Graff's Hidden Intellectualism: An Analysis

Over the past three decades, Hip Hop becomes a popular trend among young people around the world. According to the Temple of Hip Hop, Hip Hop is “a tape of popular culture among youth in big cities, especially African dancing and graffiti art.” Although the four main elements of Hip Hop are rapping, dancing, graffiti and DJing, Hip Hop has six other elements. DJ Kool Herc who is the originator of Hip Hop invites people to hisparty in the 1970’s in South Bronx, New York City. His party wants to keep street kids off the street and to keep kids out of gangs. The issue is important because many fans thinks that Hip Hop has deviated from the origins. I believe that Hip HoP is a positive form in Graff’s Hidden Intellectualism.
In the article “Hidden

Hip Hop is a positive form promoting Graff’s Hidden Intellectualism because people can acquire sense of community from Hip Hop. According to Hidden Intellectualism, Graff stares sense of community that is “When you entered sports debates, you become part of a community that was not Limited to your families and friends.”(Hidden Intellectualism, paragraph 9) In short, sense of community means having a same interest will help people to develop their sense of community because they have no limit to talk. Fxample, according to the article “An Embrace of the U.S., Spun and Mixed by Iraqis”, the author said that “In a stuffy recreation hall that was once a headquarters for a local militia but now serves as their clubhouse, a ghetto hangout where they feel safe- these days, anyway-Mr.Jabbar and his friends hone their rhymes and their dance moves.”(Paragraph 3) The example shows a good side of sense of community. Iraqis youths, who like hip hop, meet together and share their thinking. Helping them to develop their sense of community and making more friends. Even though they might not know each other, they can quickly become friends by having a same interest such as Hip Hop. Another example, Saz, a palestiniam rapper, “describes himself as an “international ethnic rapper”, and

Graff describes authentic topic as being “street smarts beat out book smarts in our culture not because street smart are non-intellectual, as we generally suppose, but because they satisfy an intellectual thirst more thoroughly than school culture, which seems pale and unreal.”(Hidden Intellectualism, paragraph 8) This is a good example to show authentic topic. Simultaneously, Hip Hop can help rapper to say “authentic.” For example, a Chinese rapper, Wang Li, a 24-year-old, say in his freestyle raps: “If you don’t have a nice car or cash. You won’t get no honeys. Don’t you know China is only a heaven for rich old men. You know this world is full of corruption. Babies die from drinking milk.”(Now Hip-Hop, Too, Is Made China. Paragraph 5) Mr. Wang’s song describes the authentic situation in China is a good example of authentic topic. Although the gonvornment of China doesn’t encourage people to have own character, Wang Li have been writing rap to show his self-expression or thought. He resists the Chinese education system because the Chinese education system does not encourage people to express his own character or thought. Aslo, he shares the authentic topic in China with someone who doesn't understand Chinese