 "Photo: Kendra Egan")
One Chico State professor is out to prove that hip-hop is more than loud, profane music with lyrics only about cars, cash, clothes and women.
This semester, Tony Davis, a professor of multicultural and gender studies, will teach Chico State's first course on the history of hip-hop culture.
"Rap music is one thing that comes out of hip-hop culture, but hip-hop culture does not come out of rap music," Davis said. "They are not the same thing."
Chico State students - and youth as a whole - do not understand hip-hop, Davis said.
It was not like that when Davis was growing up, he said.
Davis took interest in the music at a young age and was able to experience the rise of hip-hop culture while growing up in Los Angeles. There, he witnessed the rise of Cypress Hill, King Tee and the Wu-Tang Clan.
"I was just in the right place at the right time," Davis said. "I am someone who has been a part of the partial evolution from the early '80s of gangster rap to its current state of commercialism."
Davis, like the music, has gone through changes to define himself as a hip-hopper, he said. He has been a break-dancer, tagger, professional DJ, intern at a Los Angeles record company, party promoter and college-radio DJ.
Chico resident and hip-hop promoter Bill Allred thinks the time has come for the university to offer a course like the one Davis is going to teach.
Allred started Diversity Productions, hoping to bring more hip-hop to Northern California.
A lot of research on hip-hop has been done over the years, Allred said.
"People need to get the knowledge that hip-hop is a culture, a belief, a way of life," he said.
Modern-day youth are being led only by what is presented to them, Davis said. Many of the problems with hip-hop are not only a hip-hop problem but also an American problem.
People are concerned about gangster rappers from Compton, but they're not "concerned about the 'gangsterism' of George Bush and his authoritarian policy of bullying the world with military might," Davis said.
His course will educate students on the history of hip-hop, beginning with its roots as party music for the poor of Brooklyn, he said.
Through lectures, discussions and video documentaries, students will analyze the elements of the hip-hop way of life. The class will cover hip-hop's roots in African music and how it has affected modern-day trends. Break-dancing, graffiti writing, DJ-ing and rap music are fundamental to the understanding of hip-hop, Davis said.
Davis hopes to help students understand how hip-hop culture has been influenced by society and how society has influenced the culture, he said.
Lisa Emmerich, director of multicultural and gender studies, is happy Davis will teach the course.
"He is taking a contemporary experience and contextualizing it as more than just an artistic expression," she said.
Today is the last day to register for the three-unit class, which is listed as Multicultural and Gender Studies 198, "Historical Perspectives and Secular Values: Hip- Hop Culture." There is a $165 course fee, but there is no required textbook.
"I hope students can come out with a broader, richer perspective of the culture than the narrow view in which mainstream America disseminates hip-hop through TV and radio," Davis said.
Jessica Mason can be reached at jmason@theorion.com
Sergy El-Morshedy can be reached at sel-morshedy@mail.csuchico.edu
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