An Introduction To Hip-Hop:- Lesson Three

AN INTRODUCTION TO HIP HOP—LESSON THREE

Original Hip Hop (Hiphop) was first an attitude about life; it was a collective cultural behavior, an ancient identity that empowered anyone willing to BECOME it. We are talking about LIFE here, not music, but LIFE! This is why when it comes to the study of real Hip Hop it is first one’s cultural understanding that empowers one’s academic and artistic understanding. The question is, what is it that makes a person Hiphop? And why are only a certain segment of every human group interested at all in Hip Hop. What is it that makes a person attracted to Hip Hop regardless of their ethnic or racial origins? What are the origins of Hiphop’s culture?

Cultural literacy, from a Hiphop perspective, can only be achieved by authentic Hiphoppas; it is a sensitivity toward the further growth and collective well-being of your social group. Such literacy is created by the principles of the culture itself; YOUR culture. This is what you are literate of when you are culturally literate—you are hip to your hop. You understand the ingredients of your social group; you can read its blueprint in an effort to enhance (yourself) it.

Cultural literacy is NOT simply the study of cultures, it is more accurately when you care about what your actions mean for the group that you belong to, and it is first this form of cultural literacy that can lead to the study of other cultures. Hip Hop’s cultural literacy begins as an inward process that leads to an outward investigation.

It makes little sense for one group of people to learn about another group of people before learning about themselves. Only an oppressed people are forced to learn of everyone else’s history before learning about their own. And equally, only an oppressed people, an institutionalized person, will not even ask questions pertaining to one’s own origin and nature. Such a People are dependent (even historically) upon their masters’ vision and interpretation of reality. This is the challenge with investigating Hip Hop’s history through the paradigm of mainstream rap—which is commercially driven.

History informs a People as to who they are and where they’ve been as a People. History creates reality for a People; it tells them what they are capable of. This is why the Hip Hop historian must not only possess an uninstitutionalized mind in order to accurately document Hip Hop, the Hip Hop historian must also actually care for the further development of the Hip Hop idea throughout recorded history.

Such a historian must be a free person with a free mind because again, history informs a People as to what is possible for them; it tells them their reality. A true Hip Hop historian cares for the development of Hip Hop’s people. For the true Hip Hop historian/scholar the documentation of Hip Hop is NOT a job—it is the duty of a free Hip Hop mind.

Cultural literacy leads to higher levels of self-organization. When you know who you are, you know what you need, and knowing what YOU need will inform you as to what YOU need to study. Knowing where YOU come from helps to show YOU where YOU are going. Once you know where you come from you then know what to learn. Self-management and self-control are the keys to advanced knowledge and both are difficult to learn without a sense of your OWN cultural identity.

Cultural literacy goes even further when looking at how some people with a deeply felt religious culture (for example) experience their religion upon their physical bodies. Many are shocked and amazed when the palms of a devout Christian’s hands begin to bleed just as Jesus’ hands are depicted in countless Christian drawings honoring the Crucifixion. Such stigmatic marks are known to be caused by how the person experiencing such a stigmatism feels about his/her religion.

The same can be said of any culture a person might belong to and deeply believe in. Today, it is common knowledge amongst scholars that Jesus was crucified at the wrist, not at the hands; that the nails were driven into his wrists, and not into the palms of his hands. But the most widely distributed image of Jesus with cuts in the palms of his hands seems to also be the most widely appearing stigmatic marks on those loyal to this image of the Christian messiah.

This is interesting for Hip Hop because it is clear that cultural beliefs do create human ability even on a genetic level. Culture actually affects the biology of the one immersed in the culture. Could Hip Hop be genetic? Could it be that breakin, emceein, deejayin, graffiti writing, and beat boxin are part of our genetic reactions to the urban environments in which we live and have lived? Could Hip Hop simply be an ancient genetic human skill? We say YES!

We know that the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of every human is for the most part identical. On the gene pool level we are all the same, but there are some differences otherwise we would all be like clones of one another with everyone looking the same way and doing the same things.

You would never know just by appearance how unique every human really is. We all seem to have the same general body, but in reality we are all uniquely designed. Some humans can eat things that would make other human sick. Some humans have darker or lighter skins than other humans, and produce different results with their skins than other humans. Even as I write these words to you now there are humans that can do some amazing things with their bodies and minds that other humans simply cannot do. Even the blood types of certain humans are not the same. Fingerprints and the retina in one’s eyes are all identical and unique to that human.

When you really look at the structure of the human body you see that we are really a collection of intelligent cells; tiny beings that make everything we call human possible. We often forget that the microscopic cells that make up our bodies as well as the functions of such bodies are intelligent.

Everything a human does, is, feels and will do is governed by a complex community of interworking cells; microscopic beings that think, eat, reproduce and communicate with one another on a microscopic level. Our cravings and even our urges to pursue certain things are mostly motivated by our cellular structure. Humans are more events that solid physical bodies. Our physical bodies are the results of our cellular community. They are what is really existing; our physical body, and possibly our very consciousness, are their results.

Within the nuclei of every cell are strands of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which are coiled up within the chromosomes of the cell. Some strands of DNA is actively read and functioning while other strands of DNA remain unread and dormant. Sexual reproduction shuffles these cells around creating new humans with each generation based upon the environments such human species are born within. Other acids called mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acids or mtDNA exist outside of the nuclei of the cell.

The genes inside mtDNA are responsible for taking sugars of all kinds and transforming such sugars into usable energy and vitality. However, these genes do not get shuffled around at the moment of inception like the DNA found in the nuclei of the cell. Mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acids are largely standard and unchanging in the cell, and it is with these strands of DNA (mtDNA) that geneticists can trace family lineages as well as human development over millions of years.

You are not really your physical body; you are actually bodying. What you perceive as you is merely social indoctrination. The real you is not one thing at all. The real you is a collection of multiple cellular intelligences operating in multiple dimensions producing what appears like a unified solid physical body. However, you would be nothing and equally could do nothing without the peace, the love, THE UNITY and the joy of your collective cellular being.

Everything a human can do and become is already existent within its genes. If there really are no new genes and what makes one species of life different from another is simply the order in which certain genes are organized, then it is indeed safe to say that breakin, emceein, graffiti art, deejayin and beat boxin are also genetic. That these abilities are part of our human toolkit and are called upon naturally amongst those humans threatened or rejected in some way by their environment.

Breakin, emceein, graffiti art, deejayin and beat boxin are not socially created abilities like driving a car where all humans with some training can be taught to handle a motor vehicle. Breakin, emceein, graffiti art, deejayin and beat boxin are natural survival skills. Today, because of the oppressive socio-political environments in which we live, breakin, emceein, graffiti art, deejayin and beat boxin appear as artistic skills; as forms of entertainment. But on a cellular level these are ancient human survival skills motivated to reappear in our time because of our present environmental conditions.

Environment seems to have a lot more influence over the development of human survival abilities than we think. And when I say “environment” here I mean cultural environment, political environment, urban environment—even spiritual environment. According to today’s medical view, it is one’s culture (one’s environment) that also helps to affect certain genetic responses to one’s survival and further development as a human being.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, a cellular biologist, author and professor points out that genetic determinism is simply not true. The idea that genes dictate your life; that one’s health and the character of one’s life are genetically predetermined is simply not true. Genes are listening to the needs of the Mind. Dr. Lipton, in his DVD lecture entitled The New Biology, points out that the environment—the external universe and our internal physiology—and more importantly, our perception of the environment, directly control the activity of our genes.

It seems that we and our new cultural environment (Hip Hop) are inter-connectedly growing together. We are all affecting it, and it is affecting us all. In fact, the Hiphoppa and Hip Hop’s cultural development are indeed two aspects of the same response to urban environments. This is more of a medical interpretation of the cultural statement I am Hip Hop, but we now know that genes are only blueprints; that they do not act on their own, they are ineffective and inactive until they are read. When a genetic product is needed, a signal from its environment, not from the gene itself, activates the expression of that gene. But the term environment also means the realm of ideas.

As Dr. Mario Martinez, the Vatican’s psychologist for stigmatic research has pointed out; You experience what your culture is, or what you believe of your group. Where the Mind goes the biology follows. We have a personal bio-informational field which can be expanded or diminished. Yes, cultural beliefs affect gene development, thus creating human ability. Whatever we believe of Hip Hop shall further activate or deteriorate our physical abilities on a genetic level.

We now know that our environments and our perception of such environments have a profound effect upon what our genes may or may not produce. This is also why we take our practice of Hip Hop seriously. When you say “I am Hip Hop” your genes respond to that belief, and whatever you truly believe Hip Hop is, shall become your perception and natural ability. This is why Hip Hop’s original principles of peace, love, unity and safely having fun must be preserved; they lead to health, awareness and wealth. Once you truly believe (be and live) this, your genetic structure can respond accordingly. This is also why the preservation of Hip Hop has more to do with the preservation of its People than with its products.

To Be Continued...