Knox Speaker Offers Insight on Hip-Hop Generation

Bakari Kitwana, who spoke at Knox College on Feb. 25, is the author of The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture, a book that is used in many college classrooms. He has also been a music reviewer for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." One of our students attended the presentation. Afterwards, Diego shared feedback about the program with the Lincoln Seminar class.

 

"Mr. Kitwana gave a great insight on the changes to hip-hop over time from an underground music scene to a world-wide culture," Diego said. "The generations of hip-hop have changed from what he called bridging the generation in the late 70's and the early 80's of rappers and black people who were too young to participate in the Civil Rights movements, the golden age of the hip-hope generation (1984-1994) to the modern post hip-hop group." 

He talked about the political changes in hip-hop over the ages with Krs-one, Public Enemy, and Tupac during the late 80's to Dead Prez and Mos Def during the early 90's, to Talib Kweli in the current music scene.