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Amarina Kealoha (ISF Major)
The Revolution Will Not be in the Movies:
Hip-Hop Film and Politics"
Sponsor: Professor Shawn Brixey, Art Practice
Project Description
Amarina will travel this summer to New York City, the cultural birthplace of hip-hop, to investigate this contemporary musical and cultural phenomenon, focusing on the films and videos made about the genre. Her stay will involve an intensive schedule of research, interviews and live events, as well as video documentation, which will form the preliminary visual and theoretical groundwork for her final creative endeavor. The purpose of her immersion in hip-hop culture is an inquiry into the ways in which hip-hop functions as a mode of resistance. During the 2001-2002 academic school year, Amarina will focus her efforts on the hip-hop satellite cities of the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Her project will culminate in a video that expresses a complex definition of hip-hop as a cultural and political movement.
Scholar's Photo
Scholar's Journal
6.10.01
my arrival in new york assures me that this is still the city to be in to study hip hop. hip hop is everywhere in new york. the guy, darnell, who sublets me the apartment is a club promoter and before leaving shines his shoes with vaseline and promises connections to the scene. gabie, the guy who stays in the other room in the apartment, is a hip hop dj. he also claims he can hook me up. i think to myself, "everybody’s a dj." it’s a cliché at this point, every guy in the hip hop scene seems to want to or claims to be a dj (usually the only distinction is whether or not someone owns a set of turntables).
i might dare call the idea that everybody’s a dj a post-hip hop phenomenon. i hate to say that hip hop is dead. i don’t think that a culture or a movement can really die, but i’m getting this general sense, from my first night in new york, that hip hop is no longer thriving and new. it’s something that people in their late 20s and early 30s (or older) do either because they fell into it and never did anything else or they’re nostalgic about their childhood or simply about the past in general. it exists as part of peoples’ lifestyle, but not as a challenge to the mainstream or even as a way to make innovative music. to darnell and gabie it seemed to be just something else to do to make money, alternately mundane and stressful, like any office job. there are very few djs or other people in the hip hop world who are passionate about hip hop culture or currently contributing something that is groundbreaking in the way that early hip hop was. there is a lot going on in hip hop that is amazing and as a lifestyle it might be a staying force, but my sense is that hip hop in new york is often more about a club (aka meatmarket). i wonder if hip hop is an institution and in that sense dead.
i’m right about gabie and darnell, the connections don’t pan out.
6.13.01
today i interviewed, logan, from a group called the third message. he was selling his hip hop cd in the village. (some traditions continue – gotta love the guerilla marketing strategies) he said that hip hop is a force, like electricity. i don’t know if he’s on to something or not, but i liked it. his cd is not good, however. maybe hip hop really is dead or in its death throes or something along those lines.
6.17.01
here’s another strange example of how hip hop "lives" in new york. i’m walking down the street in midtown and there is obviously some type of video shoot going on with little kids thugged-out in hip hop gear. so, i approach and start talking to the woman in charge, chaka. she works with roc-a-fella records and when she finds out what i’m up to she gives me her number and says to call. of course, she doesn’t return my calls, but hip hop, in whatever diluted commodity-form that it exists as these days, is, literally, all over new york. it’s strange to get a taste of what hip hop really is in new york – a business.
6.20.01
i saw jonzi d, a performer from london today as part of the 2nd annual hip hop theater festival. his piece was called "lyrikal fearta." when i got there, a lot of the new york scene that i had been complaining about seemed like a distant reality. no one here was munching their prosciutto in their ralph lauren halter top here like they were the other night at a hbo-sponsored free outdoor screening of viva las vegas in bryant park. not to say that i didn’t have fun there, i did. and i’m really not too far removed from all that, class-wise, but i’m a little too snobbishly anti-snob to really dig it.
i did, really really enjoy jonzi d’s performance. his work was about hip hop, growing up within london hip hop culture. it went full scope from the problems in education to police harassment. he worked with a live dj and dancers - a great dynamic on stage. he had a great piece where his body movements corresponded to the scratching of the dj. it was as if the sonic force itself inhabited his body, like he was possessed. the premiere part of the show was a piece where he performed a rap/monologue with body movements, then repeated it with another dancer, repeated it in slow-motion and then backwards. this was a great link to film language in general, but specifically to video. it referenced the ways that technology functions in hip hop music to the way it functions in video formats. also, his work as a whole was a very non-traditional form of theater, to say the least. which is, of course exactly what i’m looking at in film.
6.22.01
in one of my excursions through brooklyn, i found an area in where they have streets lined with stores where they sell what they call hip hop clothing (mostly timberland, fubu, phat farm, etc.). yet another example of the way that hip hop exists as a cornerstone of the commodity market. i was shooting an awning that advertised "hip hop clothing" and the owner of one store started to hassle me. i lied and told him i wasn’t shooting the store. he tried to get me to show him what i was shooting because it was his brother’s store and he didn’t want me to shoot any part of the storefront. i’ve dealt with people who had problems with me shooting before and this time i wasn’t having it. i was adamant. i would not let him look in my camera and i wouldn’t stop shooting until i was done. i told him that this was a public street and he couldn’t do anything about it. i think i told him that he could call the police if he wanted to. i suppose it was a bit unethical of me, but i was hot and tired and all i wanted was a few words off the awning . we were both pretty irate. the owner himself came over and told his brother to chill out. some friendly guys who worked in one of the stores told me that the guy was worried because they’re not officially licensed to sell the merchandise. the whole thing was ridiculous, me included.
6.23.01
over the last few days i went to every borough and shot everything that was relevant: graffiti, people, buildings . . . whatever. i came upon a huge graffiti piece, painted high on the side of a building in lower manhattan by lee quinones, one of the early famous graffiti artists. it was striking but most certainly a commissioned work and once more i was reminded of the ways that hip hop is an institution. although the institutionalization of hip hop seems most present in new york, this is also the place where some of the most incredible new music, fashions, art and other parts of the culture happens. most of the major record labels are here, as well as the people who own the fashion lines. it’s a bit of a contradiction, but the youthful street culture that used to define hip hop culture seems the most stagnant in new york (thanks to anti-graffiti/youth and other laws). much of what i see as inventive in hip hop culture today is mainstream. maybe i just don’t know enough about hip hop culture outside of pop culture and, of course, many of the popular artists now started outside of the mainstream. but, throughout my experiences in new york, i’ve been mostly unimpressed with non-mainstream hip hop culture. the hip hop theater festival was the one of the few experiences where i saw something that was well-done and original.
i’m not disappointed with the current state of hip hop in any sense. it was eye-opening to see how thorough the corporatization of hip hop is. there is still a huge realm of hip hop that is not corporate, that reflects a "true" hip hop aesthetic.
6.24.01
overall, running around new york with my tripod slung over my shoulder and my camera on my back has been an experience and a half. definitely different from visits to new york for fun and really, as cliché as it may sound, a tremendous learning experience.
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