Essay 1: Why hip-hop music?

If someone were to ask me why I dedicated 6 years of my life to developing a way to use rap to teach English, I think some of the answers would be obvious: rap's global appeal to young people, it's use of a speaking voice instead of a singing voice, it's colorful and creative nature, it's history as a platform for storytelling, etc, the list goes on and on.

There are a multitude of other reasons however, that aren't so obvious, and those are the ones I would like to share with you in this blog. For one, as an African American myself, Phat English gave me the chance to both create and perpetuate a non-stereotypical image of an African American male through Phat's main character, "Trey" a college-educated fan of hip-hop who moves overseas to start his own business.

In addition to that, Phat's supporting cast, Nina, Brandon, and Kenta, allowed me to do the same thing with other American ethnic minorities, (who are also often stereotyped as having bad english) and more importantly, to not only respectfully portray their unique cultural backgrounds, but do so in such a way that shows that through it all, they are simply Americans.

Beyond my political Agenda however, there were also pedagogical reasons as to why I wanted to develop a way to use rap as a teaching platform.

The first of these is the fact that throughout the entirity of the human existance, music always has been (and probably always will be) the ultimate mnenomic device.

Put simply, if something needs to be remembered, the very best way to do it is to put it in a song. This is why we all know jingles like, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue", and "I before E, except after C" , why commercial songs tend to get 'stuck in our heads', and why at 29 years old, I can still sing the theme song to the 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' when I haven't actually seen the show in at least 10 years.

Further evidence of this was found in a study I recently read about that was conducted by cognitive psychologist, Dr. Daniel Levitin of the Laboratory for Music, Perception, Cognition, and Expertise. Dr. Levitin found that most people, when stopped at random on the street and asked to sing their favorite song, could hit the original tempo of the song within a 4% margin of error, and 2/3 could sing it within a semitone of the original pitch. (Which stands in sharp contrast with other memories which both distort and fade over time.)*

Why exactly this is might still be under debate, but as Dr. Levitin simply stated: "Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago."*

As such, for myself, the question of using music to teach was never a question of why. It was more of a question of 'Why not?' and 'How?'

And rap, (which would allow me to set the beats at such a speed that I could perform the lyrics in a natural, easy to understand speech pattern) was my platform of choice.

Afterall... if it worked for Will Smith, it could work for me.

Iiiiiiiiiiiin West Philidelphia, born and raised!
On the playground, is where I spend most of my days...

*Source: New York Times, December 31, 2006- Music of the Hemispheres