Pedagogy of the Oppressors: Critiquing the Premise Behind Hip-Hop Pedagogy

• In Event: Hip-Hop-Based Pedagogy as Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Whose Culture Is It Really?

Abstract

Hip-hop is a movement that appears to be derived and maintained by an urban youth culture that is largely racially made up of African-Americans. However, what appears to be an authentic voice and showmanship of black youth culture from urban areas is chiefly manipulated, organized and controlled by a conglomerate that is not representative of those that are from urban environments, youthful in age, or black. Consequently, hip-hop is not genuine in its imagery from the spoken word to the unspoken perception that is disseminated to the worldwide audience.
The music industry, which is the cornerstone of hip-hop culture, is made up of an oligopoly of four major parent companies, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group. All four companies control a total of 75% of the music industry and are organized in similar fashion in comparison to each other.
Within these four companies is a family tree of subsidiaries and each branch in the music company manages and controls the hip-hop artist from their image to their financial gain from their own labor. Who, what, where, when, why and how is answered or approved by the parent company.
In summary, the production, distribution, publishing, labeling, merchandising, management, and even music cataloging of hip-hop music is largely under the governance of one of these four companies and none of the current or former CEO’s or executive officers have ever been identified as the same ethnicity or race as majority of the hip-hop artist on the companies talent roster, except for the handful of hip-hop artist who are of European decent.
Because mainstream hip-hop is guided by market forces that are controlled by Europeans, as educators, we should critique the way hip-hop pedagogy is used within classrooms from elementary to colligate levels. To present the notion that hip-hop is solely spawned from black urban youth would be incorrect and misleading.
This paper describes the manner in which the music industry is organized demonstrating that the majority of hip-hop artists are under the authority of their contracted parent company. Examples of hip-hop artists like Sean Carter (Jay-Z) and Sean Combs (P-Diddy) who may have founded their own label were still under the power of one of the “big four” music groups. The description of the music industry is vital to analyzing the justification of using hip-hop in classrooms. This paper will conclude with interrogating the use of hip-hop pedagogy as an effort to bridge the gap between academia and the urban streets from which black youth are believed to come.

Author

• Jada Phelps, Indiana University, IUPUI