A lot of times, when people say hip-hop, they don't know what they're talking about. They just think of the rappers. When you talk about hip-hop, you're talking about the whole culture and movement. You have to take the whole culture for what it is.
Interpretation
Hip-hop is often misunderstood as just rap music, but it encompasses a larger cultural movement.
The quote emphasizes that hip-hop is not merely about the music or the artists; rather, it is a rich cultural movement that includes various elements such as dance, art, fashion, and social issues. To truly understand hip-hop, one must appreciate its historical context and the diverse communities that contribute to it.
In practice
In a speech about cultural diversity, you could use this quote to illustrate how important it is to look beyond surface-level perceptions.
Everybody needs to show respect to each others' ways and the cultural life that you get on this planet. Don't get caught up on 'I'm brown, black, white, red, blue, whatever.' You gotta ask, what were you called before 1492? All these names we're using now are just an illusion made to keep us fighting each other.
I'd like to see people pay attention to the science of hip hop. The knowledge part, the political side of what hip hop could do, or where hip hop is gonna go. I always say it's gonna become universal as we become a galactic union.
How you act, walk, look and talk is all part of Hip Hop culture. And the music is colorless. Hip Hop music is made from Black, brown, yellow, red and white.
I wear anything of culture, from the Earth or beyond. The whole planet is my shop.
We also want to try and slow down all this foolishness that's going on between the East and West. We gotta understand that Hip Hop is now universal. Hip Hop is not East coast or West coast.
I think the point to be understood is that we're all different. I've never been a fan of theories of acting. I didn't go to drama school, so I was never put through a training that was limited by someone saying, 'This is the way you should act.'
Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep.
Now that the black experience isn't viewed as box-office death, people are catching up to untapped auteurs.
It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, worldview and thoughts.
Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.
And music has always been incredibly cathartic for me, whether it's writing my own stuff or singing other people's music; it's very freeing.
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