CHANGE METHODS: HIP-HOP, SOCIAL CHANGE & GLOBAL INFLUENCES
The Change Methods exhibition was an interactive experience for visitors to Provisions Library. Featuring the work of 10 renowned artists and filmmakers, this exploratory exhibit presented both a celebratory and critical survey of the many facets and permutations of hip-hop culture.
Artists exhibited include John Ahearn, Rigoberto Torres, Sanford Biggers, Iona Rozeal Brown, Brett Cook, Keith Haring, Packard Jennings, Jose Ruiz, Kelly Towles, and Kehinde Wiley.
Films screened include Mr. Catro O Fiel (a documentary about Baile Funk), Brown Like Dat (a documentary about South Asian MC’s, beatboxers, spoken word artists, and producers), Soundz of Spirit (directed by Joslyn Rose Lyons), Just to Get a Rep (directed by Peter Gerard), Nobody Knows My Name (directed by Rachel Raimst), and Jails, Hospitals and Hip-Hop (directed by Danny Hoch).
The exhibition ran from July 1, 2005 – August 30, 2005.
Change Methods Partners
Hip-Hop Theater Festival
Intermedia Arts (Sandy Augustin)
DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (Jose Dominguez)
Heshima James, music researcher
Change Methods Press
The Washington Post Weekend (Michael O’Sullivan, July 15, 2005)
The Washington Post Galleries (Jessica Dawson, July 21, 2005)
RESOURCES
HIP-HOP IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
Books
That’s The Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader
Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, eds.
Gunshots in My Cook-Up: Bits and Bites from a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life
Selwyn Seyfu Hinds
Global Noise: Rap and HipHop Outside the USA
Tony Mitchell, ed.
Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity
Vijay Prashad
Films
Slingshot Hip-Hop: The Palestinian Lyrical Front
Jackie Salloum, 2005
Five Sides of a Coin
Seventh Art, 2004
Resistencia: Hip-Hop in Columbia
Tom Feiling, 2002
Websites
African Hip-Hop Radio
Battle of the Year
An international competition that takes place on three continents, the Battle Of The Year is a platform for B-boys (and -girls) and Hip-Hop culture in general, and an opportunity for all participants to express themselves in a peaceful and non-racist environment. Since 1996 BOTY has integrated young and motivated people willing to take part in the planning and implementation process of the event.
HIP-HOP, ACTIVISM, AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Books
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hip Generation
Jeff Chang
Winner of the 2005 American Book Award
Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership, and Hip-Hop Culture
Yvonne Bynoe
No More Prisons
William Upski Wimsatt
The New H.N.I.C. (Head Niggas In Charge): The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop
Todd Boyd
How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power
William Upski Wimsatt and Adrienne Maree Brown, eds. (See an interview with Brown)
All the Power: Revolution Without Illusion
Mark Andersen
Films
Ammo for the Info-Warrior
Guerrilla News Network, 2002
Hip-Hop: A Culture of Influence
Educational Video Center and Youth Organizers Television, 1999
Websites
Interview with Mos Def
Oliver Wang, The San Francisco Bay Guardian
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
Jeff Chang’s highly content-driven, timely and insightful blog site. News, updates and links on hip-hop generation activism.
Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner
Homies Unidos is a non-profit gang violence prevention and intervention organization with projects in San Salvador, El Salvador and Los Angeles, California. The organization was founded in 1996 in San Salvador and formally began organizing in the United States in 1997.
Hip Hop Congress
The Hip Hop Congress uses the culture of Hip Hop to inspire young people to get involved in social action, civic service, and cultural creativity. Hip Hop Congress is the product of a merger of artists and students, music and community. It is significant because it provides one of few paths for highly creative and often disenfranchised youth where they can channel their energy into a strong and organized force aimed at improving their community.
Hip-Hop Summit Action Network
The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) is dedicated to harnessing the cultural relevance of Hip-Hop music to serve as a catalyst for education advocacy and other societal concerns fundamental to the well-being of at-risk youth throughout the United States.
HIP-HOP, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY
Books
Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere
Gwendolyn D. Pough
When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down
Joan Morgan
The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York
Nancy Macdonald
Films
Mistress X: Hip-Hop’s Unsung Heroine
Dante Kaba, 2003
B-Girl: The Movie
Emily Dell, 2009 feature film that grew out of Dell’s 2004 short film of the same name
Websites
B-gyrl.com
Women in hip-hop music, culture and politics, and live b-gyrl Radio.
Tricia Rose Interview
Tricia Rose, a professor of American Studies at the University of California in Santa Cruz, and the author of Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America and Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy, talks about misogyny in hip-hop.
Kuttin Kandi Interview
The DJ and activist talks about the industry and the struggles she believes in.
Femmix.com
A website dedicated to women in Hip-Hop (producers, DJs, and MCs), moderated by women, for everyone.
Rachel’s Spot
The blogsite of feminist Hip-Hop scholar, filmmaker and activist Rachel Raimist. Essays, interviews, news links, events, more.
GRAFFITI: FREE EXPRESSION, PUBLIC SPACE, AND THE COMMONS
Books
Subway Art
Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant
Graffiti World Updated Edition: Street Art from Five Continents
Nicholas Ganz
The Art of Getting Over: Graffiti at the Millennium
Stephen Powers
Graffito
Michael Walsh
Free Agents: A History of Washington, D.C. Graffiti
Compiled by Roger Gastman
Films
Wild Style
Charlie Ahearn, 1983
Bomb the System
Adam Bhala Lough, 2005
Graffiti Verite (series)
Bob Bryan
Stations of the Elevated
Manny Kirchheimer, 1980
Write and Unite
Magic Moments, 2004
Websites
Zephyr Interview, 1995
Zephyr was one of the pioneers of the New York subway graffiti movement from the late ’70s to the early ’80s.
Claw Interview, 2003
Claw talks about how she got her start in graffiti and what it’s like being a female graffiti artist.
Graffiti Archaeology
Graffiti Archaeology is the study of graffiti-covered walls as they change over time. The grafarc.org project is a time-lapse collage, made of photos of graffiti taken at the same location by many different photographers over a span of several years. Most of the photos are from San Francisco from the late 1990s to the present.
Art Crimes
One of the original and most comprehensive websites on contemporary graffiti and graffiti culture worldwide, including artists’ pages and black books, train and mural photographs, information and resources for artists, exhibits, shows and other events.
God Bless Graffiti Coalition
The God Bless Graffiti Coalition, Inc. was founded in 2000 in Chicago in order to combat growing national and international anti-graffiti trends.
Scrawl
Photographs of street art from around the world, including Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, UK, Spain and the United States.
Subway Outlaws
A site dedicated to graffiti’s New York and old-school roots. Features interviews with some of graffiti’s most well-known and respected legends; images of burners, tags, and throwups; events and exhibitions, including “Old Timers’ Day at 5 Points” – these are great photos.
Wooster Collective
This New York-based collective and website includes images, interviews, technical information, graffiti history, and artists’ pages. Some interesting features are “Give ‘em Props,” a survey of dozens of graffiti artists worldwide about the art that most inspires them; a great list of magazines (graf- and other), with working links; and “The Essentials,” an insider’s guide to cities around the world by our favorite artists.