Creative Class

I won’t lie – at first this one seemed so easy that it was almost a chore. I mean, come on? Michael S. Steele, the new African-American National Committee Chairman of the GOP, says that the party needs to apply its core values to the “urban suburban Hiphop setting” with an “off the hook” PR campaign. What more do I have to say – the joke kind of writes itself right?

”There was underlying concerns we had become too regionalized and the party needed to reach beyond our comfort” zones, he said, citing defeats in such states as Virginia and North Carolina. “We need messengers to really capture that region – young, Hispanic, black, a cross section … We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

All jokes aside, it is interesting that he used culture to describe two very different types of space. The point that he seems to be groping at is that Hiphop has diluted the severity of the cultural-spatial barrier between urban and suburban that existed so starkly and significantly before in North American culture. Arguably, a strong historically embedded anti-urban sentiment was the wind behind the sails of the great ship suburbia. Moreover, just 30 years ago in the U.S. to be “urban” signified being black, and to be “suburban” signified being white, and there was not much culture common to them. 40 years ago moreso. Down the highway was still a world away. There was no “setting” that bridged the urban and suburban worlds.

Considering both how young the culture itself is (born in ‘73) and how different and often separate the two spatial experiences and modes of life are, it speaks volumes for the flexibility and capacity-for-participation of the culture. Not that it was looking for the surprising and, as Jon Stewart pointed out, kind of hilarious acknowledgment from the GOP.

So while seeing a quote like that attributed to the Chairman of the Republican party makes me giggle a little bit (pause), I also try not to loose the significance and speed of that historical progression. From some “urban phenomenon” that republicans abhorred in the 80s, to something they’d consider as part of their bridging strategy a generation later – albeit in a somewhat corny and contrived fashion.

All of that is just to say about this week’s musical selection – while he might not have meant it quite this way, in memory of the Notorious B.I.G. who died 12 years ago on March 9th, I’m sure he would agree that it bears observing:

Things Done Changed.

c/o Mary Fogarty’s Organic Mechanic

With the right mix of Technology, Talent, and Tolerance to facilitate the emergence of innovation, six seconds might be all you need.

Observe:

Thoughts?

Columnists like Stanley Crouch hope that Obama’s win will renovate the content and style of hip hop music. Throughout a recent article he takes hip hop modes of fashion to task and, by extension, the more identifiable affectations of urban culture. With his win, Crouch hopes that Obama will shift trends:

On the pop cultural end, Barack and Michelle Obama’s worldliness and common sense will greatly diminish the national appetite for and the defense of those who proudly commit intellectual suicide by submitting to anti-intellectual stances and the surface styles that repel across all ethnic lines.

At the same time, Obama is considering creating an Office of Urban Policy, hopefully to replace the ailing/failing HUD. Obviously the connection to urban America he developed as a community organizer in Chicago doesn’t stop at the White House.

With Jay-Z and Beyoncé rumored to be performing at the inauguration, and Obama’s now infamous hip hop mannerisms (brushing his shoulders off, the “fist-jab” – as Fox News so adeptly termed it – with his wife, etc.), and the overwhelming support from the urban music community bolstering his win, one has to wonder what role the hip hop community will play in this new office.

While Crouch is holding out for a great shift in urban culture, one has to wonder about the wisdom of that wish. Everyone can agree that Obama is a great role model to urban youth and urban culture in general, but hoping for this seismic shift is glib and doesn’t acknowledge the critical perspective that urban cultural practitioners can and regularly do bring to the discourse on cities. Obama as cultural-consensus-maker might not be in the best interest of the urban discourse. As in intellectual, he might be more interested in working with difference than in drawing it toward his position – collaboration as opposed to consensus.

University of London PhD candidate Markus Miessen examines the potential of a new type of collaboration in a phenomenal article:

An alternative model of participation within spatial practice will be rendered, one that takes as a starting point an understanding of participation beyond models of consensus. Instead of aiming for synchronization, such model could be based on participation through critical distance and the conscious implementation of zones of conflict. Through cyclical specialization, the future spatial practitioner could arguably be understood as an outsider who–instead of trying to set up or sustain common denominators of consensus, enters existing situations or projects by deliberately instigating conflicts as a micro-political form of critical engagement with the environment that one is operating in.

From a policy perspective, what does Obama need with more people like him when he’s trying to address a different demographic? Instead of encouraging urban youth and urban culture to emulate him, wouldn’t it be more useful for him and for them if on-the-ground representatives from urban culture could advise as post-consensus collaborators to help enrich future urban policy? Is there intellectual wealth in the distance between Obama and the “anti-intellectual stances and the surface styles that repel across all ethnic lines”?

And now, as always, some music.

Hello Everybody! I’m Kwende Kefentse. It’s very cool to be involved in this exchange with all of you. For my part, I’m a DJ and student from Toronto and currently living in Ottawa. My work focuses on understanding the relationship between place and the development of culture, specifically in the city – what’s been termed “urban culture.”

Just the idea that there is a genre of music that is spatially defined is something that Richard and I agree is relevant – does this imply that we have some kind of shared idea about what “urban” means. How does the physical urban space relate to that construct? I’ve been engaged in study and in developing my ideas for a long time, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you all and getting feedback about the way that urban arts/music and youth scenes work in your cities, and your ideas about the effect of space on expression.

I thought that for the first blog, we could start with something general to give you a sense of my perspective: The Dark Knight. I know that comic book movies have been all the rage this summer, but how good is this movie though?! However many billions of dollars later, this movie has (nearly?) become the biggest box office blowout of all time. It’s that good. Kudos to DC Comics for reinvigorating that franchise.

During the previews, at least in North America, DC began the hype-machine for their next feature film: Watchmen. The original 12 comics were written by Alan Moore, a master of his craft if there ever was one. I can say without a shred of hyperbole that it is one of the most nuanced, morally complex, structurally ingenious, transformative works to be printed to paper in the last century. If you don’t believe me, Google will tell you the same.

The hype-machine pumped out seven posters and released them to the web the other week. As I was trying to figure out what to say to all of you in my first post, this poster spoke to me:

Not to ruin any of the story for the people who are going to see this film, but when Dr. Wally Weaver makes that comment he is talking about the character Dr. Manhattan, it’s that blue gentleman with his back to us, floating in the lotus position. Dr. Manhattan used to be a regular human being and a scientist, but he changed and has become something much more than human. Dr. Weaver is trying to say that in his transformation Manhattan also transformed what mankind imagined it could be. There had been nothing like him before, and moreover we couldn’t go back to the way things had been. He represents a fundamental system change.

It’s a typical Moore-type metaphor – one that rings right through time and space. The image of Manhattan has been associated with that very kind of change since the island was gridded out in 1807. There had never been a space quite like it before. Its critical mass represented an opportunity for change. Changes in housing law out of New York (the 1879 and 1901 tenement laws) affected lot sizes in cities all over North America. When they were thinking to call the WWII Nuclear project “The Knoxville Project” (Thanx Wikipedia) , they thought better and settled on the name “Manhattan” for the project that would change the face of the world forever. The U.N. would eventually establish its headquarters there. Modern architecture would transform the idea of the city in New York. System change is part of its profile. We have been in the shadow of Manhattan for quite some time now it seems.

On the north side of the island in the South Bronx there was light though. In 1973, as the tax base fled, emerging out of the shadow of Manhattan, kids were collecting their feelings and observations about the city and unleashing them as either b-boying/breakdancing, djing, emceeing, and writing graffiti. As natives of the space – the first real natives of the modern city – the social innovators in the community collected the individual art forms into a culture and system of expression that would literally become synonymous with the modern city as we know it. The entire content and formation of it was the urban experience. Eventually it would be a beacon to youth, whether urban or suburban, American or otherwise. As it became disseminated through the media from city to city around the world, hip hop culture would affect not only the way we walk and talk, but the way we think about art, and the possibilities of expression as young people in cities. It would represent a fundamental system change in the way young people in cities identified themselves and related to each other.

This isn’t to say that all young people are into hip hop, but it’s just to acknowledge the fundamental changes that have taken place. How many people in my age bracket really think that graffiti is a crime? How many young people think that DJ’ing is a cool thing to do? When did your parents learn the word “dis”? Why do they say it like it ain’t no thang – how did that become normalized? Why is Barack Obama’s hip hop mannerism so explosive? I won’t make mention of the entire industry of music that came literally out of nowhere in the late 70’s to dominate the world in the late 90’s and beyond.

It’s easy to be glib about all of this, but we have to remember that it hasn’t always been like this. Not cities, and not the culture of the city either. How did this specific expression of place transcend culture and resonate so strongly all over the globe? I remember being almost the only kid in my school that liked hip hop or even really knew about it. Is that even possible now?

As the planet enters its first urban age, one of the things I’m trying to figure out is this: As one of the first modern cities in the world, how long is Manhattan’s shadow? How bright is its beacon?

I’m looking forward to thinking about that and more with you all.

And now some music to help it all go down. I’ll keep it shorter next time, I promise.

Peace,

-K