The Hip Hop Event: Looking the Italian Hip Hop Scene

*** Click here per la versione in italiano ***

The story ends, the event continues. After a chase lasting 10 years, the world breathes a sigh of relief: Bin Laden is dead. Justice is done. "Fuck you" - said Monty, a NYC drug dealer in the Spike Lee's movie The 25th Hour,  the day after his entrance into prison - he said: "For me Bin Laden could come here and do it again if he has the courage. Fuck Bin Laden". Fuck him and all those like him who threaten our freedom: foreigners, immigrants, gangsters, priests, politicians, and even fuck Jesus Christ: on the cross one day, a weekend in hell, and then hallelujah angels up eternity". Yes: eternity.

Yes, because the difference between history and event seems to be just that: the story has a beginning and an end, but the event (the one with the "E" capitalized) continues, beyond his cause. September 11 - would say the sage - "no longer exists, but insists, into the reality of things." Complaining, send fuck everything and everyone has a way to esprire his resentment, to deny the fact, to focus its rejection into something concrete. But the event is incorporeal. The sage says: "It 's like a vapor on the prairie". You can send fuck the story, things, people, but you can not self-fuck from the Event, from the wound that has opened in our reality and will continue to insist, even when his execuutioner is dead.

What is our event? What else but "the birth of Hip Hop". The encounter with Hip Hop coincides with what we are, we think, we thought, and what'll do, we will, we will choose. We remember that more or less blurry - I was fourteen down to the gallery of the street - and yet the image of that meeting continues to exist, persist in us as a liquid photosensitive member on which impress the frames of our lives. An event that has made us "sensitive" to a certain lifestyle.

The Phisics of Hip Hop

"It ain't about keeping it real, it's about keeping right"

Dj Kool Herc

To say that the Hip Hop culture was born in America is right. To say that it is an American culture is wrong. The concept of the Universal Spirit of Hip Hop promoted by the Zulu Nation starts from this assumption. That is, the spores of the culture spread around the globe, infecting and contaminating it, and then come together in one great source from which it can renew his process of diffusion. The Hip Hop as the Earth: a great mother who donates her belly to fertilize new life. The mechanisms governing the evolution of culture are complex, and the boundaries between what is inside or outside the "context" are hazy, dense and viscous products. Yet the machinery of evolution, of this Great Sun, has a solid core. From here we start to talk about "Physics of Hip Hop." Back to the Big Bang, rewind the analog tape and re-mastered it into the present.

If we recognize that Hip Hop has a hardcore and it was grafted multiplying like a virus across the globe starting with the teenagers of Bronx in the 70s, we are already well advanced. Then let's jump now, or rather at the turn of the years 2000 and 90s. The b-boying timidly back into the limelight thanks to two related factors: the promotion of a variety of contest (or bboy battles) that are disseminated on the Internet or via DVD. Born a new generation (mine) , partially linked with that of the 80s and 90s, but takes a solitary exploration beyond the boundaries of the discipline. The result is the increase of the technical possibilities of dance and the climb to the top of the international battle from countries unknown until a few years ago (South Korea, Japan and Eastern Europe to finish). The United States meanwhile reiterated the importance of the costitutive principles of b-boying (Foundation), influencing the aesthetics between the 2005-2007 and renewaling his position as a reference point on the world stage. Unfortunately, the lesson about "foundation" is accepted by many as a series of steps "fashionable", and after a first moment of success, foundation are now considered wrongly "off-range" by neophytes. In reality, the americans have tried to revive the "fundamental" to educate the new generations on cultural and artistic basis. Although on the commercial and visual side, it was a real operation of neo-colonialism of b-boying on a global scale, and the failure of it, is indicative of a trend of "counter-culture inside Hip Hop."
The counter-culture movements (that Hip Hop itself can enroll in the course of history) were born within a macro-culture reference (eg. Western, or European), promoting a lifestyle and principles tend to destabilize it. I believe that today's Hip Hop, at least nominally, has assumed the role of a real institution, creating in itself, upon general ambiguity of people, some internal movement of counter-culture. An example of all, is the recent spread of so-called Flexible style, whose practitioners are reflected in the punk or emo lifestyle rather than in Hip Hop, but claim that they belong in the scene of b-boying.
The most audacious acts of counter-culture, however, occur silently. They infect the cultural principles (from which derives the philosophical ones) that characterized the lifestyle of the b-boy and b-girl of the first three generations (70s-90s). Through ignorance of historical knowledge and the lack of connection to earlier generations, this new-generation against hip hop, from scratch, looking forward to the future and his gait burns bridges with the past. They do not recognize themselves in the past, because in the past they have only the image and not the track. As in the period of "fashion foundation" (2005-2007) we tend to look only at the outward appearance (the tecniques) and not realize that it (outside) is just the starting point to get to the content (the so called "inside"), the hardcore.

Our task is to unveil this deception.

If instead of reading a book, watch the movie that inspired, you're doing a double fault. First, the writing is linguistically more informative than audiovisual. Second, what you see is not a reality, but a transposition (ie interpretation) of it. Generation to generation, loss after loss, waste on difference, the kernel of Hip Hop is likely to crumble. The misunderstanding generates retroactively wrong interpretation of the principles foundation. The son believes he can judge his own mother from a photo album that shows. Without asking anyone who has taken and selected those pictures, he delves into a fantasy story in which he becomes the director: and here is his fault. The Counter-Culture Hip Hop, I think, starts from a misunderstanding fantasy.
The ghost appears on the network, between the comments of the br-boying videos. The b-boy, or what purports to be, it is now a "columnist for breakdancing". He is like "Gomer Pyle" (Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket) with his eyes already in the afterlife, who shot himself in the mouth sitting in the toilet, after killing the sergeant. Like that movie, the psychosis of the most ignorant of the soldiers comes from revenge of his fellow soldiers and not against the treatment, hard but fair, of the authority. In countries where cypher's battle are rare (like Italy), the web is populated by "Gomer Pyle" which pricked, without realizing it, the cardinal principle of discipline: mutual respect from direct confrontation. The b-boying is an aggressive expression, "hard but fair", which bases its peacefull right on battling. That's right: it is when you talk instead of fight, that trigger violence. The web has made public a private moment of our lifestyle: criticism and fierce exchange of words took place between two or more b-boy just before or during a challenge. At the end, the words were zero, everyone went home with his own idea, it was no use talking "after". Today ask yourself: would we have the same guts to say those things, with that tone, in the face of the b-boy concerned, and ready for the battle? If so, why do not we? Why can not we live this divergence of views as a time of growth, of respect, of real Hip Hop? Why leave offensive comments on thw web (speak publicly) and continue to mind our own (dancing in private)?
This "world wide web", as other practices, seriously go against the "Physics of Hip Hop."

So, here we are: second translation into english. I hope you enjoy and start posting comment and reflections about it. I've wrote this article one year ago and I think is still up-to-date. Before any kind of polemic: no, I don't say that flexible style is not hip hop. I say that "flexible-emo-metal-fad" is not Hip Hop. If you do flexible style on hip hop way (like Benji or Thesis) I think you really risk to be one of the best innovator b-boys in the world. Check this out!

The deceiving being - for a revaluation of appearances in Hip Hop Dance

Since childhood we led with the story that the "being" is more important than "appear". The growth of our inner life is more important than external, artificial. We grow to the sound of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and Superman: all heroes whose appearance deceive us. Everything that appears is thus an illusion. For Plato, our reality was a copy of the universal supercelestial apparent; for Kant, our senses themselves prevented us from accessing the "thing in itself"; the concept of avatar itself (the virtual representation of ourselves in cyberspace) is derived from religion Hindu, which is linked Schpenhauer speaking of reality as a "veil of Maya", which covers access to the knowledge of truth. We Grew up watching The Matrix, The Thruman Show and, of course, Avatar: everybody to tell us what our true self is overshadowed by the evil society of appearances.

Then something changes: the first disappointment in love ("but how?! I'm much better than other one!"); the first political delusions ("they are all corrupt!"); the first existential disappointment ("what a world of shit! I'm going abroad very nearly ..."). The appearance wins the essence, where "appearance" are associated to the others, and the essence are necessarily linked to us. Is the Other's fault if things go wrong, but luckily we can take refuge in the ego, the healthy kernel of our true being, the soft-white-kid in us and that the world still has not fouled. "To be and to have" is the title of the famous book by Eric Fromm, very popular in the 70s.

But today, after reading Paulo Cohelo or devote ourselves to Buddhism-Zen, one of the most common way to discover ourselves, is to dance. We used to say: "Dancing, I express myself" - evoking the gruesome image of our soul  crushed on the tip of a transcendental kind of juicer. Invigorated by this metaphysical orange juice we can go back to our dreary, artificial appearance. Yes, because the world goes like this; because, to paraphrase Fight Club, we can always take refuge in the "hidden cave."

According to the philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the idea of an "innocent me" (like the idea of a "glorious past") is the imaginary construction of our mind, to avoid dealing with emptiness kernel of our existence and to justify our conduct "artificial". The fact is that although we all know that "being" is more important than "appear", however, we continue to behave as if we didn't know. How do we do? Simply believing in the purity of our inner selves, that despite our conduct in the impure world of appearance, will remain a safe haven for our souls. It's the old military justification: "I only followed orders". We do not want to behave like that, but it is the Other that obliges us to do so. 

Which centers around this with the Hip Hop culture and b-boying? Mine, is not a a materialistic critic to humanity, but an humanization of matter that make up our appearance. If our being (the meaning) turns out to be a justification imaginary (a signifier), then the case will be to reassess the importance of appearance. Tarantino explains it well, when at the end of Kill Bill Vol.2 tells us his interpretation of Superman: Clark Kent is Superman's image of humanity. The real Clark Kent is Superman. His costume is made with the clothes he had been found as an infant.

In the world of Hip Hop we usually play as a character, a character different from what we are in everyday life. Like superheroes, we wear a costume and use our combined "super-skills" to win the battle, the challenge. Hip-hop is aggressive, but in the Latin term "ad-gredior" which means "to go to". Reach out to others, confront, express through the superficiality of our movements. Understand then how trivial is likely to be the phrase: "I express myself." If we really believe to express "ourselves", then there would be no need to do this through the metaphor of the artistic discipline, it's all already "expressed" by living our lives. What is at stake, in my opinion, is instead to embrace the so-called "appearance" to find on its surface a reality of our being that we do not normally express. That's because to be "ourselves" sometimes we have to become "other than us," and indeed, as Superman, thinking that the "superhero character" is real and that our "Clark Kent ego" is the idea that we give to the world.
 

Avatar, the Hindu's etymology, is the earthly incarnation of a god (the "meaning" that is embodied in a "significant", the concept embodied in the word, the substance that is poured into a glass) and the same is the case of cyberspace: the man (the meaning) that virtualizes a signifier (the accout of a role-playing game or a social network). Well in the case of hip hop, is exactly the opposite: it is the everyday person to be an empty signifier in search of numerous meanings to contain. Let me explain: it is our true self (the everyday) to be an empty glass while it is the character that we take dancing, to fill with content that void, our void. This is not to say that our life is worth nothing and that only art can give it meaning. In this case, go some way to take refuge in the idea of another imaginary "true self" hidden in the realm of art.

Zizek's solution is to find the sense on the surface of appearances, and not behind them, bacause in appearance there is already a part of our ego. Perform movements, gestures, attitudes away from us, means wearing the cloth of appearance that is already part of us (as in the case of baby-superman) and turn it into a superhero costume, not expressing what is in "ourselves" but what Lacan called "what is in us more than us". Much more honest.

 Yo! That's my first post in english. It's a translation of an italian one published one month ago. I hope you like and share it and maybe, one gloroius day, my blog will be bilingual (negative, bilingual doesn't reguard anything about bisex or oral experience). PS: Per gli italiani, potete trovare la versione originale cliccando qui.