November 4
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i. Welcome to Week 11 ***November 4 & 11 have to be switched on syllabus*** |
II.Overview of Project #2: the one-pager
III. When graf writers write!
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As you watch, pay attention to these 5 graf writers: Basquiat, Lady Pink, Wane, Lee Quinones, Claw. Choose one WRITER and ruminate on their influence and role in Hip Hop.
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(Lady Pink)
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(Wane)
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(Lee)
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(Claw)
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Starting January 2024, dozens of graffiti artists painted more than 27 floors of abandoned luxury buildings in downtown LA called Oceanwide Plaza. Spanning a whole city block in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country with a rising mass of unhoused people, Oceanwide Plaza was supposed to offer more than 500 condos and a hotel (with towers that reach 55 stories). It has sat vacant since 2019 when the developer ran out of money. The small security team who patrolled the empty buildings quit since they hadn't been paid for months. |
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- “As much as people are entitled to not like what the graffiti writers do, I would encourage people to respect the effort to use the space that nobody else seems to be caring about right now,” said Stefano Bloch... “This was a giant building that a community of people is finding use in,” he said. “It’s people making use of the things that others neglect or leave behind.”
- “Shit is a skyscraper playground,” said Hopes [a graf writer], who took the center spot on the top of tower 1. “Let’s all get together and paint it up. Make LA graffiti history... With all due respect, shit’s abandoned, doing nothing. Let’s put some color on this bitch and do what we do if they ain’t gon finish the job.”
- “This building has needed love for years...If the owners aren’t doing anything about it, the streets of LA are happy to make something out of it.” [Akers, grad writer]
- Actual, a graf writer, "wanted to paint higher than others, but by the time he reached the 36th floor, 'I couldn’t walk; all my leg muscles were just shot.' So he scoped out a spot and got to work. 'It was like a trance,' he said. 'You’re so high up that it’s not until you come back down that you deal with the world again.'”
- Roger Gastman, a longtime graffiti curator and historian, said there’s been 'a boom in street work the last few years unlike anything I have seen since the 1990s,' and the buildings show 'that graffiti is bigger than ever.'”
- On Tuesday, Michael Delahaut, who lives across the street, said he was watching police raid the buildings. To the 54-year-old, who has been in the L.A. graffiti scene since the 1980s, the creation outside his window was no nuisance — it was more like waking up and finding a masterpiece had been installed in his living room. 'It would’ve taken hundreds of writers, tens of thousands of cans. It’s amazing,' he said. 'I’ve been able to witness a lot of graffiti movement moments, but this might be the biggest.'"
- "Aqua, a graffitist and fine artist who worked on the high-rise project, said in an email that for those involved, it was all about location. 'It is in the heart of the city with high visibility. What a gem!'”
- "For Actual [a graf writer], the work gave new voice to the streets. 'The money invested in [the buildings] could have done so much for this city,' he said. Now, he said, the graffiti is a reminder: 'That’s every single kid in this city just putting their name down, showing they exist and taking the city back.'”
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Today's URL for the website: https://www.funkdafied.org/november-4.html |
Direct Link to Google Form: https://bit.ly/hhr-nov4 |
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Talking
Points |
1. Our first task is to distinguish Hip Hop Education/Hip Hip Pedagogy from DEI/1990s multiculturalism, an additive to white canons, respectability politics (school's version), and cultural appropriation. How and why must Hip Hop Education/Hip Hip Pedagogy be different? (Make a connection to your reading if you can)
2. Our second task is to connect ratchedemics to Hip Hop Education/Hip Hip Pedagogy. How and why must they be connected? (Make a connection to your reading if you can) |
