The phrase “Hip Hop” is a phrase that has become popular only within the last few decades. It isn’t until the beginning of the 1980’s that the phrase begins to pop up within newspapers. Specifically in 1983, columnists for newspapers around the country begin to write about the interesting phenomenon that is taking place with the growth of the hip hop genre of music. For his article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on October 1983 titled “Rap Rock- Dancers Delight in Pop’s Youngest Musical Genre”, Ken Tucker interviewed Arthur Baker, hip hop record producer of famous hits of the time such as “Planet Rock” and “Looking for the Perfect Beat.” During the interview Baker said this on hip hop, “This is the music of our time…It’s really nothing less than revolutionary. It’s bringing together black kids and white kids, England and America, young people and adults who thought they weren’t interested in pop music anymore.” Ken even goes on to talk about break dancing, and explains this new interesting form of dance by saying “hip-hop devotees don’t merely dance to this music – they break-dance, a style consisting of wild, extraordinary moves as dancers spin on their hands, their backs – any part of the anatomy.” The captivating part of this article and many others from around this time period is that the writers seem very excited to inform the public about this new genre of music and dance that is becoming popular. They seem to be trying to get the reader excited to listen to the music and go actuallysee people break dance. The most interesting article I found while conducting my research was an article from the Los Angeles Times in February 1988 by Cary Darling. This article titled “L.A.- The Second Deffest City of Hip-Hop” compares the cities in regards to their hip-hop culture, and talks about famous artists of the time such as Ice-t and L.L. Cool J. Though what was most interesting about this article was that it included a glossary of terms under the article. It is titled “Getting Hip to Hip-Hop- A Glossary,” and included twenty different terms frquently used in hip-hop culture with their definitions. Some of the words included were Chillin’, Fresh, Ill, and even Hip-Hop itself which they defined as ” An Umbrella word for the subculture of rapping, deejaying, scratching, breakdancing and graffiti art.” The glossary is interesting to note; however, it’s also fascinating that in this time hip-hop was not just a genre of music today, but it was also a subculture with its own specific aspects that defined it. Whereas today, using the word hip-hop would usually be more directed at the genre of music rather than acts such as breakdancing or using graffiti. Finally, the authors of these articles are almost always invitng to the new sub-culture. They are even, as I stated previously, attempting to create excitement for the sub-culture. It even crossed my mind that they are attempting to make the sub-culture grow into an bigger part of American culture with writers like Ken Tucker making statements such as ” You haven’t lived until you’ve seen someone move to music by dancing on his neck.”

One of the topics we covered this week was the ideas of realism versus the ideas of Idealism. To get straight to the meet of this post, I would definitely side myself on the side of realism. The biggest reason I have trouble agreeing with what idealist believe is that I have a hard time believing in a God; however, I believe that being an idealist is probably the better way to live. Since the idealist believes that people are flawed copies of the divine, they can strive to become better people all the time. They can be happy in knowing that they are not meant to be perfect because being perfect means that you would be divine which is obviously impossible. Though my views as a realist take the skeptic out of me. I tend to refuse to believe things are possible, and often doubt my own abilities at most times. It seems that I would be more suited for the beliefs of an Idealist, but my ideals as a realist refuse to let myself accept their philosophies.

Our assignment this week was to read “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr. During my reading, there was one part of the novel that stuck out to me the most. At the end of the first chapter, Carr is discussing that he feels as though the internet has turned his brain into ” something like a high-speed processing machine, a human HAL.”(16)  In my opinion that does not sound too bad, but Carr doesn’t feel the same saying that “I missed my old brain.”(16) Maybe the fact that my entire life I have been accustomed to using the internet is the reason why I have trouble understanding his point of view. It may also be why I disagree with another passage he has in chapter six when he states that “A personal letter written in, say, the nineteenth century bears little resemblance to a personal e-mail or text message written today. Our indulgence in the pleasures of informality and immediacy has led to a narrowing of expressiveness and a loss of eloquence.” (108) Again our difference is most likely derived from the generation in which we are born, but I would argue that the lack of eloquence in messages is much less relevant when you are able to send a multitude at any very instant. In the nineteenth century letters were less common and would take a while to get from one person to another meaning you had to convey as much as possible in one small letter; however, I can at anytime pick up my phone and send a message about anything with any amount of “eloquence” that is necessary. It is possible for me to send a very long and meaningful text to someone of importance, but at the same time I can also text them while they are at the store just to tell them to pick up milk. By this i mean to argue that texts can still have as much eloquence while still being extremely more efficient, and that those two ideas are not mutually exclusive as Carr might say they are.