The following is an adapted excerpt from Edmund Adjapong's forthcoming Teach Like an MC: Hip-Hop Pedgaogy in the K-12 Classroom.
Hip-hop pedagogy is informed by and builds upon the frameworks of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogies. From culturally relevant pedagogy, hip-hop pedagogy encourages educators to develop their personal critical consciousness as well as their students’ critical consciousness. From culturally responsive pedagogy, hip-hop pedagogy encourages educators to see and value hip-hop culture as a youth culture that students participate in and one that empowers young people globally. From culturally sustaining pedagogy, hip-hop pedagogy encourages educators and school communities to leverage the essential elements of hip-hop culture as teaching approaches to create curricula that encourage students to engage and utilize hip-hop culture and sensibilities to make sense of content and the world around them.
Hip-hop pedagogy encourages you to gain an authentic understanding of hip-hop culture, and as a result, supports you in developing the critical consciousness necessary to understand how your students participate and engage in their identified cultures. Educators, thus, become more understanding and aware of other marginalized groups, empowering educators to leverage student cultures in an authentic and engaging manner. I define hip-hop pedagogy as a teaching approach that motivates educators to authentically understand their students’ cultural backgrounds and cultivate both their own and their students’ critical consciousness. This method integrates the creative elements (knowledge of self, MC, graffiti, DJ, and breakdancing) and sensibilities of hip-hop into educational practices and curriculum decisions. Throughout this text, you will uncover the history of each creative element and its connection to teaching and learning. Hip-hop pedagogy encourages educators and school communities to privilege hip-hop culture and sensibilities within academic spaces to sustain students’ connection to Black culture and utilize ways of engagement that are informed by hip-hop culture. Hip-hop pedagogy is not only for Black and students from diverse backgrounds. Hip-hop pedagogy is not only about the incorporation of hip-hop music in the classroom. The goal of utilizing hip-hop pedagogy is to invite students to develop a connection with content while leveraging their culture, realities, and experiences to reach them on their cultural turf.
What can hip-hop teach school communities about youth empowerment and learning? How is hip-hop culture different from hip-hop music?
To start, hip-hop pedagogy is anchored in the five creative elements of hip-hop, which include MC, graffiti art, breakdancing, DJ, and knowledge of self, and thus is a grander phenomenon than its musical output. Young people who consume and identify as part of hip-hop culture engage in hip-hop’s creative elements in their everyday lives. Thus, hip-hop pedagogy acts as a vehicle to incorporate youth culture into the daily instruction of all content areas with the goal of creating opportunities for all students to creatively engage and access content.
Hip-hop pedagogy encourages educators to recognize and highlight the brilliance, ingenuity, and creativity of hip-hop—a culture created by Black and historically marginalized communities—through curriculum choices and instructional decisions. Educators do not have to be experts in hip-hop culture, but they must work toward authentically understanding how their students engage and conceptualize hip-hop.
