• Hip Hop Education →

    Hip Hop Education
    Year 3

    Hip hop education and artistic expression. It's not just about music. It's beats, rhymes, life and learning.

About

Now in its third year of activation, Hart House Hip Hop Education continues to examine the growth, development, and change making power of Hip Hop. This season, we look at Hip Hop as a ‘bridge’ – we examine the use and impact of Hip Hop as a bridge to culture, social justice, diversity, connection, and understanding.

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  • Target Audience: All U of T students
  • Program Cycle: 2021-2022
  • Program Contact:
    • Zoe Dille

      Manager, Dialogue & Expression

      .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) 416-978-5362
      picture of Zoe Dille
    • Marco Adamovic

      Program Coordinator

      .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) 416-946-8391
      picture of Marco Adamovic

Schedule

The 2021-2022 season kicks off on October 28 with Hip Hop Café; this edition invites special guests from Canada’s Hip Hop community to discuss and explore the Old School vs. New School dynamic.

In November, Hip Hop Café presents the premiere of Chasing Samples and Chasing History, a three-part lecture series curated and hosted by DJ Lynnée that delves into notable aspects of sampling culture.

Throughout the winter months, we’ll host Humanz of Hip Hop: The Wealth Sessions, a virtual financial literacy and wealth building workshop; and the annual Hip Hop Family Skate. 

In March, Hart House Hip Hop Education celebrates International Women’s Day 2022 with Women of Hip Hop: Erasure, Trailblazers, and Placemakers, a virtual discussion featuring three forces in Hip Hop, Martha Diaz, DJ Lynnée Denise, and Francesca D’Amico Cuthbert.

Hip Hop has always existed as a means to deconstruct and challenge longstanding misunderstandings surrounding Black, Indigenous and other racialized people, to investigate systems of oppression and to give power and pride to those engaged in its community. Working with our campus partners and community hip hop practitioners, our programs support values of representation, collaboration and social justice as we explore the key principles of Hip Hop and its importance in our everyday culture on all three campuses. Through a combination of drop in programs, workshops, informal discussion groups, performances and other multidisciplinary initiatives, Hip Hop continues to rewrite its own narrative and defy singular definition. 

This is more than just rap. It’s a unique expression of culture steeped in self-knowledge, community building and personal empowerment, social activism and identity politics experienced through a matrix of music, dance, visual art, language and fashion.

Chasing Samples And Chasing History

Chasing Samples and Chasing History is a three-part video series highlighting notable aspects of sampling culture curated by DJ Lynnée Denise. The video series is dedicated to the late Biz Markie 1964-2021.

Biz Markie’s landmark album All Samples Cleared marks a turning point in hip-hop, DJ culture, music production, and popular culture. His court battle and defeat against record company giants who sued him for the unauthorized use of prerecorded music changed how working-class youth engaged with the music often found in their parent’s record collection. With intellectual property and copyright matters on the table, DJs found new approaches and more radical ways of shaping and sounding off samples in the music.

Chasing Samples and Chasing History: 1988

Chasing Samples and Chasing History: Chasing Sampled Women

Chasing Samples and Chasing History: Mos Def Black on Both Sides

Women In Hip Hop

Hip Hop is nothing without the contributions of women. We continued to showcase their impact. In 2022, honoring women’s voices for our International Women’s Day event, Women in Hip Hop: Erasure, Trailblazers and Place-Makers. Co-presented by Hart House and Fresh, Bold, and So Def at the Universal Hip Hop Museum, we showcased three incredible voices and trailblazers: Dr. Francesca D’Amico-Cuthbert, the one and only Martha Diaz, Lynnée Denise and Kayja Edwards. Excerpts of the online event are below, focusing on the history of women in Hip Hop, the erasure of women in Hip Hop and the importance of women as innovators and thought leaders.

Watch videos of "Women In Hip Hop: Erasure, Trailblazers and Place-Makers" here:

History of Women in Hip Hop

This video from "Women In Hip-Hop: Erasure, Trailblazers and Place-makers" surveys the history of women in hip hop.

The Importance of Women’s Voices in the Discourse and Scholarship Around Music

This video from "Women In Hip-Hop: Erasure, Trailblazers and Place-makers" discusses The Importance of Women’s Voices in Discourse and Scholarship.

The Role Women Have Played in Hip Hop: Impact of Roxanne Shante

A survey of Roxanne Shante, an important woman in the history of hip hop.

Erasure of Women in Hip Hop

This video explores the erasure of women in hip hop across the decades.

Past Events