The Hip Hop Classroom — a website created by Oakland (CA) Unity High School teacher, Daniel Zarazua — includes lesson plans and ideas, information, and more in support of the effective use of hip hop in the classroom.
Hip Hop Genius: Remixing High School Education — a YouTube video about the key ideas in the book of the same name, by Sam Seidel. The book is about the High School for Recording Arts in St. Paul, MN and about an innovative approach to education.
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop — the website of Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation and Total Chaos: the Art and Aesthetics of Hip Hop — includes a blog, an archive of Chang’s writings, and more.
Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes — a segment from Byron Hurt’s documentary film, “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.” Hurt describes himself as a lover of hip hop — a hip hop head — but he critiques certain aspects of hip hop to raise questions and promote critical awareness, and he exposes the often white corporate structures behind hip hop that propagate the “gangsta” and “bling” marketing images rather than supporting the more political and critically reflective kinds of hip hop.
How Women Are Portrayed in Hip Hop Videos — a YouTube video of a debate/panel discussion about the often two-dimensional and objectified use of women in hip hop and its cultural and psychological impact — includes journalist/author Kevin Powell, hip hop entrepreneur Irv Gotti, model Melyssa Ford, and radio show host Kendra G.
Hip Hop Images, Women, and Exploitation — hip hop scholar and author, Dr. Tricia Rose, discusses ways in which the exploitation of women in hip is damaging to black women, all women, and all men.
bell hooks Discusses Rap (video unavailable) — a short YouTube clip of the scholar bell hooks in which she argues that much contemporary hip hop is a perfect example of modern colonialism because many hip hop executives are white and the main market for the music, as it’s currently presented, is young white males who are sold and are enthusiastically consuming and supporting a version of hip hop that denigrates Black women and elevates the party over politics.
Educators Use Rap as a Teaching Tool — a radio broadcast about teachers who are using hip-hop effectively to make connections between contemporary music/poetry and the classics — scroll to the bottom of the page, click and listen.
Flocabulary — lots of lesson ideas, materials, and resources for using hip hop in the classroom — specific to social studies, writing, math/science, and vocabulary/reading
Public Enemy — a hip hop group from Long Island, NY, known for its politically charged lyrics about and criticism of racism, discrimination, stereotypes in the media, and more.
The Last Poets — a bio of this groundbreaking, civil rights driven hip hop group that began in the early 1970s — one of the early forces in hip hop and a group that shows the deep political and activist roots of hip hop. More recently, they’ve also worked with Common and Kanye West.
Nuttin’ But Stringz: Hip Hop Violin — a radio segment about a pair of Julliard-trained, violin playing African American brothers who are making their own music.
Exploring African Hip Hop — a radio review of CD’s by two African hip hop groups whose music “embodies ways that Africans are debating their cultural identity through music.”
