Global Hip Hop Studies - 1-2: Droppin’ Knowledge: The Fifth Element in Hip Hop Culture, Oct 2024

This article discusses the concept of occult knowledge in rap music, which I define as using supernatural, fantastical and spiritual methods associated with the occult to access hidden information that heightens one’s knowledge of self. In hip hop, the fifth element (knowledge) is usually associated with social justice, liberation, education and self-awareness, and this article asks us to consider how rappers’ usage of occult knowledge challenges familiar conceptions of this element. Through an examination of Three 6 Mafia and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s music, I argue that occult knowledge is crucial to understanding the fifth element for four reasons. First, rappers are utilizing occult methods, such as seances, tarot readings and pacts with the devil, to increase their knowledge of self, and the hidden knowledge they access through these methods increases their self-awareness, which makes it easier for them to achieve their goals. Second, I broaden the connections amongst hip hop, religion and spirituality to include the occult, as hip hop and the occult is an understudied area in academia. Third, I argue that by utilizing a social justice, activist framework to understand knowledge, scholars are ignoring constructions of self-knowledge, such as occult knowledge, that do not fit into the ‘conscious’ rap category. As Afrika Bambaataa admits, knowledge through liberation and social justice was not hip hop’s initial purpose. Finally, I disrupt the hip hop academic canon by studying rappers who do not receive scholarly attention, as conversations about American rap tends to centre around Kanye West, Tupac, Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z, who are ‘safe’ rappers that fit into familiar academic paradigms and methodologies. By examining occult knowledge in rap music, it opens up possibilities for what form the ‘spiritual consciousness’ aspect of the fifth element takes on.

Graffiti writers not only acquire skills and techniques for painting but also engage in a reading activity that allows them to perceive and understand the city in specific ways. Through this activity, they observe the rhythms of urban spaces, identify police presence, choose surfaces, recognize peers and interpret the messages conveyed on walls. Based on these observations, they create maps that dissent from conventional cartographies, incorporating epistemological, ethical, political and emotional layers. These maps serve as guides, recording memories, sharing stories and fostering relationships. Additionally, these maps indicate the existence of particular knowledge about urban spaces, derived from experiences in street painting and shared through narratives. In essence, the cartographies produced by graffiti writers challenge the dominant knowledge regime that seeks to define and impose specific ways of thinking, imagining and existing within cities. This article explores various dimensions of the knowledge regime shaped by writers from São Paulo, Brazil, drawing on ethnographic research conducted by the author since 2016 and 2021.

Didactic content remains among the most important elements of both the oral and written literature of the Mongolian nomads. When hip hop arrived in Mongolia in the 1990s, the culture’s local trailblazers were fast to recognize the study and exchange of knowledge as practices pivotal to the culture’s development. Throughout the years, Mongolian hip hop heads have actively engaged with the fifth element, successfully blending global hip hop knowledge with local didactic traditions. This allowed for aggregating and sharing knowledge in unique ways, ones combining street smartness and nomadic philosophy. Developing such a localized approach moved rap lyrics closer to traditional socio-ethical commentaries dubbed surgaal (Mong. ‘teaching’). The present article highlights the place of hip hop knowledge transfer practices among the larger lineage of Mongolian didactic literature and presents ways in which local hip hop heads engage in ‘spitting knowledge’.

There has been very little dialogue between hip hop pedagogy research in English-speaking countries and in France so far. Through an analysis of fourteen teachers and hip hop educators, I provide a preliminary exploration of the current status of hip hop education in France. I suggest that even though French hip hop pedagogues are not familiar with critical pedagogy or culturally relevant pedagogy, they do share key questions, themes and practices with their counterparts described in the existing anglophone literature. French artists and teachers participating in this study display a strong sense of how its aesthetics can nourish ‘knowledge of self’ in a way that the founders of the hip hop movement might be inclined to embrace. They also all insist on building a locally anchored community of learners to foster knowledge transmission and underline the decolonial dimension of the hip hop knowledge they teach. These views on how hip hop can and should be used to transmit knowledge contribute to define the critical core of hip hop pedagogy and lead us to consider roadmaps to develop the praxis dimension of hip hop pedagogy that seems to have previously been neglected by French hip hop pedagogues.

This article explores the possibility of incorporating Hip Hop dance and culture into English language education in Japan. Japan’s unique context, where Hip Hop dance is immensely popular but knowledge of its history and culture is lacking, provides a unique opportunity for research on Hip Hop dance and education. Data were collected from four key groups of participants to obtain perspectives and suggestions for a Hip Hop-based English language course for undergraduate students. With the growing popularity of Hip Hop dance and culture in Japan, dance can be utilized in Japanese universities as a valuable pedagogical tool and contribute to the development of innovative and effective practices of teaching and learning. The results of the study indicate that attitudes towards Hip Hop dance and culture in English language education were largely positive, and participants shared extensive suggestions for potential courses in the future. Participants also highlighted key benefits, as well as important challenges that need to be overcome in advancing Hip Hop-based English language education. This study shows that a content-based English language course on Hip Hop history and culture would be ideal for expanding understanding of Hip Hop in Japan.

Hip hop’s entrance into academic spaces is inextricably linked to the questions: what is legitimate knowledge, and how is legitimacy attributed? These questions stem from a concern about the exclusionary structures in academia that prioritize privileged positions of institutional power over the lived experiences of artists and practitioners: who warrants a seat at the metaphorical head table? We explore such questions of legitimate knowledge by considering the case of India’s first university-accredited course on hip hop, the certificate in ‘Introduction to Hip-Hop Studies’. Aimed at providing students with a sociocultural and historical understanding of hip hop, most of the 60-hour course is taught by homegrown artists who have been pivotal for the culture’s growth in India. In this article, we reflect on our experiences as researchers and knowledge producers as part of the inaugural batch of this course, in the summer of 2021. Through autoethnographic readings, we address the following questions: what constitutes legitimate knowledge, and how is this legitimacy determined? We pivot these questions on (sub)/cultural capital, woman-produced knowledge and emic and etic stances towards knowledge. Reflecting on our personal identities, we re-evaluate conceptions of legitimate knowledge created at the intersection of our roles as students of the course, and as researchers and academics. Problematizing our positions as knowledge producers, and latent extensions of hip hop’s fifth element, we dissect notions of legitimate knowledge, as well as the varying axes across which they are produced and legitimized, such as street cred, gender and membership in the Global Hip Hop Nation.

Mum’s House Philosophy is a concept created by Otis Mensah in his debut EP Mum’s House, Philosopher (2018). It derives from Mensah’s desire to challenge conventional ideas around legitimate knowledge production and assert the accessible, intellectual and communal qualities of hip hop. Below, Mensah discusses Mum’s House Philosophy with Dr Alex Mason and Parise Carmichael-Murphy who co-organized the 2021 Hip Hop & Higher Education Conference, following Mason and Mensah’s collaboration on a hip hop lecture and seminar series, and Artist in Residency at the University of Sheffield.¹ Together they unpack the principles of Mum’s House Philosophy, consider the value and challenge of bringing it into university, and how it enriches their individual and collective approaches to artist–scholar collaborations. Drawing from this discussion, they pose important questions for the reader to reflect on as they seek to incorporate hip hop into higher education.