Black male identity and Hip Hop is not something I think about a lot. I haven't had a lot of immediate exposure. My idea of rap has been "Word Up," and my idea of Hip Hop, Public Enemy. I "came of age" (if I did) in the Sixties, early Seventies. So, when looking at issues concerning personal and social identity with my Composition classes this semester, the song that kept singing itself to me this week was “Who Are You?” by The Who. Yeah, that dates me.
I’m up for new territory, always wanting to learn, and as I'm back on campus teaching, and learning, nowadays, I've been checking out an array of films in the library. I picked Byron Hurt’s Beyond Beats and Rhymes off the shelf the other day. This analysis of the commercialization of Hip Hop music and culture and the systemic corruption (my word) of black males who may well have a historically based need (my words) to tough up their identities and, as part of that package, rough up women and themselves--this analysis is deep, structured, and revealing.
Hurt bookends this amazing documentary with reflection on his personal history and love affair with Hip Hop. I am convinced based on one viewing of this documentary Hurt has both earned the right to make this film and that he deserves all the kudos he gets for it.
He and others, including a Hip Hop historian and several educators and cultural critics, shine a light Beyond Beats and Rhymes on societal pressures bearing down on Hip Hop Black males, their music and lifestyle. Without detracting from that focus, I want to say this film points to something we all need to do, continually—which is look critically at ourselves, at who we have become, and where the system—societal, cultural, and corporate—has brought and is taking us. Is the ride worth the price tag? Is the system taking us down? Do we wanna go there, alone, and/or as a group?
I’m living in a culture other than the one portrayed in Beyond Beats and Rhymes, but thinking about this film I also find myself thinking about the cultural and corporate pressures on me like a fog, and for a minute, I see some of the fog lifting. Does a film documentary get any better than that?
According to his Web site, Hurt is working on other interesting projects right now. Check him out: http://www.bhurt.com/index.php
