Transcript This Is My Voice From Harlem to Hip Hop

This Is My Voice
From Harlem to
Hip Hop
What Is It?
The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering
of African American social thought which
was expressed through:
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Literature
Visual Art
Music
Dance
Theater
The Harlem Renaissance also known as The New
Negro Movement began around 1918 and lasted
to about 1933, although short lived it changed the
face of black America forever.
It was part of a nationwide urban revolution
sparked by World War I (1914-18) and precipitated
by the Great Migration, when huge numbers of
African Americans migrated to the industrial North
from the economically depressed and agrarian
South bringing the debate over racial identity and
the future of black America to the forefront of the
national consciousness.
It was a time when African Americans were
encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to
become “The New Negro," a term coined in 1925
by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke in his
influential book of the same name. The term “New
Negro” captures the quest for self-identity and selfvisualization that characterizes the period.
The Harlem Renaissance featured some of the
biggest names in writing, literature, music, visual
and performing arts fields.
Writers such as W.E.B. DuBois, Claude McKay, Zora Neale
Hurston, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson and
Langston Hughes established themselves as exceptional
writers of this period.
Artists including Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglas, Lois
Mailou Jones, James Van Der Zee, Augusta Savage, Laura
Wheeler Waring, Edward Harleston and Romare Bearden:
and musicians and composers, Louis Armstrong, Duke
Ellington Cab Calloway, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie,
James Flecther Henderson, Charles Parker, Lester Young,
and Bessie Smith became widely known as members of
the Harlem Renaissance.
Philosopher and critic Alain Locke, and leaders such as A.
Phillip Randolph and Jamaican born Marcus Moziah
Garvey were all major contributors to this movement.
The Harlem Renaissance—like many cultural enterprises—began to
wane after a devastating stock market crash in late October 1929, as
did hopes for black equality. The decade-long economic depression
that followed—the so-called Great Depression —hit black Americans
especially hard. Jim Crow segregation and tolerated racial violence
against blacks also continued well into the 1950s. It was not until the
modern civil rights era of the late 1950s and early 1960s that African
Americans finally secured legal equality and began to make significant
social and economic gains.
As mainstream sponsors and audiences found their disposable income
drastically reduced following the stock market crash, interest in and
support for African American artists disappeared. Harlem Renaissance
writers continued to produce works into the mid-1930s, however, and
Hughes and Hurston were still prolific in the 1940s. Nevertheless, the
Harlem Renaissance effectively ended with the Great Depression.
Where was the Harlem Renaissance?
Centered in the
Harlem district
which is the part
of Manhattan
Island north of
Central Park and
generally east of
Eighth Avenue or
St. Nicholas
Avenue in New
York City.
Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance
The musicians of the
Harlem Renaissance were
very talented and
competitive and were
considered to have laid the
foundation for future
musicians of their genre.
Jazz was an important art form during
the Harlem Renaissance, and was
prominent in popular dances from the
twenties like the Lindy Hop and musicals
like Shuffle Along. Some of the greatest
names in jazz found that living in a large
northern city such as New York had
numerous advantages.
The incorporation of
influences from the Harlem
Renaissance into American
music created a new
perception both of what is
black and what is
American.
How did it impact history?
Historians and literary figures disagree on the extent of the Harlem
Renaissance's impact on race relations in America. While mainstream
society became exposed to roughly two dozen nationally recognized
artists who produced hundreds of published works, and nearly
everything associated with jazz became a cultural craze, many came to
consider those successes as merely part of a superficial Negro Vogue
that did little to mend the racial divide.
However, the Harlem Renaissance helped to redefine how Americans
and the world understood African American culture. It integrated black
and white cultures, and marked the beginning of a black urban society.
The Harlem Renaissance did set the stage for the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Hip Hop Culture and the Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance is the source of the black culture that we see
today and like the Harlem Renaissance, hip hop culture, was a youth
culture movement.
Like the Harlem Renaissance, Hip Hop was a form of musical expression
and artistic culture that originated in African American Communities in
the late 1970s in New York in the Inner cities.
The spiritual energies of the Harlem Renaissance must be recognized as
the inspirational force driving the cultural production. Hip hop culture
shares the same spiritual sources derived from black church tradition.
The strong tradition of creative black preaching and quality music are
sources for rap music. The rapper integrates the two elements of the
black church in rap music: preaching and music. The rapper preaches by
creatively rhyming over music with deep bass tones. There is spirituality
at work in hip hop culture through rapper as preacher.
Jazz and Hip Hop
Both jazz and hip-hop are music genres that were started and made popular by
African Americans.
Jazz music centers on the use of improvisation. On the other hand, hip-hop
focuses more on poetry, and the use of rhyme in their lyrics.
Although jazz music appeared earlier in history, with records noting its first
appearance in the nineteenth century, it is hip-hop that has transcended into
more than just a popular music genre enjoyed all over the world. Today it is
considered to be a cultural movement that centers on MCing, DJing, break
dancing, graffiti writing, fashion, language and knowledge.
Both hip-hop and jazz use improvisation, but in the case of jazz, improvisation is
considered to be the primary core of the entire music piece. Hip-hop, will often
only use improvisation in freestyle hip-hop. Hip-hop music artists tend to focus
more on poetry and rhyme.
The division in history of jazz into different sub-styles can be compared to how
hip hop’s different forms are divided according to periods but also
geographically.
Rap and Hip Hop
There is little consensus when trying to define or compare rap and hip
hop. It is generally agreed upon that rap describes a type of music
while hip-hop refers to a cultural phenomenon that includes graffiti,
breakdancing, and fashion in addition to music -- or as rapper social
theorist.
First developed in New York City in the 1970s, the hip hop subculture
grew first among the African American and Latino American community.
There are three main differences between rap and hip-hop: musical
features, culture and community message. These features are critical to
separating these two very similar types of music from other popular
music. The impact of rap and hip hop on modern culture has exceeded
all expectations and continues to influence everything from
commercials to politics.
Rap
Rap is a combination of rhyming and poetry to a musical beat. The
subject of the rap can range from local events to relationships. In the
early 1970s and 1980s, rappers provided social commentary on issues
that were not receiving regular media attention. In later years, popular
rap became more focused on consumer commercialism and
relationship issues.
The rap music is focused on poetry and quality of lyrics. Rap music has
a strong background in improvisational poetry. The artists or rappers
are expected to create poetry that discusses the main issues of the
community, politics, or media events. The artists are predominately
men. Rap groups are also fairly rare, with most rappers being solo
artists.
Rap is a tool used to express current events and to tell the stories of
people within the local community.
Hip Hop
Hip hop music includes rhythm and blues and beat boxing. Rhythm and
blues or R&B music is a combination of soul and pop music. Singers
combine their lyrics to fast-paced music that is often used as the
background to complex dance routines. This type of music lead the
cross over into popular music with soulful singing and lyrics focused on
common relationship issues.
Hip Hop artists are a mixture of men and women and they do perform
as groups.
Hip hop music is used to express hope for the future and to remember
the successes of the past.
Hip hop has had a strong influence on 21st-century pop music, with
many pop songs including elements of hip hop.
Langston Hughes
• Hughes is known for his insightful,
colorful, realistic portrayals of black life
in America.
• He wrote poetry, short stories, novels,
and plays, and is known for his
involvement with the world of jazz and
the influence it had on his writing.
• His life and work were enormously
important in shaping the artistic
contributions of the Harlem
Renaissance in the 1920s.
• He wanted to tell the stories of his
people in ways that reflected their
actual culture, including both their
suffering and their love of music,
laughter, and language itself.
Tupac Shakur
• He was an actor, musician and poet.
• He became a hip hop and rap
legend.
• He became one of the best-selling
music artists in the world by selling
over 75 million albums worldwide as
of 2007.
• Most of his songs send out a social
message. He was greatly concerned
with the social problems faced by the
Afro-American community such as
violence and hardship in inner cities,
racism, conflicts with other rappers,
social injustice, and poverty and
police brutality.
• He was ranked sixth on the list of
’100 immortal artists of all time’.
“A Dream Deferred”
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream
deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the
sun?
Or fester like a sore-- And then
run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a
syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy
load.
Or does it explode?
"A Rose that Grew from
Concrete"
by Tupac Shakur
Did you hear about the rose that
grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong
it learned to walk with out having
feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping
it's dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from
concrete
when no one else ever cared.
Romare Bearden
• Considered a "descendent" of the
Harlem Renaissance, since the
majority of his works were created a
couple of decades after the
movement had ended.
• His works are a synthesis of his
past and include themes of literature
and jazz.
• His use of bright color and broken
patterns, fragmentation, and
reorganization evoke the beat and
syncopation of jazz and the speed
and rhythm of the city.
• He made collage a medium for
celebrating his African-American
heritage and culture.
• He combined images of Harlem life
with images of the American South.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
• He was self-taught artist, who
began drawing at an early age.
• He first attracted attention for his
graffiti in NYC in the late 1970s
• In the 1980s his work and style
received critical acclaim for the
fusion of words, symbols, stick
figures, and animals.
• He collaborated with Andy Warhol.
• When he died, at 27, of a heroin
overdose, he left a legacy of over
1000 paintings and 3000 drawings.
• He saw the nobility and tradition of
black life and culture as absent and
venerated it in his art.
• His major theme is an unending
questioning of America’s racial
politics and social hypocrisies.
Romare Bearden, Poseidon,
The Sea God-Enemy of
Odysseus
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (Julius
Caesar on Gold
Arts Integration
Arts integration aims to make meaningful arts connections that add
depth to learning. Developing standards-based learning goals in each
discipline helps ensure that each subject is taught with equal integrity.
Focusing on a particular topic or theme can result in meaningful
connections between subject areas. Effective arts integration
instruction often begins with a topic that lends itself to study from
several points of view. Teachers guide students as they explore the
topic and its related themes, helping students to establish relationships
among different ideas.
Collaboration is often a key element in arts integration. The
collaborative approach to planning and the endless opportunities for
making connections among disciplines lead to a variety of instructional
choices for arts integration implementation.
Key Elements For Developing A Successful Arts Integration
Lesson/Unit
• Establish clear instructional goals
• Record your observations and reflections after teaching daily lessons
and at the end of the unit
• Support and enhance sequential learning
• Assess outcomes for all integrated instructional areas
• Communicate plans to students - Students will benefit most from arts
integration when they understand the goals and strategies of the unit
• Be flexible
• Choose an organizing theme or question - Identify a topic that lends
itself to study from several points of view and choose one or more
themes or essential questions
• Emphasize process over product
• Align instruction with standards and benchmarks
• Engage educators school-wide in arts integration goals