Author combines history with hip-hop culture

By Mallory Redinger

Published Feb. 8, 2008

As part of Black History Month, author and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson talked about the month’s importance. The Black Studies program sponsored the keynote speech.

Dyson is known for his cultural analysis in both his books and speeches. Using what he considers a more relevant and effective method, Dyson combined hip-hop and pop culture references with the history, political and social landscape of black America.

Jessie Adolph, a doctoral candidate in English and graduate instructor at MU, said Dyson addressed the audience in much the same way he tries to instruct his own students in his freshman composition classes. He said Dyson demonstrates history’s cyclical nature.

“Dyson addressed that you have to find ways to make history brand-new,” Adolph said. “One of the ways to make history brand new is to incorporate elements of pop culture into it, whether it be through hip-hop, spoken word, reality shows, the Internet. Some way you have to bring new ways of reaching that story.”

Dyson said black history should be viewed as part of American history and world history, not as an exclusive historical subsection.

MU junior Piana Edwards said she enjoyed the way Dyson dealt with the issues presented within the hip-hop culture.

“I like that he actually knew the hip-hop,” Edwards said. “Other intellectuals have a lot to say about it, but they don’t really know about it as much.”

Edwards said she appreciated the honest critique of songs like Soulja Boy’s “Crank Dat (Soulja Boy),” which Dyson said supports misogynistic ideals, but also that Dyson remained fair to hip-hop culture as a whole.

Robert Wilson, a 76-year-old retiree from Jefferson City, said he does not understand hip-hop culture at his age, but still found Dyson’s message effective and universal.

“I don’t care for rap music because I don’t like the way they talk about women,” Wilson said. “I enjoy Dyson because he talked about a lot of things I have experienced. You see, I am not young.”