On March 4th, prestigious Stanford University played host to a round table discussion on Hip Hop. The event was held at Stanford’s Wallenburg Hall and titled “Know-the-Ledge: Hip Hop Scholarship Meets Hip Hop Media”. Members of the panel included old school artist Busy B, Hip Hop Journalist Davey D, the self proclaimed Hip Hop Bishop Adisa Banjoko, and the teacher Blastmaster KRS One.
The Blastmaster was in full blast mode; to the point that several headlines have referred to his behavior as a having a “meltdown” during the “The Artist is The Theorist: “I Am Hiphop”” portion of the event.
KRS had particular issue with, the previously unknown to me, Adisa Banjoku with whom he had a “spirited” exchange of words with during the opening of the panel. Some of the highlights of KRS’ comments include, “What I’d really like to do is jump over this table and beat your fucking ass”, “I’m here right now, what do you want to do?” KRS referred to Banjoku as an “enemy of Hip Hop” and an “FBI agent”. These verbal attacks were as a result of Adisa slandering KRS in the media, according to the Teacher himself; a claim that Banjoku denies.
ProHipHop.com has posted up several clips of the conversation from that meeting that are very interesting to hear as well as entertaining; especially when KRS retorts back to Adisa, regarding his claims that KRS has sent him threatening messages, that “I have a declaration of peace.”
The fun doesn’t stop there as later on KRS attempts to explain who is and who is not included among those that can claim “I Am Hip Hop”. He brings up some interesting points as far as that discussion goes saying that you can’t become “Hip Hop” simply by studying it or learning it in books – that to actually be apart of the culture you have to participate in one of the elements. That point brings up further questions, such as where that leaves the Hip Hop fan that buys the albums, attends the shows, and have basically grown up with Hip Hop but are not an Emcee, DJ, B-boy, or Graffiti artist.
So did KRS go over the edge or “spazz” out as All Hip Hop called it? Listen for yourself and decide.
In any event, hopefully the conviction in which KRS grandstanded at the conference will lead to intelligent discussion, an understanding of the state of Hip Hop today, and provoke action to unify and balance the culture.
Last episode of Yo! MTV Raps anyone? Go watch it. Can’t we all just get along?
Below are the links the audio files of the conference.
Opening gambit
Audio 1 of 3
Audio 2 of 3
Audio 3 of 3
Referenced from ProHipHop.com
Leave a Reply