Hip-hop Scholars to Screen, Discuss Documentary

This Friday, Nov. 16, four rising young scholars of hip-hop culture will convene for a screening and public discussion of Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary characterized by its director as a "loving critique" of misogyny, homophobia and violence in hip-hop. The program, to take place from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. in Thomas 110, is free and open to the public.

Wilfredo Gomez, a 2006 graduate of Haverford who is now at work on a master's thesis on a hip-hop topic at Bucknell University, designed the program and will sit on the panel. He was motivated, he says, by an episode of the Oprah Winfrey show he saw last spring.

"Right after Don Imus made his controversial comments about the women on the Rutgers basketball team," he explains, "there was a backlash against hip-hop in the media. People were pointing to rap artists as legitimizing disparaging language about women and people of color, and Oprah invited some rappers and record-industry executives to address those issues themselves."

The show included a satellite feed from Spelman College, a historically black women's college in Georgia, in which students asked questions.

"I thought they asked the executives some really sharp, insightful questions," Gomez says, "and I really wanted to engage in a conversation about these issues with that kind of audience. I don't have connections at Spelman, but I do have a strong relationship with a women's college. I knew where to go at Bryn Mawr."

Gomez got in touch with Director of Intercultural Affairs Christopher MacDonald-Dennis, who enthusiastically agreed to co-sponsor the program with Zami and the Women's Center.

"I've always been a hip-hop fan," says MacDonald-Dennis, "and I remember the revolutionary edge of hip-hop in its early days. But there's no question that there's a lot of misogyny and homophobia there. I think it's great that Wilfredo is asking what the cultural forces are that tend to bring the most violent and misogynistic strands of hip-hop to the mainstream."

Gomez says that Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a 2006 film directed by self-described "hip-hop head" Byron Hurt, is an excellent introduction to the complex intersection of art and commerce that has brought hip-hop to mass audiences. It features interviews with rap artists, industry executives, fans and detractors along with commentary by experts such as Bryn Mawr alumna Sarah Jones and Georgetown University's Michael Eric Dyson.

While at Haverford, Gomez took a course with Dyson. It was through that class that he met two of the three scholars who will join him on the panel; at the time, they were graduate teaching assistants for Dyson.

"I was interested in putting together a panel of young scholars, members of the hip-hop generation who are invested in hip-hop art and culture," says Gomez. "We're all hip-hop fans."

The other panelists:

Maria McMath is a doctoral candidate at Princeton University who is completing a dissertation on hip-hop culture in France. She is currently serving as a visiting instructor of anthropology and peace studies at Haverford.

James Peterson holds a Ph.D. from Penn and is on the English faculty of Bucknell University, where he is Gomez's faculty adviser. He has published widely on hip-hop culture and was consulted frequently by the national news media in the wake of the Imus controversy last year.

Salamishah Tillet, who holds a Ph.D. in the history of American Civilization at Harvard University, is an assistant professor of English at Penn. She was the associate producer and director of archival research for the documentary film NO!, Rape, Sexual Assault, Healing, Black Women, and she is the co-founder of A Long Walk Home, a nonprofit that uses art therapy and performance to raise awareness of violence against women and promote healing in survivors of trauma.

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