AUC YouTube Video: Hip Hop in the Middle East
Right before our video conference in the middle of May, Sanaa and Wafaa at American University in Cairo shared with us a youtube video made by one of their students about hiphop in the Middle East (you can watch the first part of the video here). While we weren't able to talk about it during the video conference because of time constraints, the students here in my Stanford Cultural Interfaces class did spend a good portion of today, the last day of our class for Spring Quarter, discussing it. We were all struck by the theme of transnational music that we found both in the video as well as in Bridge to Baghdad (the subject of our May video conference discussion) -- whether it was learning about how urban hiphop has become a vehicle for political expression in the Middle East or, alternately, how American heavy metal has found its way into Iraqi garage bands.
During our conversation today, we also reflected on the role of video as the culmination of a research project. Many students were excited by this idea, speaking to how it might teach them skills they could turn to good use later in life. Others were more hesitant, reflecting on the possibilities that there would be a lot of tech know-how involved in producing such research texts. I know from an administrative perspective, a few years ago our Program in Writing and Rhetoric pulled back from assigning students multimodal projects for that reason. However, perhaps with the new advances in technology (look how easy Apples and iMovie makes it to make a film!), perhaps it is time to rethink our assignments.
In any event, as a class, the film generated some healthy discussion and we felt fortunate that it had been shared with us.
Comments
whats this all about... hip hop?
Posted by: rappersground | February 1, 2009 07:14 AM
Hey,
I was just surfing the web and I came across this page. I really liked the info, keep up the good work.
Peace
Posted by: Streets Wanna Know | September 9, 2009 05:42 PM
whats this all about... hip hop? THANS
Posted by: evden eve nakliyat | October 16, 2009 02:22 PM
very right thanks...
Posted by: evden eve nakliyat | November 17, 2009 12:14 PM
Gotta love this site. Can't but help remind me of my fave hip hop artist Mickey Factz who's raps is always poppin off!
Posted by: Ramona Mickey Factz Bilsing | December 31, 2009 04:05 PM
What's happend? I have to keep Refreshing the page to even be able to view the post can someone fix this issue please?
Posted by: the day the earth stood still | December 31, 2009 05:12 PM