Hip-Hop and Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Foreword

H.A. Jabar Odokhan-El

Through great pressure, pain, and stress—the greatest of objects are produced! Diamond, gems, crystals, and numerous metals are natural materials that have to be dug deeply (mined from the earth). They are then cleaned, polished, and put to use in a variety of ways. Some are used simply for symbolic display, such as diamonds, while others serve to facilitate high technical procedures, such as coltan in cell phones.

It is from the same great pressure of the natural world that we live in that musical genres such as the blues, jazz, and hip-hop culture have come to life; and YES, I said culture, and not just “music”. Hip-hop is more than just music, “beats and rhymes”. Hip-hop is a cultural and social phenomenon!

Popular hip-hop artist Drizzy Drake, in his 2013 hit song “Started from the Bottom” said, “Started from the bottom now we’re here, Started from the bottom now the whole team here” (Aubrey Graham, Noah Shebib, Michael Coleman, 2012). Hip-hop music started from the bottom and now it’s here, still in existence and at the very top of the music industry—globally! It was created in one of the most amazing, treacherous, and worldly known cities, New York City. Hip-hop was created by the group (or race of people) that are considered the lowest class, the least respected, and have the least material resources. Hip-hop was used (like medicine) to remedy the ills of a racist and oppressive society, to help to create a feeling of joy; opposite to the anxiety, pain and stress endured as a Black person in America.

This is just one example, showing and proving that hip-hop is a cultural phenomenon. It’s a brilliant use of “word play”; metaphors, similes, and comparative descriptive language is nothing short of masterful and the whole world knows it. From its rugged and gritty beginning in a city where it’s “survival of the fittest”, hip-hop developed and grew from just having a good time and self-expression to generating billions worldwide annually. LL. Cool J. in his song ‘I’m bad’, said, “No rapper can rap quite like I can I’ll take a musclebound man and put his face in the sand” (L.L. Cool J, 1987, Track 1).

It started with a culture or elements that made up a culture. MC’ing or rapping is the most well known, but don’t leave out DJ’ing (turntablism), breakdancing (B-Boying), its fashion of dress, the language and slang it used, or graffiti art. On May 16, 2001, Hip-hop was recognized as a world culture by the United Nations when The Hip Hop Declaration of Peace was accepted by UNESCO.

So who are the people that started this cultural phenomenon “rap”, better known as hip-hop music or hip-hop culture? Well, simply put they are the descendants of enslaved Africans (Afro-Asiatics) that were brought to America by European invaders and colonizers. They are the descendants of the people that survived what is called the Trans-Atlantic slave trade or the Maafa (The Great Disaster). The same people that were not allowed to read (by law) for over 300 years, which brings us to the school to prison pipeline, which I work against professionally.

Hip-Hop and Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline is like a guide, or a roadmap, or a reference book on how to “use” hip-hop as an educational tool—for healing, for empowering activists and organizers, for changing society and the world we live in. This collective of authors is a testament to the treasure trove of amazing work done at the grassroots level all over the country. It promises us, like a small germ (hip-hop in the Bronx) there is the ability to grow large.

Introduction

Hip hop, the School-to-Prison Pipeline, and #NoYouthInPrison

DANIEL WHITE HODGE, DON C. SAWYER III, ANTHONY J. NOCELLA II, AND AHMAD R. WASHINGTON