying (Breakdancing)
4. Graffiti Writing

• What 1979 song is widely credited with introducing hip-hop to the mainstream?
▪ “Rapper's Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang

Chapters 13 & 14 of Rap Attack:

• Which two people founded the Def Jam record label?

▪ Rick Rubin
▪ Russell Simmons

• What does P.M.R.C. stand for, and who organized it?

▪ Parents Music Resource Center. It was a government music censorship advocacy
committee founded in 1985 “with the goal of increasing parental control over the access
of children to music deemed to be violent or sexually suggestive.”
▪ Tipper Gore, wife of Future Vice President Al Gore, was the main founder.
• Who organized the “Stop the Violence” movement?
▪ KRS-One started the movement in 1988.

• Who sued De La Soul and Tommy Boy Records for one million dollars, and why?
▪ “Tommy Boy Records and De La Soul found problems with the first album's cavalier
approach to sampling when The Turtles sued for $1.1 million for the unauthorized use of
a looped section from their 1969 track, 'You Showed Me'.”

• Which N.W.A. Album went gold in 1988?

▪ Straight Outta Compton, featuring the hit songs “Fuck Tha Police,” “Gangsta Gangsta,”
“Straight Outta Compton” and “Express Yourself.”

• In 1990, the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services labeled the young black
American male what?
▪ An endangered species.

• Define terms:
▪ Toasts: DJ talks over recorded music inserting catchy words and phrases on top of it.

▪ TAKI-183: a kid from 183rd Street in Washington Heights in northern Manhattan, his
simple signature earned him a profile in The New York Times. He was the first New
Yorker to become famous for writing graffiti.

▪ Social Disorganization: the inability of community members to achieve shared values

or to solve jointly experienced problems.

▪ Griot: a poet and keeper of history in African cultures.

▪ Deindustrialization: a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or

reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially heavy
industry or manufacturing industry. It is an opposite of industrialization.

▪ Cool Pose: the presentation of self many black males use to establish their male identity.
Cool Pose is a ritualized form of masculinity that entails behaviors, scripts, physical
posturing, impression management, and carefully crafted performances that deliver a
single, critical message: pride, strength and control.

▪ Afrika Bambaataa: a Hip Hop pioneer and founder of the Zulu Nation.

▪ Signifying Monkey:
1. a character of African-American folklore that derives from the trickster
figure of Yoruba mythology, Esu-Elegbara.
2. to imply, goad, beg, boast by indirect verbal or gestural means.

• Prepare to get in touch with your inner graffiti artist.