Fri. 7/6 8a: Peace Talks Radio: When we talk about music that promotes and celebrates peace, hip hop often gets left out of the conversation. Critics speculate about the genre's negative influences, from hypersexual music videos to lyrics that glamorize guns and drugs. A recent Washington Post headline quoted jazz musician Wynton Marsalis calling popular hip hop "more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee." But what about the positive impacts the music has had on countless fans?
In this episode of Peace Talks Radio, Hannah Colton speaks with one artist and one documentarian about hip hop's peacemaking legacy. Hip Hop Activist & Media Assassin Harry Allen explores the art form's place in black culture and history, the aesthetics of hip hop and reasons why mainstream white American culture doesn't consider it "peacemaking" music.
Rapper, community organizer and spiritual leader Brother Ali talks about his 2017 album All The Beauty In This Whole Life, hip hop's origins in the South Bronx, and his recommendations for hip hop peace songs.
The hour-long version of the show is available here. Read a partial transcript of both interviews here.
Learn more:
- ARTICLE: "Minneapolis rapper Brother Ali's new album finds 'Beauty' at anugly time" (Minneapolis Tribune, 2017)
- ARTICLE: "The Unbearable Whiteness of Emceeing: What the Eminence of Eminem Says About Race" by Harry Allen (The Source, 2008)
- VIDEO: "Self Destruction -- Stop The Violence" by Boogie Down Productions (1989)
- DOCUMENTARY: "Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed" featuring Bill Cosby (CBS, 1968)
- DOCUMENTARY: "Hip Hop: A Culture of Peace" by Stephen Tyson, Jr. (2013)
- ARTICLE: "Hip-Hop For Peace" (The Guardian, 2008)
