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In this article, I offer four principles relevant to hip-hop cultures (keep it real, flip the script, make some noise, and stay fresh) and explore how these principles might affect music classrooms. I argue that a music classroom that works to keep it real, flip the script, make some noise, and stay fresh might go beyond teaching hip-hop skills and songs to actually being hip-hop. Adopting these principles would ideally keep music classrooms relevant to students’ interests, focus on connections to both local and global contexts, take and transform music ideas, and create original music within an environment that honors music traditions for what they are and remains flexible and responsive to ruptures in flow. I include a snapshot of what a potential music classroom that is hip-hop might look like.

culturally relevant pedagogy; general music; hip-hop; popular music; vernacular music

While the inclusion of popular and vernacular music in schools and scholarship has increased in recent decades, some have argued that these initiatives have lacked diversity, reflecting largely middle-class, white, male perspectives on guitar-based rock music ([ 1] ; [ 2] ; [ 24] ). In partial response, several music education scholars have been exploring hip-hop cultures and developing considerations for classroom teachers and students. General education scholars have been discussing and demonstrating at length the potential of various hip-hop pedagogies and these ideas contain exciting possibilities for music classrooms ([ 9] ). As arguably the world’s most popular music genre ([ 5] ), hip-hop might assist in connecting students’ out-of-school and in-school music worlds ([ 20] ). Hip-hop and its related technologies have valuable implications for thinking about music education in terms of the role and use of recordings ([ 19] ) as well as the consideration and teaching of aural skills ([ 22] ). Perhaps most important, hip-hop could help involve students who may be disengaged or disenfranchised by their school experiences ([ 8] ; [ 23] ).

Despite the positive potential of incorporating hip-hop in music classrooms, I have reservations about these inclusions so long as they are limited to merely skills and songs. For what it is worth, I have similar worries about any popular music education initiative that might seek to replace trombones with guitars, swap Beethoven for the Beatles, and leave larger classroom structures intact (e.g., an all-knowing teacher as the figurehead, lack of diverse racial and ethnic representation and participation, corporate partnerships that exploit students as consumers). Some have argued that instead of encouraging classrooms to teach hip-hop content, perhaps classrooms could be hip-hop ([ 11] ; [ 15] ; [ 17] ). What would this look like in a music classroom? In this article, I offer four principles relevant to hip-hop cultures (keep it real, flip the script, make some noise, and stay fresh) and explore how these principles might inform how music classrooms could move beyond the inclusion of hip-hop skills and songs to actually being hip-hop.

Keep It Real

There is perhaps no more fundamental and no more contested principle in hip-hop than keeping it real. Realness (i.e., authenticity) is the ultimate claim for the successful hip-hop artist and fakeness the ultimate diss. In hip-hop, scholars have described authenticity as relating to demographic aspects including cultural blackness, “hard” heterosexual masculinity, and coming from “the streets” ([ 12] ). However, these claims to authenticity have always been challenged as the battle over what is real and what is fake has grown increasingly complicated. I tend to agree with scholars who describe authenticity as a strategic action as opposed to a static condition ([ 3] ; [ 6] ). From this perspective, keeping it real is, as [ 13] suggested, a “floating signifier” of authenticity that continually changes over time and in various contexts. What we end up with then is the idea that there is no singular authentic in hip-hop, but that asserting to keep it real is still an essential and valued claim.

Luckily, hip-hop authenticity is not limited to demographics alone. Being true to oneself and representing one’s place and culture are also vital aspects of keeping it real in hip-hop ([ 12] ). One might also describe these qualities as individuality and representing (or “repping”). Individuality is key in hip-hop music. It is worth noting that hip-hop musicians rarely perform covers in the way that so many rock and pop musicians do. Recreating another artist’s work is not only rare but generally discouraged. To be a rapper, producer, or DJ in hip-hop is to always be creating unique work. A hip-hop musician might recreate an existing piece in order to better understand it, but ultimately this knowledge would lead to the production of an original piece and not to a public performance or recording of someone else’s music product. This is a far cry from attempting to recreate another person’s music ideas with as much accuracy as possible—a practice common in large performing ensembles as well as many popular music classes.

Being a hip-hop musician and representing one’s place and culture can often be a complicated task—particularly for hip-hop musicians outside of the United States. All hip-hop musicians are tasked with simultaneously connecting to the global culture of hip-hop while representing their local contexts. This idea of being both global and local at the same time is often labeled, “glocalization.” For example, many rappers from non-English-speaking countries will perform portions of their songs (often the refrain) in English to acknowledge the roots of hip-hop and to appeal to a global audience and then rap verses in their home dialect to literally speak to (and about) local issues.

The ways that international hip-hop musicians navigate authenticity and glocalize hip-hop music provides a potential model for music educators interested in keeping it real. As teachers and students engage with any type of music, it is valuable to understand the geographic, historical, social, and political contexts from which that music comes, but when creating their own music, students might also be focused on connecting to their own contextual experiences. Singing another person’s song void of its contexts would not be keeping it real. Nor would creating music that does not connect in anyway to one’s individual local experiences. Music classrooms that are keeping it real would ideally be exploring the larger music world while simultaneously representing local contexts through music creation and performance that remains true to each person’s experiences.

Flip the Script

Flipping the script refers to turning the tables, doing the unexpected, or deviating from the norm. Hip-hop culture (including but not limited to music, graffiti, and dance) is built on flipping previously existing material in new and innovative ways. From break dancers repurposing discarded flooring, to graffiti artists using subway cars and alleyways as canvases, to producers sampling and reimagining previously recorded music, hip-hop has always had, as [ 14] , p. 77) called it, a “philosophy of taking things and transforming things.” Referring to the fact that many hip-hop artists have demonstrated creative resourcefulness with limited resources, some refer to this as “flipping something outta nothing” ([ 17] , p. 1).

Hip-hop producers commonly take previously recorded music and remix, reorder, or otherwise rei-magine the material. This “creative appropriation” ([ 15] , p. 88) is called sampling. When sampling, a producer might take an entire section of music or just a single note and then flip that sound (e.g., change the pitch or tempo, reorder the sounds) to be repurposed and replayed as a new composition. This could take the form of a four-measure introduction to a song being used as a repeated loop, or might be a short sampled sound performed in a new rhythm throughout the piece. Sample material can come from anywhere imaginable. Anything from the opening drum section of a reggae tune, an isolated vocal line from a soul song, a single note of a rock bass guitar, an orchestra hit from a classical piece, or the sound of a police siren can all come together into a new hip-hop composition.

[ 11] suggested that this type of borrowing and blending could serve as a model for music education in which music teachers might combine and mix with other teachers in the school just as hip-hop musicians do with other music genres. This could lead to music classes where students sample material from their other courses (e.g., history, literature, geography, science) and then flip the material to create and explore in meaningful interdisciplinary ways. [ 20] also suggested that a DJ’s crossfader (the slider that adjusts the mix between two different turntables) might serve as a similar metaphor for music classrooms. The crossfader allows multiple music pieces to be simultaneously present and for the DJ to fade back and forth so that one piece is louder than the other at any given time. Unlike the producer who chops samples and flips them in the studio for a new recording, the DJ uses a crossfader to move between borrowed material (someone else’s recordings) in real time while potentially flipping that material as well (altering the pitch or tempo, scratching, and/or filtering). Crossfading music education would involve different music worlds coming together and working concurrently, even while materials are being manipulated.

Flipping the script in the music classroom would consist of taking any conceivable previous material and repurposing that material toward some new creation. This does not have to be limited to editing previously recorded music. Flipping the script could be incorporating elements from other disciplines into a music exploration, borrowing and blending songs into a new choral composition, or even repurposing physical materials into new instruments. Flipping the script in music classes could even involve rewriting societal narratives ([ 21] ). The key to flipping the script for music educators is that students have the ability to take things and transform things. Just as I previously mentioned about cover songs in hip-hop, flipping the script in the music classroom requires going beyond the accurate reproduction of someone else’s creation. Singing a note-for-note cover of a Lauryn Hill song in music class is (while pretty dope) not flipping the script. Flipping the script would be exploring how Lauryn Hill repurposed previous songs to create her own compositions and then having students repurpose portions of Lauryn Hill’s recordings blended with their own contributions to create new compositions.

Make Some Noise

I refer here to “making some noise” as the act of producing music and participating in music activity as well as referencing the actual “noise” of hip-hop music. It might seem obvious, but I suggest that hip-hop classrooms would actually produce some noise. It is unfortunately easy to imagine a hip-hop class in which lectures and discussion of various topics in hip-hop would exist without students actually making any music. I highly value discussion and understanding hip-hop’s (or any music’s) various contexts might necessitate discussion, but a music classroom that is hip-hop is doing hip-hop.

When it comes to making some noise with hip-hop, it is necessary to unpack the perception of hip-hop music from a Western art music perspective. From this point of view, hip-hop often appears lacking as it does not conform to the expectations of Western art music in which the foremost value is placed on melodic and harmonic progressions as opposed to the more complex rhythms and textures of hip-hop. Western art music largely exists within a linear movement away from and then a returning to tonic, with moments of tension and release brought on by either fulfilling or upending expectations of a harmonic progression. Hip-hop, like many music traditions of the African diaspora, often persists within a harmonically simpler loop, which is built on rhythmically and texturally in order to create a singular space in which participants are literally moved to embody the music ([ 16] ). Judging hip-hop by the conventions of Western art music is like officiating a basketball game by the rules of ice hockey; you could do it, but it does not make sense and it is not fair.

[ 16] suggested that the elements contributing to the vitality of hip-hop artistic production are layering, flow, and rupture. Musically, layering involves the creation of complex textures by combining samples, instruments, and voices in a hip-hop composition. In the backing track, this can become extremely complicated as digital music creation allows producers to employ a multitude of instrument sounds not always available to a standard garage band. Producers might layer three or more kick drum sounds together to achieve just the right attack, sustain, and release; they might filter multiple copies of the same sample in order to highlight or cover various sounds and then combine those samples with virtual instruments in order to create an entirely new sound; or they might transpose and time-stretch samples to bring together material from different songs to play them back layered together. Lyrically, rappers often create complex layers of meaning in their rhymes through the use of extended metaphors, signifying, and intertextual references to any number of other sources ([ 18] ). Once recorded by an engineer, rappers often add additional layers of their own voices through doubles (rapping along with portions or all of the original vocal) and ad-libs (additional contributions to the in-between spaces and backgrounds).

Flow and rupture work together in various hip-hop artistic practices. Whether it is the flow of lines in graffiti, the flow of movement in break dancing, or the flow of an instrumental groove or vocalist’s lyrics, energy and excitement come from the intermittent ruptures of these flows. Flow and rupture is present when a DJ scratches a record during a rhythmic groove, when a rapper stutters and changes up the timing of their delivery, or when a producer suddenly drops or adds sounds at the climax of an instrumental. These ruptures to the music flow are moments of surprise and excitement, the moments that make us scrunch our faces and bob our heads, the moments where our bodies respond almost involuntarily to the music. [ 16] suggested, and [ 15] concurred, that beyond describing the music material of hip-hop, layering, flow, and rupture might serve as metaphors for hip-hop’s ability to act as social resistance. In particular, learning to embrace and value moments of social rupture might provide opportunities for growth and change.

Music classes that make some noise honor what it means to make noise in the various music traditions they explore. Just like hip-hop music often defies the linear harmonic progressions of so much Western art music, a music class that is making some noise might create a viable space within which students can explore various opportunities to express themselves as musically embodied individuals as opposed to following a linear progression from bullet point to bullet point on a teacher’s lesson plan, within a series of lessons and units created by the teacher to accomplish the teacher’s goals. This is akin to the difference between joining an improvisatory rap cypher in which all members participate by offering unique contributions that build on the offerings of others and following the measures of a music score in which all players follow the cues of a conductor to actualize the creation of a single composer. Both activities can be musical, but only the former is hip-hop. Additionally, music classes that make some noise would employ complex layering of various music traditions, materials, and experiences and embrace the concepts of flow and rupture. When the music class is flowing with complex layers of music activity, a teacher who makes some noise would accept, welcome, and value the inevitable ruptures that might interrupt the plan for the day but provide exciting opportunities to learn and experience something meaningful.

Stay Fresh

[ 17] , p. 10) described freshness in hip-hop as “somewhere between ‘dope’ and ‘hot’ in the long list of words that hip-hop heads use to describe something favorably.” Indeed, staying fresh is what is favorable—specifically, what is favorable right now. Just like medicine, produce, or a loaf of bread, freshness relies on time and in hip-hop being fresh means little if one does not stay fresh. This means keeping up with, anticipating, and staying ahead of various trends. There is certainly value in understanding and making reference to the old school, but hip-hop artists generally frown on mimicking the artistic processes and products of previous generations without making fresh contributions.

Part of the reason why hip-hop continues to remain at the center of cultural attention is due to decades of constant evolution. Since hip-hop’s birth, where DJs like Kool Herc looped the freshest sections of the freshest records at block parties in the South Bronx ([ 4] ), hip-hop music has influenced and been influenced by virtually every fresh sound the planet has had to offer. While hip-hop’s history is worthy of exploration, [ 7] , p. 14) argued that “[h]ip-hop should not be treated like an ancient artifact in a museum. It is a living, breathing, music culture,” and teachers would be wise to treat it as such. This means tuning in to what was happening elsewhere while so many music educators were stuck inside practice rooms preparing for auditions, juries, and recitals.

Freshness is a moving target and will take a commitment on the part of music educators. I would argue that learning about Run-DMC might be a worthwhile activity if students could relate this music to current trends, but on its own, this music is no longer fresh. Of course, staying fresh can and will transcend hip-hop and hip-hop flavored music genres. Perhaps we are due for a revival of some long stale music, or probably more likely new artists will develop new sounds and styles that defy our current labels and understanding. If I could predict exactly what would be fresh 10 years from now, I would be in a different line of work. Instead, like all music educators trying to stay fresh, I have to remain committed to listening and learning. I need to accept and embrace the fact that I will not always be the fountain of knowledge in the classroom and that I will need to rely on the expertise of my students and other community members in order to stay at my freshest.

Staying fresh involves more than streaming the latest hits on Spotify. A music classroom staying fresh would and should still make use of music from previous generations. Indeed, by staying fresh, a music educator might be better situated to help students make sense of older music, which in addition to expanding students’ worlds could give students a more robust understanding of contemporary music. Beyond music, staying fresh also includes remaining informed about the latest in educational policy, advancements in various technologies, and developments in relevant research. In these ways, staying fresh is similar to professional development and/or lifelong learning, but it also includes a continual commitment to honoring the music experiences and expertise of young people. Like hip-hop, fresh music classrooms are in a state of constant evolution and renewal to not only be fresh, but stay fresh.

Snapshot of a Potential Music Classroom Being Hip-Hop

After a student in Ms. Jiminez’s music classroom posted a video to the class website of a Syrian rapper’s newly released song about the impact of violence on their community, Ms. Jiminez sprang into action. First, she facilitated some online and in-person discussion and exploration with students including prompting questions about the social and music aspects of the performance. Analysis discovered that the song sampled portions of a traditional Levantine folk dance song set over layers of aggressive trap style drums. Students then borrowed expertise and material from their social studies teacher to better make sense of the current events in Syria, they consulted their English teacher and an Arabic-speaking community member to analyze the rhyming structure and the use of metaphor and intertextual references, and finally conferred with their digital media teacher to examine the video effects employed by the artist.

After developing a thorough understanding of the original piece of music, students set about creating their own compositions to speak to issues of violence in their community. Like the Syrian rapper, they employed samples of traditional dance music relevant to their local cultures in their instrumentals and paid homage to the Syrian rapper by including either portions with similar rhyming patterns in their lyrics or the use of similar visual effects in the music videos they created with help from their digital media teacher. Partway through the project, a violent crime took place in the local community and work in the classroom came to a halt. Many students chose to rework their projects to include references to the most current local events and others requested to forgo the video portion of the project in favor of forming a community event in which they performed their music live in addition to inviting speakers and activists to address the struggles of the community.

Conclusion

I argue that a music classroom that works to keep it real, flip the script, make some noise, and stay fresh might go beyond teaching hip-hop skills and songs to actually being hip-hop. Adopting these principles would ideally keep music classrooms relevant to students’ interests, focus on connections to both local and global contexts, take and transform music ideas, and create original music within an environment that honors music traditions for what they are and remains flexible and responsive to ruptures in flow. As mentioned earlier, a classroom that is hip-hop might not even include hip-hop music content. My argument is not that every classroom, teacher, and student should be studying and creating hip-hop music, but rather that principles from hip-hop cultures might serve as a catalyst for thinking about a way of being in the music world that is relevant, responsive, and sustaining ([ 10] ). No one specific genre, set of instruments, list of repertoire, or particular skills can guarantee that. I hope that music educators might consider the possibilities listed in this article, but in true hip-hop fashion, I expect that educators and students who are staying fresh will flip these ideas in ways that are real for their own contexts to facilitate making some meaningful noise.

Footnotes

Author BiographyAdam J. Kruse is an assistant professor of music education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he teaches graduate and undergraduate music education courses focused largely on vernacular music and music technology. He has published and presented on these topics in a wide range of venues and his current scholarly endeavors explore intersections of hip-hop, race, class, gender, and technology.

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By Adam J. Kruse

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