seanmcroberts-blog

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It’s Tuesday Guys! 1 Week Left!

As I am sitting here at midnight the day before the first draft of our ePortfolio is due, writing my papers, I’m really jamming out to some music. This music is truly helping me get through the night, and hopefully through the next week. This is my version of Music Mondays, enjoy!

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Research Journal: Week 9

I feel like theres a lot I could say about this class. I have gained so much from taking this course and I think that almost everything I learned will be immensely helpful for me in my future as a DU student and going forward. 

Probably the biggest takeaway from this class is how much I enjoy writing. I know that I always complain and whine about all of the work and stress that writing requires, but deep down, I have roots in really enjoying writing. Ever since elementary school, writing has been one of my favorite aspects of school, and this class helped to bring that love back out. There is something about being able to put my thoughts down onto paper (or a screen) that gives me power and an escape from reality. Truly, I believe that writing is very calming when done right, which just means I haven’t been doing it right all quarter (haha, lol). However, being able to relax, actually learning how to relax, and combining that with writing has helped me rediscover my love for writing.

I don’t really know what else to say. I really have loved this class, especially because I think Professor KT has been such an understanding and engaging mentor in this whole writing/research journey. Thank you so much for a great year KT, I hope we will have another class together some day.

I think I did it. 

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Maps: Take 3

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Essay: Draft 2

Sean McRoberts WRIT1133 Professor Taczak May 15, 2018 Introduction Hip-hop culture began in the 1970’s and has sustained a level of relevance and popularity over decades. Beginning with DJ Kool Herc, the culture has remained a staple of both a staple of the music world and in popular culture, living on today through musicians like Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. However, the culture as a part of society has not remained stagnant, and has transitioned through several unique phases in terms of music, social relevancy and motivation. The early phase of hip-hop was comprised of DJ’s, emcee’s, graffiti influences, and b-boys. These early characteristics of the culture have changed over time into a new brand of hip-hop, focusing on social commentary, political influences and a re-branded style of rap music. In this essay, the fluid evolution of hip-hop as a culture and rap music as a popular musical genre will be discussed, and will attempt to dive deeper into the reasons and influences that have caused this drastic evolution. The first and most prevalent aspect of hip-hop culture was that of motivation. In the subject of rap music and hip hop, motivation has two very distinct implications. There are the motivations for the pioneers of hip hop to begin creating the culture from the ground up, and also the motivations of artists and rappers throughout hip-hop’s lifespan to create the music that they have produced, and are still producing today. Motivation seems to be a principal topic in the research field of hip hop culture, and it starts with the roots of the culture and what motivated those people to raise hip hop from the ground. The first source that motivation came up in was in Emmett Price’s Hip Hop Culture, where he said, “Artists were simply motivated to articulate their despair and celebrate their self-determination through the foundational elements of DJing, graffiti tagging, b-boying/girling, MCing, and later beat-boxing and producing” (Price, 45). This statement allows readers of the research to identify some of the main reasons people wanted to produce this new culture, a yearning to express themselves and tell about their struggle. Not only were there motivations to create a new medium of expression, but another aspect of the culture is the motivation that drives artists to create music. Noah Karvelis says in his article that, “this circular path of musical travel is typically designed with the goal of allowing for dancing, singing, intricate rhythms, or the layering of all three” (Karvelis, 13). Artists are motivated to make music so that people can enjoy themselves, dance and sing, and like the original motives, express themselves in ways that they normally cannot without rap music. This idea is contradicted by one of the most prominent rappers in modern hip-hop, Kendrick Lamar, and in a quote from an article by Dorian Lynskey, Lamar says, “There’s actually some real shit going on out there that people can relate to more than any singalong I can bring to the table” (Lynskey, 4). To Lamar, his motives for making music are not solely to make listeners sing along, but to be conscious of real issues in the world that affect the majority of people. This disagreement on motives to create rap music is perfectly related to my research question, as it allows me to view rap from two different spaces in time, and that there are in fact different motivations in these two spaces. Influence, like motivation, has played a crucial role in the development of hip-hop, and give small distinctions as to why the culture has changed so much over the years. There has always been a distinct difference between the influences of rap music between early rap and rap today. First, Becky Blanchard states that, “Violence in rap, and in other forms of self-expression, is the manifestation of a feeling of hopelessness and discontent in America’s working class” (Blanchard, 4) which both identifies the influence of violence of the culture of rap and the subject matter of lyrics, and the discontent in America’s working class. These two issues at the time were big influences on the culture and key concepts in the subject matter of rap for years to come. Another source that picks out a key influence on hip-hop is from an article by Siobhan Brooks and Thomas Conroy, where they identify punk rock as an influencer, saying that “each developed an influence on an ever-increasing set of practitioners and audiences” (Brooks, Conroy, 5). Punk rock had a big influence of the development of hip hop because they both emerged out of New York at about the same time.  Violence, punk rock, and the “discontent” of the American working class were all influences over the entire culture of hip hop at its beginnings, but from the research I have done, the influences have slightly altered since then. There are some influences in rap music today that have carried over from the 1970’s but also some more recent developments. In Lynskey’s article on Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer Prize, he says that there is “the moral responsibility that come with success…” (Lynskey, 4) and pairs this with the example of “Geraldo Rivera on Fox News making the absurd claim that ‘hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years’” (Lynskey, 3). We can see the connection between these two quotes, because Lamar has been such a successful artist that he now has the moral responsibility to discuss and oppose these negative influences. Lamar was definitely influenced by what Gerald Rivera said, because he actively used and discussed the quote in one of his songs, DNA. Along with the negative influences that affect hip hop, Blanchard says that, “rap’s potential for political advocacy stems from the function of its predecessors…” (Blanchard, 2), leading the readers to believe that rap has been influenced by both itself, as it takes from aspects of hip-hop in the past, and political issues. Hip-hop has become one of the most identifiable genres of music in today’s rotation and that is because of its extremely unique identity. In the Netflix series The Get Down, hip-hop was characterized primarily by graffiti culture, b-boys and girls, and the Black community in 1970’s New York (Luhrmann, Guirgis). A quote from Emmett Price’s book compliments this very well, where states that the question of “Who is hip-hop?” (Price, 46) was very common at the start of hip-hop. These both touch on the identity (or lack of identity) built up at the conception of hip-hop, which is where the majority of its identity comes from. In Internet banging: New Trends in social media, gang violence, masculinity and hip-hop, the authors use quotes from Bakari Kitwana, who states that “urban Americans born between the years of 1965 and 1985… he terms this generation the Hip-Hop Generation” (Patton, Eschmann, Butler, A57). This only reinforces the idea that the pioneers of hip-hop were the ones who solidified the identity of the culture for years to come. Also in this source, they characterize “hip-hop identity as the rebellious, assertive voice of predominantly urban youth, males in particular… hip hop identity has rejected the values and norms of the mainstream, while embracing and substituting oppositional values…” (Patton, Eschmann, Butler, A57), further defining hip-hop identity as rebellious and rejecting the mainstream culture. As I have discussed before, much of the influence for hip-hop came from punk rock music at the same time, Brooks and Conroy also say that “What punk and hip-hop mostly share is an attitude, one of detachment, and of some degree of opposition to mainstream, polite, co-opted society” (Brooks, Conroy, 5) which only adds to the rebellious identity of hip-hop. This collection of previous research is very helpful to my own research as when I do my primary research, I can now compare the identity of early hip-hop to what people believe it has become lately. Turning to hip-hop today, the major changes have led to new applications of rap music and the culture as a whole. The dominant application of hip-hop music today has been in education, and I have found two different examples of this. Noah Karvelis is a teacher who has begun to use rap music as a learning experience, saying that he was “quick to notice the interest that many students have in hip-hop and the rich educational opportunities that lie in it” (Karvelis, 13). One of the opportunities that lies within the use of rap music in the classroom is that students “…are extremely excited that something very musically and culturally relevant to them is being used in their classroom” (Karvelis, 14). Rap music has evolved into something that is more than just music but can be used as an educational tool also because of the conscious lyrics and social issues that are addressed. Along with teachers, “counselors and counselor educators were initial forerunners in the Hip-hop therapy movement. More than 30 years ago, Lee and Lindsey endorsed the use of rap music during group counseling with Black elementary school students” (Washington, 5). In this quote from Ahmed Washington, it is evident that rap has more applications that it once did, and because of its connection both emotionally and realistically to the Black community, it can be used as a tool in counselling. Not only is rap music now used in education, but in different ways of entertainment as well. Lin Manuel Miranda, a well-known composer and performer, wrote the musical Hamilton, but instead of implementing normal show-tunes, he wrote a rap show. In an article by Rebecca Mead, she says that “it was, he thought, a hip-hop story, an immigrants story” (Mead, 2). Hip-hop has shown the world, through musicals or education practices, that it has evolved into something totally new, while still drawing from its origins like immigration or social motivations. Although hip-hop has become something entirely new, and could be seen as a beneficial turn for the culture, it is still being scrutinized by the public as being violent and a bad influence. The connotation that it has with crime and gang violence seems to be concrete in the make-up of hip-hop, but has grown many different branches that touch many different parts of our society. The rap “boy band” BROCKHAMPTON advocates for gay acceptance, Kendrick Lamar addresses the similarities between gangs and the political system of America, and Logic begins to bring suicide and mental health into the rap discussion. However, before the discussion of what rap has become today can be brought up, the details for why it has become what it has must be addressed. Methods The public has played a very distinct role in the development of hip-hop, it seems appropriate to use them as the subjects to help dissect how hip-hop has evolved. To do this, I used a mixed method approach, meaning I used both qualitative and quantitative methods to receive opinions and answers from the public. These methods included an online survey, an interview, and observations over time. The survey that I constructed was completed by more than 100 respondents from a variety of age groups. The interview (not done yet, I’m in crisis mode) was done with an up-and-coming rapper out of New York, Fresh the Prophet to acquire his thoughts on the culture and music of hip-hop. Finally, I conducted my observations with two different techniques. First, which is the physical side of my observations, I listened to what other students around campus were listening to in terms of music. The second set of observations I did were digital, and I used the YouTube comments section to data-mine for opinions on different phases of rap music. I created my survey on a website called SurveyMonkey, which was an easily accessible platform for respondents to use. The survey was made up of 8 questions, one asking the respondent’s age and another asking their race. After creating it, it was sent through different group messages, sent to friends and family, and posted on Facebook to reach a wider group of people. I reached over 100 responses, ending with the ages of the respondents spanning from 18 to 65, which helped to give opinions from very different generations. One thing that I did not ask in the survey was the respondent’s gender, as I did not think that it would be relevant to research. However, there was a very limiting factor to the responses of my survey, in that 79% of the respondents selected the White or Caucasian race. The interview was the hardest section of the primary research. I started the interview with plan A and plan B. Plan A included going on to Instagram and direct messaging 6 famous rappers: Kendrick Lamar, Logic, Childish Gambino, Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi, and BROCKHAMPTON. I did this in hopes that I would get one response for a short phone interview. When I received no responses, I turned to plan B. I messaged a friend of mine who went to the same high school as I did, but moved to New York to pursue rap as a career. For the interview itself, I would conduct it over the phone and record the conversation. Also, before the interview I would email the interviewee and get him to digitally sign the IRB agreement. As mentioned before, my observations were done in two ways. First, I took 3 weeks and actively listened to what my friends and other students around campus were listening to in terms of music, either at parties or just hanging out in their dorms. Mainly, I was focusing on the rap music that was being played, and if rap was the most popular music being played at parties or in the dorms. Also, I tried to distinguish what types of rap were being played, more traditional, or modern rap. I would take notes on my phone and describe the type of music that was being played, the artists, if the majority of the music was rap, and peoples’ responses to the music. The second type of observation I did was data-mining on YouTube videos. The videos that I mined were popular music videos of rap songs from different phases of hip-hop culture. For example, the most recent video I mined was This is America, by Childish Gambino, and I would compare the comments on that video to comments from a video like The Notorious B.I.G’s,  Juicy. This would help to determine public opinion of people during that time, and allow me to compare opinions from different time periods. Results In my observations of the comments sections of popular rap music videos, there were a variety of different findings. First, in the most recent video, This is America, by Childish Gambino, the comments section was split between hate comments from some users and praising comments from others. Also, there were more comments mentioning culture for this video than The Notorious B.I.G.’s Juicy. For the physical observations that I conducted, the majority of music played around campus was in fact rap or hip-hop music, mixed with some other genres as well. In the survey, 82% of the respondents were between the ages of 18 and 22.  79% of the survey participants were White, only 2% Black, and 10% Hispanic. When asked if they liked rap music, 71% responded that they do like rap music, 15% said no, and 14% felt indifferent. Also, 94% of them said that they believe rap has changed over the past 20 years. Finally, the majority, 38.38% of respondents said that they think Kendrick Lamar is the best artist in hip-hop music. Interview not done. Discussion Over the past 8 weeks I have been aiming to find an answer to the question, “How has rap culture evolved over the past 20 years to become what it is today”? After gathering all of the primary and secondary research, it seems that there are some very definitive findings. First, it is very apparent that there has in fact been a change in the hip-hop culture over the past 20 years. In the survey, when asked the question if they believe hip-hop culture has changed over the past 20 years, 94% of the respondents answered yes. This helps to establish that there has been a definite evolution in the eyes of the public, and that they have actively noticed it. Also, the presence of an explicit evolution helps to lead into answering the question of how it has evolved. The first distinct finding that came up while analyzing the research was that social influences are the main cause of hip-hop evolution over the past 20 years. There has been so much going on in today’s society like controversial politics, mass shootings, climate change and other events, which seems to have caused artists in the hip-hop culture to change what they are writing about. In the survey, when asked why the respondents believed there has been a change, 61% of them answered social influences. Also, when observing the comments on a current music video, Childish Gambino’s This is America, the comments seemed to be split between conservatives and liberals. One commenter named Crooked Hillary, obviously a conservative, wrote that the video and the song were, “…shit smeared on a canvas”. Opposite to this, someone responded that “This is art”, and these two comments were not the only ones that were opposing each other in a politically motivated manner. This was mentioned briefly by Becky Blanchard when she said that hip-hop had strong potential for political advocacy due to its roots in subjugation and slavery (Blanchard, 2). However, Blanchard did not talk about how widespread the effect could be in terms of political advocacy. Along with seeing political motivations in the comments sections of a music video, many songs in today’s rap genre have become centralized around politics in America. Kendrick Lamar has a song called Hood Politics, where he discusses the stark similarities between gangs like the Crips and Bloods and the political system in place in our country. Just from observing the lyrics of the song, like “… new Democrips and Rebloodicans…”, illustrates how drastically that hip-hop has changed since the early 2000’s. Politics are not the only social influences that have made hip-hop culture change over the years, it is a combination of many different influences. One of the main topics within social influence has to be the social media presence. During my interview with FreshtheProphet, an up-and-coming rapper out of New York, he mentioned that “social media plays a big role in how hip-hop is accessed today”. He also said that while many rappers and artists are trying to make it big on Soundcloud and other platforms, he was using Instagram to spread his music around. His reasoning was that he had more followers on Instagram, therefore he would be able to reach more people with his music. This presence of social media in today’s hip-hop scene was mentioned heavily in my previous research, saying that hip-hop used to be the way that people would show their street credibility, but social media has come into replace it as the place where credibility is created and destroyed (Patton, Eschmann, Butler). It has become evident that the introduction of social media has played a large role in how the culture of rap has evolved. Just observing my own Instagram feed, rappers like Lil Yachty, J. Cole, and Logic are advertising their own and other artist’s album releases, posting teasers of their own songs and displaying tour information. However, relating this back to previous research, some critics and scholars believe that the media is the primary catalyst for negative and criminal associations with certain groups (Schneider), like those who are a part of hip-hop culture. The second finding that was very apparent to me from the primary research was that the introduction of Soundcloud and mumble rap into today’s hip-hop culture have had both negative and positive effects. Soundcloud is a music streaming app that allows users to stream any kind of music they would like for free. Also, anyone can upload their own songs onto Soundcloud through their own profile and get streams on their song. When talking to FreshtheProphet, who uploads almost all of his music onto Soundcloud, he said that the creation of Soundcloud has made hip-hop more accessible for more people, therefore expanding the culture and reach of the music. Also, recently many artists have been popping up on Soundcloud and making it big because of the community on Soundcloud, allowing them to achieve success in a way that was previously not around. However, Soundcloud and mumble rap have also been viewed as detriments to the culture of hip-hop as a whole. First, in a comment on Biggie’s Juicy, someone said “Today we can’t get rappers like Biggie and Tupac, I am sorry”. This along with many others state that today’s rappers are not as good as they used to be “back in the day”, and that rappers today are “trash”. FreshtheProphet also said that Soundcloud has had a negative impact, when it was the platform that allowed Lil Pump to become famous. He compared Biggie to Lil Pump in the interview, saying that they both rap about similar subjects like girls, drugs and violence, but that Biggie did it in a much more meaningful and emotional way than rappers today do. Still, there are many rappers in today’s culture that have not strayed far from the ideals and motivations of older rappers. In my survey, when asked if people liked the new direction that rap was going in (Soundcloud, Lil Pump, 6ix9ine, etc.) 51% of people said no, with 16% saying yes and the remainder feeling indifferent. What this shows is that the public prefers traditional rap and the more grounded rap of this modern hip-hop culture, and that the majority of people do not appreciate the mumble, trap music made by artists like Lil Pump and 6ix9ine. This grounded modern music leads to my next finding from the primary research. The third finding. Limitations My research was done in a very short amount of time. Our entire class only had about 8 weeks to complete the research for this project, so everything was very rushed. In my case, this short time frame had some major effects on my final research. First, 79% of my survey respondents identified as white, and only 2% identified as black. This is extremely limiting in terms of my topic, as hip-hop culture has the most effect on the black community since it originated from the black community. Also, some of the survey respondents did not take the survey seriously, making my results even less credible than they should have been. Second, as I have informed about before, I had a plan A and a plan B for my interview. Since I waited on plan A to work out for about 3 or 4 weeks, I was stick with a very small amount of time to use plan B, interviewing FreshtheProphet. As the time to complete the research closed, I still had no date set to do my interview. Which set me back in analyzing all of my data together for about a week.

References Blanchard, B. (1999, July 26). The Social Significance of Rap & Hip-Hop Culture. Retrieved April 23, 2018, from Edge: Ethics of Development in a Global Environment: https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/socialsignificance.htm Brooks, S., & Conroy, T. (2011, January). Hip Hop Culture in a Global Context: Interdisciplinary and Cross-Categorical Investigation. SAGE Journals, 4-8. Guirgis, S. A., Luhrmann, B. (Writers), Bianchi, E., & Williams, M. (Directors). (2016). The Get Down [Television Series]. USA. Karvelis, N. (2016). Reapproaching Hip-Hop. Music Educators Journal. Lynskey, D. (2018, April 22). From Street Kid to Pulitzer: Why Kendrick Lamar Deserves the Prize. (Guardian News) Retrieved April 23, 2018, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/22/kendrick-lamar-wins-pulitzer-prize-damn-album Mead, R. (2015, February 9). All About the Hamiltons: A New Musical Brings the Founding Fathers Back to Life - with a lot of Hip Hop. (Condé Nast.) Retrieved April 23, 2018, from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons Patton, D. U., Eschmann, R. D., & Butler, D. A. (2013, January 18). Internet banging: New trends in social media, gang violence, masculinity, and hip hop. Elsevier. Price, E. G. (2006). Hip Hop Culture (1 ed.). Santa-Barbara, CA, USA: ABC-CLIO. Schneider, C. J. (2011, October). Culture, Rap Music, “Bitch,” and the Development of the Censorship Frame. SAGE Journals, 36-56. Washington, A. R. (2016, October). Integrating Hip-Hop Culture and Rap Music Into Social Justice Counseling With Black Males. Journal of Counseling and Development, 97-105.

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Research Journal: Week 8

This quarter has really been an experience. Out of all my classes, this writing course has definitely been the most stressful, work-inducing, and educational of them all. Obviously, KT’s goal over the past 10 weeks has been to teach us new things, new writing strategies, and life skills, and I think that she has been very successful in doing that. Some of the most impactful conclusions that I have come to during this class are that:

1. Writing a successful piece requires time. The work that needs to be put into writing has become very apparent to me (even though I still don’t put in NEARLY as much work as aI should), but along with that, there are parts of writing that don’t require work. A lot of the time taken during the writing process needs to be put into reflection in order to see the mistakes that you are making.

2. The most important part of building your writing identity is finding your own voice. We have always been taught to write in very cookie-cutter manner, with very distinct vocabulary that every other writer uses. This quarter I learned that good writing is not following these “rules”, but to write in your voice and create something that makes sense to you.

3. Research is fucking scary. Honestly, every aspect of it is so very daunting. First, having the courage to put yourself out there and have the belief that your topic of research is relevant enough for people to want to participate. Second, actually doing it. Getting research done takes time and patience, two tings that I am not good at managing. However, with all the fear behind going into your primary research, the feeling you get when it’s done makes it all worth it (not that I’m done... interviews are hard).

4. The things that we have learned about writing can be applied to all of our future classes. THAT is why this class is absolutely necessary. One of the most important things that I (think) I have grasped is that every subject or audience requires a different style of writing. KT has taught us how to write on Twitter, Tumblr, for research essays and Lit Reviews. All of these very different types of writing force us to discover the differences between them, giving us the flexibility to conquer any style of writing that we face in the future.

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Essay: Draft 1

Sean McRoberts WRIT1133 Professor Taczak May 15, 2018 Introduction Hip-hop culture began in the 1970’s and has sustained a level of relevance and popularity over decades. Beginning with DJ Kool Herc, the culture has remained a staple of both a staple of the music world and in popular culture, living on today through musicians like Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West. However, the culture as a part of society has not remained stagnant, and has transitioned through several unique phases in terms of music, social relevancy and motivation. The early phase of hip-hop was comprised of DJ’s, emcee’s, graffiti influences, and b-boys. These early characteristics of the culture have changed over time into a new brand of hip-hop, focusing on social commentary, political influences and a re-branded style of rap music. In this essay, the fluid evolution of hip-hop as a culture and rap music as a popular musical genre will be discussed, and will attempt to dive deeper into the reasons and influences that have caused this drastic evolution. The first and most prevalent aspect of hip-hop culture was that of motivation. In the subject of rap music and hip hop, motivation has two very distinct implications. There are the motivations for the pioneers of hip hop to begin creating the culture from the ground up, and also the motivations of artists and rappers throughout hip-hop’s lifespan to create the music that they have produced, and are still producing today. Motivation seems to be a principal topic in the research field of hip hop culture, and it starts with the roots of the culture and what motivated those people to raise hip hop from the ground. The first source that motivation came up in was in Emmett Price’s Hip Hop Culture, where he said, “Artists were simply motivated to articulate their despair and celebrate their self-determination through the foundational elements of DJing, graffiti tagging, b-boying/girling, MCing, and later beat-boxing and producing” (Price, 45). This statement allows readers of the research to identify some of the main reasons people wanted to produce this new culture, a yearning to express themselves and tell about their struggle. Not only were there motivations to create a new medium of expression, but another aspect of the culture is the motivation that drives artists to create music. Noah Karvelis says in his article that, “this circular path of musical travel is typically designed with the goal of allowing for dancing, singing, intricate rhythms, or the layering of all three” (Karvelis, 13). Artists are motivated to make music so that people can enjoy themselves, dance and sing, and like the original motives, express themselves in ways that they normally cannot without rap music. This idea is contradicted by one of the most prominent rappers in modern hip-hop, Kendrick Lamar, and in a quote from an article by Dorian Lynskey, Lamar says, “There’s actually some real shit going on out there that people can relate to more than any singalong I can bring to the table” (Lynskey, 4). To Lamar, his motives for making music are not solely to make listeners sing along, but to be conscious of real issues in the world that affect the majority of people. This disagreement on motives to create rap music is perfectly related to my research question, as it allows me to view rap from two different spaces in time, and that there are in fact different motivations in these two spaces. Influence, like motivation, has played a crucial role in the development of hip-hop, and give small distinctions as to why the culture has changed so much over the years. There has always been a distinct difference between the influences of rap music between early rap and rap today. First, Becky Blanchard states that, “Violence in rap, and in other forms of self-expression, is the manifestation of a feeling of hopelessness and discontent in America’s working class” (Blanchard, 4) which both identifies the influence of violence of the culture of rap and the subject matter of lyrics, and the discontent in America’s working class. These two issues at the time were big influences on the culture and key concepts in the subject matter of rap for years to come. Another source that picks out a key influence on hip-hop is from an article by Siobhan Brooks and Thomas Conroy, where they identify punk rock as an influencer, saying that “each developed an influence on an ever-increasing set of practitioners and audiences” (Brooks, Conroy, 5). Punk rock had a big influence of the development of hip hop because they both emerged out of New York at about the same time.  Violence, punk rock, and the “discontent” of the American working class were all influences over the entire culture of hip hop at its beginnings, but from the research I have done, the influences have slightly altered since then. There are some influences in rap music today that have carried over from the 1970’s but also some more recent developments. In Lynskey’s article on Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer Prize, he says that there is “the moral responsibility that come with success…” (Lynskey, 4) and pairs this with the example of “Geraldo Rivera on Fox News making the absurd claim that ‘hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years’” (Lynskey, 3). We can see the connection between these two quotes, because Lamar has been such a successful artist that he now has the moral responsibility to discuss and oppose these negative influences. Lamar was definitely influenced by what Gerald Rivera said, because he actively used and discussed the quote in one of his songs, DNA. Along with the negative influences that affect hip hop, Blanchard says that, “rap’s potential for political advocacy stems from the function of its predecessors…” (Blanchard, 2), leading the readers to believe that rap has been influenced by both itself, as it takes from aspects of hip-hop in the past, and political issues. Hip-hop has become one of the most identifiable genres of music in today’s rotation and that is because of its extremely unique identity. In the Netflix series The Get Down, hip-hop was characterized primarily by graffiti culture, b-boys and girls, and the Black community in 1970’s New York (Luhrmann, Guirgis). A quote from Emmett Price’s book compliments this very well, where states that the question of “Who is hip-hop?” (Price, 46) was very common at the start of hip-hop. These both touch on the identity (or lack of identity) built up at the conception of hip-hop, which is where the majority of its identity comes from. In Internet banging: New Trends in social media, gang violence, masculinity and hip-hop, the authors use quotes from Bakari Kitwana, who states that “urban Americans born between the years of 1965 and 1985… he terms this generation the Hip-Hop Generation” (Patton, Eschmann, Butler, A57). This only reinforces the idea that the pioneers of hip-hop were the ones who solidified the identity of the culture for years to come. Also in this source, they characterize “hip-hop identity as the rebellious, assertive voice of predominantly urban youth, males in particular… hip hop identity has rejected the values and norms of the mainstream, while embracing and substituting oppositional values…” (Patton, Eschmann, Butler, A57), further defining hip-hop identity as rebellious and rejecting the mainstream culture. As I have discussed before, much of the influence for hip-hop came from punk rock music at the same time, Brooks and Conroy also say that “What punk and hip-hop mostly share is an attitude, one of detachment, and of some degree of opposition to mainstream, polite, co-opted society” (Brooks, Conroy, 5) which only adds to the rebellious identity of hip-hop. This collection of previous research is very helpful to my own research as when I do my primary research, I can now compare the identity of early hip-hop to what people believe it has become lately. Turning to hip-hop today, the major changes have led to new applications of rap music and the culture as a whole. The dominant application of hip-hop music today has been in education, and I have found two different examples of this. Noah Karvelis is a teacher who has begun to use rap music as a learning experience, saying that he was “quick to notice the interest that many students have in hip-hop and the rich educational opportunities that lie in it” (Karvelis, 13). One of the opportunities that lies within the use of rap music in the classroom is that students “…are extremely excited that something very musically and culturally relevant to them is being used in their classroom” (Karvelis, 14). Rap music has evolved into something that is more than just music but can be used as an educational tool also because of the conscious lyrics and social issues that are addressed. Along with teachers, “counselors and counselor educators were initial forerunners in the Hip-hop therapy movement. More than 30 years ago, Lee and Lindsey endorsed the use of rap music during group counseling with Black elementary school students” (Washington, 5). In this quote from Ahmed Washington, it is evident that rap has more applications that it once did, and because of its connection both emotionally and realistically to the Black community, it can be used as a tool in counselling. Not only is rap music now used in education, but in different ways of entertainment as well. Lin Manuel Miranda, a well-known composer and performer, wrote the musical Hamilton, but instead of implementing normal show-tunes, he wrote a rap show. In an article by Rebecca Mead, she says that “it was, he thought, a hip-hop story, an immigrants story” (Mead, 2). Hip-hop has shown the world, through musicals or education practices, that it has evolved into something totally new, while still drawing from its origins like immigration or social motivations. Although hip-hop has become something entirely new, and could be seen as a beneficial turn for the culture, it is still being scrutinized by the public as being violent and a bad influence. The connotation that it has with crime and gang violence seems to be concrete in the make-up of hip-hop, but has grown many different branches that touch many different parts of our society. The rap “boy band” BROCKHAMPTON advocates for gay acceptance, Kendrick Lamar addresses the similarities between gangs and the political system of America, and Logic begins to bring suicide and mental health into the rap discussion. However, before the discussion of what rap has become today can be brought up, the details for why it has become what it has must be addressed. Methods The public has played a very distinct role in the development of hip-hop, it seems appropriate to use them as the subjects to help dissect how hip-hop has evolved. To do this, I used a mixed method approach, meaning I used both qualitative and quantitative methods to receive opinions and answers from the public. These methods included an online survey, an interview, and observations over time. The survey that I constructed was completed by more than 100 respondents from a variety of age groups. The interview (not done yet, I’m in crisis mode) was done with an up-and-coming rapper out of New York, Fresh the Prophet to acquire his thoughts on the culture and music of hip-hop. Finally, I conducted my observations with two different techniques. First, which is the physical side of my observations, I listened to what other students around campus were listening to in terms of music. The second set of observations I did were digital, and I used the YouTube comments section to data-mine for opinions on different phases of rap music. I created my survey on a website called SurveyMonkey, which was an easily accessible platform for respondents to use. The survey was made up of 8 questions, one asking the respondent’s age and another asking their race. After creating it, it was sent through different group messages, sent to friends and family, and posted on Facebook to reach a wider group of people. I reached over 100 responses, ending with the ages of the respondents spanning from 18 to 65, which helped to give opinions from very different generations. One thing that I did not ask in the survey was the respondent’s gender, as I did not think that it would be relevant to research. However, there was a very limiting factor to the responses of my survey, in that 79% of the respondents selected the White or Caucasian race. Interview section cannot be done, as I have not done it yet.  As mentioned before, my observations were done in two ways. First, I took 3 weeks and actively listened to what my friends and other students around campus were listening to in terms of music, either at parties or just hanging out in their dorms. Mainly, I was focusing on the rap music that was being played, and if rap was the most popular music being played at parties or in the dorms. Also, I tried to distinguish what types of rap were being played, more traditional, or modern rap. I would take notes on my phone and describe the type of music that was being played, the artists, if the majority of the music was rap, and peoples’ responses to the music. The second type of observation I did was data-mining on YouTube videos. The videos that I mined were popular music videos of rap songs from different phases of hip-hop culture. For example, the most recent video I mined was This is America, by Childish Gambino, and I would compare the comments on that video to comments from a video like The Notorious B.I.G’s,  Juicy. This would help to determine public opinion of people during that time, and allow me to compare opinions from different time periods.

[seanmcroberts-blog]

Research Journal: Week 7

^^^This is how research has been going^^^

My research story starts and ends with the word “overwhelmed”. 

Once upon a time (2 weeks ago), there was a boy named Sean who decided to research the evolution of hip-hop culture. At first, he felt confident that his research would go smoothly and that it would be a breeze. Only, the next day, when he decided to try to interview rappers, saw his survey wih only 20 responses, they were all WHITE PEOPLE, and this observations would require deep data-mining, his life got a whole lot more stressful. 

Yup, that’s me, the idiot who got himself into this mess. I feel like my research story has been a bumpy road, but I think that I can pull it all together within the week. First, my survey.

When I first made my survey, it wasn’t good, the questions were very similar and I din’t know how to ask effective questions that would actually help me in my research. That was the first road-block, but after I fixed the questions and sent my survey out, I my “research” car swerved off the road and into a river. After about two days of the survey being out, after I sent it to my friends back home and on the class Twitter, I only had 20 responses and every. single. person. was white. It has been about 3 days since I last checked, and I still have no Black respondents, which is crucial to my subject of research. This week, I am going to send it to as many people as I can, and hope that the number of black survey takers increases. What this has really taught me is that research depends on who you know, and I have realized now that I just have a lot of white friends. Diversify Sean. Diversify.

My interviews are also not going well, not that I thought they would. Early last week, I DM’ed a handful of very famous rappers saying that I was a student doing research on hip-hop, and that I would love to be able to do a short interview with any of them. These people included, Logic, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Lil Yachty, and BROCKHAMPTON. I knew when I started that it would be a 1 in a million chance if any of them actually responded, so i’m not upset, just getting more stressed that I still don’t have anyone to interview. 

Lastly, my observations. At first, I thought these had to be physical observations, so I was just going to be very diligent in listening to what the students of DU listened to in their spare time and at parties. But, as KT told me, I could go into YouTube and data-mine through the comments of popular rap songs over the years to find and observe how the comments have changed and if there were any significant changes. This has actually been really fun to do, as I have already spent some time on about 3 songs, and I am finding very good results.

I’m struggling.

But I’ll get there.

Probably.

[seanmcroberts-blog]

This video definitely defines how I have grow as a writer and a learner through reflection and understanding. I have used my ability to reflect to see deeper meanings within the video and the song itself. The reflection I have done has allowed me to go past surface level, and view the social implications and messages that Gambino is saying about America, gun violence, Black oppression and poverty. I hope everyone likes this video as much as I do. 

[seanmcroberts-blog]

HP#8: Transfer of Learning

Beaufort does a very good job at introducing many different ideas about transfer of learning, and therefore there are several conclusions that can be drawn from the reading.

Conclusion 1. Transfer of learning forces professors of college courses to apply the principles and course content to other aspects of life and work so that students may use it in the future. This conclusion comes from the first principle of transfer of learning, set down by Beaufort. She uses four principles that describe what teachers can do to implement transfer of learning more effectively in the classroom. As she phrases it, “frame the course content as knowledge to go...”, meaning that the majority of the learning should be able to be applied to other facets of life later on. Also, this conclusion makes the classes that students take more connected and relevant to different future situations.

Conclusion 2. There is an aspect of reflection that accompanies transfer of learning, allowing college students to reflect on the different transfer knowledge they have acquired. This conclusion is drawn from the second principle of transfer of learning, where Beaufort says to “introduce reflection/metacognition about deep structures...” and goes on to note that it can not only be used for current writing tasks, but applied later for other writing. This is a great idea for college students, as it can be used across all of the classes that a single student takes. Using reflection can allow students to see the similarities between a writing piece for history and a lab report for biology.

Honestly, I think that Professor KT is doing an excellent job of implementing transfer of learning in our writing class. I hope that this is an example, but when we went on our scavenger hunt the other day, we were becoming informed of all the resources that are available to us around campus. I see this as a transfer of learning for me in the future, as I do not just have to use these resources for writing class, but they can be uses for many courses. Along with this, KT is always saying how important reflection is to our lives and college specifically. I think that reflection is the most important thing that I have learned in this class so far, and it is a crucial transfer of learning for me. I am definitely going to be using reflection in other classes and past my graduation from DU.

This class is just a step in my career as a writer, and after reading this chapter, I realize that knowledge is cumulative. Whatever I learn in this class is just the beginning of much more I will learn about writing and can be applied to many more disciplines that I will learn about. I think that’s really cool. Thanks KT.

Over the course of this WRIT class, the readings have been connected all along. WHO WOULD’VE KNOWN? Lol. But seriously, there is one aspect of all the readings that I recognize to be common. This is that they are all suggesting different learning strategies to make us better writers and students that are not normally discussed in the ordinary curriculum. These include Jenkins’ application of knowledge communities, Vatz’s different perspective on rhetorical situation, the cognitive stress of writing by Vieira, and the piece on reflection by Yancey. They all have something to say which could improve the writing/learning experience for students, and now I am able to see the connection.

[seanmcroberts-blog]

Research Journal: Week 6

Well, this is a really big question I feel like. When talking about how what we learn in class connects to primary research and other aspects of my life, I feel like I could connect the class learning to everything. Since I haven’t gotten many survey responses yet and have not done my interviews, the only thing I can really talk about are my observations. Luckily, there have been recent developments on the Internet that relate really well to my primary research and what we have discussed in class. This development is the release of Childish Gambino’s new song “This is America”, that came out last night. Along with the release of the song, he put the music video to the song on YouTube, and it has been receiving a lot of talk and praise based on its subject matter and the issues that it discusses. 

First, this is a big step forward for my observations, and I have come to the realization (with KT’s help) that I can use these videos of rap songs and hip hop related subjects to data mine the comments and use the videos themselves as research. Also, I have been watching this video constantly throughout the day, and this is where reflection has come in very handy. This video is very 3 dimensional and forces me and other viewers to reflect heavily on what it is symbolizing and saying about the current state of America. So, while viewing this video and listening to it, the reflection is allowing me to see deeper and get very good primary research into how rap has changed into a platform for the discussion of different issues.

Apart from my research, I have been implementing different parts of what we learn in class to my own life. After the day of silence when Kt drenched us all in that nice-smelling spray (haha) I have been taking more time to decompress and relax. This is a great way to step back from the overload of work and stress put on students by college and have some time for yourself. 

[seanmcroberts-blog]

Maps: Take 2

This map represents the 3 main things that go through my mind when I first begin to write. the first one is focus, because it is very difficult for me to focus and when I do I get IN THE ZONE. The second is determination, and thus is what gives me the motivation to push through and finish the writing, because usually I’m doing it hours before it is due. Lastly, I put language, because I know that y use of language is not the best, so I am always consciously thinking of how I can improve MY language.

This map is very different from my first map because  now that we are in the process of writing, it has become clearer to me. The first map was about one word we would use to define our writing, but this one goes more in depth into how we view the writing process as individuals.

This map definitely changes my view on writing theory. My theory of writing after making this map is, “Good writing” comes from the writer as an individual, their voice, along with their imaginative ideas, and their ability to focus on both the writing and their language to create something unique”.

[seanmcroberts-blog]

Lit Review: First Draft

Sean McRoberts WRIT 1133 Professor Taczak April 23, 2018 Introduction. Starting in the 1970’s, a new genre of music burst forth. As the years passed, this music began to develop as a culture and genre on its own, becoming one of the most popular and controversial styles of music to date. This culture is hip-hop, and the music that accompanies it is rap. Rap music has become a staple in today’s plethora of music genres, and doesn’t seem to be slowing down in popularity. Generation Z seem to be the biggest advocates for rap music now, but both people older and younger enjoy the eccentric style of music. However, rap music is not just popular, but extremely controversial as well. Many rappers discuss very sensitive or hot topics such as violence, gangs, drugs, and politics, which are questioned by many people as to their influence on young people. Along with the music, the hip-hop culture around it is also questioned and scrutinized. As such a large part of so many people’s lives, rap music and the culture surrounding it must be discussed in the current dialogue. The history of rap begins as street music, grungy and localized to certain cities like New York. Growing closer to modern day rap, it is evident that something has changed in the culture and the music as a genre. Both developing into a new type of culture and staying true to its roots, rap has evolved since its inception. This literature review will aid in the acquisition of essential information about the motivations to create the culture and the music that accompanies it, influences that have shaped hip-hop, its central identity, and its current applications in today’s diverse world. Motivation. The first and most prevalent theme that occurred in my research was that of motivation. In the subject of rap music and hip hop, I found that motivation has two very distinct implications. There are the motivations for the pioneers of hip hop to begin creating the culture from the ground up, and also the motivations of artists and rappers throughput hip hops lifespan to create the music that they have produced, and are still producing today. Motivation seems to be a principal topic in the research field of hip hop culture, and it starts with the roots of the culture and what motivated those people to raise hip hop from the ground. The first source that motivation came up in was in Emmett Price’s Hip Hop Culture, where he said, “Artists were simply motivated to articulate their despair and celebrate their self-determination through the foundational elements of DJing, graffiti tagging, b-boying/girling, MCing, and later beat-boxing and producing” (Price, 45). This statement allows readers of the research to identify some of the main reasons people wanted to produce this new culture, a yearning to express themselves and tell about their struggle. Also, this source highlights two aspects of the motivation, both an emotional reasoning, and physical motivations that pushed hip hop to evolve. As Becky Blanchard states, “Hip-hop originated from a combination of traditionally African-American forms of music—including jazz, soul, gospel, and reggae” (Blanchard, 1), highlighting other genres of music that motivated the creation of hip-hop music. These go along with the physical motivations mentioned before like graffiti tagging or b-boying/girling because they are things that we can actually see and listen to that have made hip-hop have the ability to progress. Along with the physical motivations, there were also emotional reasoning that motivated people to construct the culture. Christopher Schneider states in his article, Culture, Rap Music, “Bitch”, and the Development of the Censorship Frame, that hip-hop was a “direct descendant from the 1960’s civil right movement…” (Schneider, 43). This belief in civil rights and equality was a mental state that these pioneers were in and was an emotional motivator for them to want to express these feeling through a new medium.   Not only were there motivations to create a new medium of expression, but another aspect of the research I have been doing is the motivations that drive artists to create music. Noah Karvelis says in his article that, “this circular path of musical travel is typically designed with the goal of allowing for dancing, singing, intricate rhythms, or the layering of all three” (Karvelis, 13). Artists are motivated to make music so that people can enjoy themselves, dance and sing, and like the original motives, express themselves in ways that they normally cannot without rap music. This idea is contradicted by one of the most prominent rappers in modern hip-hop, Kendrick Lamar, and in a quote from an article by Dorian Lynskey, Lamar says, “There’s actually some real shit going on out there that people can relate to more than any singalong I can bring to the table” (Lynskey, 4). To Lamar, his motives for making music are not solely to make listeners sing along, nbut to be conscious of real issues in the world that affect the majority of people. This disagreement on motives to create rap music is perfectly related to my research question, as it allows me to view rap from two different spaces in time, and that there are in fact different motivations in these two spaces in time. Influence. While reading through the previous research in the field of hip hop and rap music, another theme that showed up throughout was influence. Influence may seem very similar to motivations, but really has different purposes in hip-hop. Again, there is distinct difference between the influences of rap music between early rap and rap today. First, Becky Blanchard states that, “Violence in rap, and in other forms of self-expression, is the manifestation of a feeling of hopelessness and discontent in America’s working class” (Blanchard, 4) which both identifies the influence of violence of the culture of rap and the subject matter of lyrics, and the discontent in America’s working class. These two issues at the time were big influences on the culture and key concepts in the subject matter of rap for years to come. Another source that picks out a key influence on hip-hop is from an article by Siobhan Brooks and Thomas Conroy, where they identify punk rock as an influencer, saying that “each developed an influence on an ever-increasing set of practitioners and audiences” (Brooks, Conroy, 5). Punk rock had a big influence of the development of hip hop because they both emerged out of New York at about the same time.  Violence, punk rock, and the “discontent” of the American working class were all influences over the entire culture of hip hop at its beginnings, but from the research I have done, the influences have slightly altered since then. There are some influences in rap music today that have carried over from the 1970’s but also some more recent developments. In Lynskey’s article on Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer Prize, he says that there is “the moral responsibility that come with success…” (Lynskey, 4) and pairs this with the example of “Geraldo Rivera on Fox News making the absurd claim that ‘hip-hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism in recent years’” (Lynskey, 3). We can see the connection between these two quotes, because Lamar has been such a successful artist that he now has the moral responsibility to discuss and oppose these negative influences. Lamar was definitely influenced by what Gerald Rivera said, because he actively used and discussed the quote in one of his songs, DNA. Along with the negative influences that affect hip hop, Blanchard says that, “rap’s potential for political advocacy stems from the function of its predecessors…” (Blanchard, 2), leading the readers to believe that rap has been influenced by both itself, as it takes from aspects of hip-hop in the past, and political issues. Identity. Hip-hop has become one of the most identifiable genres of music in today’s rotation of music, and that is because of its extremely unique identity. Identity was a very clear theme that many individuals in the research of hip hop identified. The first example that I found of the identity was from the Netflix series The Get Down, where hip hop was characterized primarily by graffiti culture, b-boys and girls, and the Black community in 1970’s New York (Luhrmann, Guirgis). A quote from Emmett Price’s book compliments this very well, where states that the question of “Who is hip-hop?” (Price, 46) was very common at the start of hip-hop. These both touch on the identity (or lack of identity) built up at the conception of hip-hop, which is where the majority of its identity comes from. In Internet banging: New Trends in social media, gang violence, masculinity and hip-hop, the authors use quotes from Bakari Kitwana, who states that “urban Americans born between the years of 1965 and 1985… he terms this generation the Hip-Hop Generation” (Patton, Eschmann, Butler, A57). This only reinforces the idea that the pioneers of hip-hop were the ones who solidified the identity of the culture for years to come. Also in this source, they characterize “hip-hop identity as the rebellious, assertive voice of predominantly urban youth, males in particular… hip hop identity has rejected the values and norms of the mainstream, while embracing and substituting oppositional values…” (Patton, Eschmann, Butler, A57), further defining hip-hop identity as rebellious and rejecting the mainstream culture. As I have discussed before, much of the influence for hip-hop came from punk rock music at the same time, Brooks and Conroy also say that “What punk and hip-hop mostly share is an attitude, one of detachment, and of some degree of opposition to mainstream, polite, co-opted society” (Brooks, Conroy, 5) which only adds to the rebellious identity of hip-hop. This collection of previous research is very helpful to my own research as when I do my primary research, I can now compare the identity of early hip-hop to what people believe it has become lately. Applications. Something that surprised me as a researcher is how much the application of rap music to other aspects of life came up in this research. This is the final theme that was most prominent, the applications of rap music in the modern day. While researching, the dominant application of hip-hop music was in education, and I have found two different examples of this. Noah Karvelis is a teacher who has begun to use rap music as a learning experience, saying that he was “quick to notice the interest that many students have in hip-hop and the rich educational opportunities that lie in it” (Karvelis, 13). One of the opportunities that lies within the use of rap music in the classroom is that students “…are extremely excited that something very musically and culturally relevant to them is being used in their classroom” (Karvelis, 14). Rap music has evolved into something that is more than just music but can be used as an educational tool also because of the conscious lyrics and social issues that are addressed. Along with teachers, “counselors and counselor educators were initial forerunners in the Hip-hop therapy movement. More than 30 years ago, Lee and Lindsey endorsed the use of rap music during group counseling with Black elementary school students” (Washington, 5). In this quote from Ahmed Washington, it is evident that rap has more applications that it once did, and because of its connection both emotionally and realistically to the Black community, it can be used as a tool in counselling. Not only is rap music now used in education, but in different ways of entertainment as well. Lin Manuel Miranda, a well-known composer and performer, wrote the musical Hamilton, but instead of implementing normal show-tunes, he wrote a rap show. In an article by Rebecca Mead, she says that “it was, he thought, a hip-hop story, an immigrants story” (Mead, 2). These few examples have shown that in the current collection of research done on rap music and culture, that rap has evolved at an applications standpoint. Conclusion. Throughout the research I have done before conducting my own research, there have been several findings that will prove very useful to the development of my primary research. First, with the theme of motivation, this research has highlighted some of the main motivations that rappers have to create the music that they do, but also does not really go into depth as how what the motivations are lie today and if they have changed due to political happenings, new social issues or other things. With influence, I hope that I will be able to identify new influences for not just traditional rappers, but seek the influences for a new age of rappers (Soundcloud). The research I have done ahs identified that a solid identity was formed for hip-hop culture starting at the beginning of the culture in the 1970’s with opposition to mainstream and punk rock, but I think this gives me room to improve on the collection of research. I would like to identify if the identity has shifted, developed or entirely changed in today’s day and age. Finally, I don’t think there are many gaps within the applications of hip-hop culture and rap music, but I would like to explore further if people believe there are other effective applications of rap music today.

References. Blanchard, B. (1999, July 26). The Social Significance of Rap & Hip-Hop Culture. Retrieved April 23, 2018, from Edge: Ethics of Development in a Global Environment: https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/socialsignificance.htm Brooks, S., & Conroy, T. (2011, January). Hip Hop Culture in a Global Context: Interdisciplinary and Cross-Categorical Investigation. SAGE Journals, 4-8. Guirgis, S. A., Luhrmann, B. (Writers), Bianchi, E., & Williams, M. (Directors). (2016). The Get Down [Television Series]. USA. Karvelis, N. (2016). Reapproaching Hip-Hop. Music Educators Journal. Lynskey, D. (2018, April 22). From Street Kid to Pulitzer: Why Kendrick Lamar Deserves the Prize. (Guardian News) Retrieved April 23, 2018, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/22/kendrick-lamar-wins-pulitzer-prize-damn-album Mead, R. (2015, February 9). All About the Hamiltons: A New Musical Brings the Founding Fathers Back to Life - with a lot of Hip Hop. (Condé Nast.) Retrieved April 23, 2018, from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons Patton, D. U., Eschmann, R. D., & Butler, D. A. (2013, January 18). Internet banging: New trends in social media, gang violence, masculinity, and hip hop. Elsevier. Price, E. G. (2006). Hip Hop Culture (1 ed.). Santa-Barbara, CA, USA: ABC-CLIO. Schneider, C. J. (2011, October). Culture, Rap Music, “Bitch,” and the Development of the Censorship Frame. SAGE Journals, 36-56. Washington, A. R. (2016, October). Integrating Hip-Hop Culture and Rap Music Into Social Justice Counseling With Black Males. Journal of Counseling and Development, 97-105.

[seanmcroberts-blog]

HP#7: Failure in Writing

100%... I agree 100% with the statement, “Failure can be an important part of writing development”. In my life as a writer, whether it be casual writing or for a writing class, there have been many instances where I have failed. Usually I just feel that I have failed and hang my head low because I knew my failure would result in a bad grade. Now that I am a college writing student, I understand more fully that failure is beneficial to the writing process and development as a writer on the whole. Recently, I wrote my “first draft” of the lit review (which we all know was just 2 pages and not the whole thing). While writing it I knew that it was a gigantic failure, and while getting feedback my thought were only confirmed. Now I have read the threshold concept of failure in writing, and Anne Lamotts quotes really spoke to me. She said, “almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You have to start somewhere”. Lamott also advocates for “shitty first drafts” in the classroom, and makes the point that it is something the writers need to work through. This is definitely how I feel now after reading this, because I know that my first draft was “shitty” but I can work through it to (hopefully) write something much better. I LOVE FAILURE... no one said ever. Now I will.

[seanmcroberts-blog]

Research Journal: Week 5

Interview:

So, I’m aiming VERY high for my individual interviews. Ideally I would like to do more than just 1 interview because I feel that getting different perspectives would be greatly beneficial. Saying that, I plan to email, direct message or in some way send messages to well-know rappers to hopefully get at least one response for a phone interview. These people could include: Logic, J.Cole, Lil Yatchy, BROCKHAMPTON, or others that I feel would remotely give me a chance. I know that it is about a million to one chance that I get a response from any of these people, but I’m going to try anyway. If I don’t get any responses, I am going to contact a friend from high school who is on his way to becoming a well-know rapper. I feel that he spends the majority of his time dedicated to music, so he would be a good interviewee in terms of his knowledge on rap culture. My interview questions will be:

1. What was hip-hop culture like when you first started out as an artist?

2. How do you feel that the culture and music has changed since your beginnings as an artist?

3. What influences have caused rap to change from its origins to now?

4. Do you think that your music has changed since you started? If so, what has caused you to evolve your music?

5. Do you think that the direction rap is going in currently is beneficial for the culture or not?

Survey:

Mainly, I am going to try and survey people of all different demographics. That includes, people of my age, older individuals, white people, black people, latino people and everything in between. For my research question, I think that having a diverse survey population would be GREAT because people of all races and ages are acquainted with rap music and have different perspectives on the culture as a whole. For example, for black people rap is part of their culture (and I’m not trying to be insensitive), since the hip-hop community was created by black people in the Bronx. However, there are also those white people and other races who listen to the music for fun and solely because they like it. These will be aspects of my survey so I can separate how different groups of people view rap music. My full survey questions will be:

1. How old are you?

2. What is your ethnicity?

- Black or African American

- White

- Hispanic or Latino

- Native American

- Asian

- Other (fill in)

3. Do you like rap music?

- Yes

- No

- Feel indifferent

4. Has rap/hip-hop culture changed over the last 20 years?

- Yes

- No

- Don’t know

5. Do you like the direction that rap is going in today (Soundcloud, “Mumble rap”, etc.)

- Yes

- No

- Feel indifferent

6. Do you prefer traditional rap or modern rap?

- Traditional

- Modern

Observations: Observations for my research question are going to be very difficult. The question is not centered around something physical that is able to be observed, but I think I know a way to do it. The main art of my observations will be observing what kinds or music and specifically rap music that people around DU are listening to. To do this, I can do a couple things. First, just while walking around campus, I can actively “eavesdrop” on the music people are listening to. whether it be in front of Sturm where people are tabling or around the dorms, I’ll make notes on the types of music people are choosing to play. Also, I cn go to parties (which I know is what EVERYONE says) and note the music being played there as well. 

[seanmcroberts-blog]

Primary Research Practice Run

Methods

As a group, we decided to conduct research on the topic of alternative transportation use at DU. To do this, we used three methods of research, surveys, interviews, and observations. All three of these research methods give unique types of information on the specific topic we chose, and would give different results for any topic.

The first method we implemented was a survey. To create the survey, we used the website SurveyMonkey and inserted the 5 questions that we came up with into the survey creator. This is the absolute beauty of a survey; the surveyor asks only yes or no questions in order to get solid data that can be visually represented on graphs or charts. This really helps to give the researcher good data and feedback from the community in relation to their subject matter. To disperse our survey throughout the (small) population of DU, each of us sent the link to our survey in several different GroupMe conversations, which are inhabited by DU students. This allowed us to get answers from several different groups throughout DU, increasing the “diversity” in our answers.

Observations were our second method of research. TO observe DU students for our topic, we sat outside of Sturm Hall for two class changes, noting the amount of students that we saw riding either a bike, skateboard/longboard, or a scooter. Sturm was the obvious choice to observe at because it houses arguably the most amount of classes and even if students don’t have class in Sturm, many have to pass it to get to other buildings. Since classes usually let out 10 minutes before the hour, we set up at 9:50 and 10:50 so that we could catch people as they were either leaving or coming to class. For each time slot, we sat for about 15 minutes, because after that time everyone is already in class.

Lastly… the interview. To get the interview we found someone walking through a building carrying their skateboard. We then interviewed them with the 4 questions we had prepared previously.

Results

Our observations yielded some very interesting data. First off, we were observing on a cloudy, slightly cold day. During the first class change, from 10-10:15 a.m., we noted 7 people riding bikes, 9 people riding skateboards/longboards, and 1 person on a scooter. During the second class change, from 10:50-11:05 a.m., it was fairly similar, with 8 people riding bikes, 6 riding skateboards/longboards, and 1 riding a scooter. Also, some of the people (3 or 4) were carrying their boards instead of riding them, but we still counted them in the data. Those are the active observations, but there was another observation we made that pertains to the data. Around us at Sturm, the 4 bike racks in view were all filled with bikes.

The survey that we sent out had 5 “yes” or “no” questions, and at the end we had a total of 21 responses. The questions and results of our survey were:

1.Do you use alternative transportation methods (e.g. bikes, skateboards, scooters)?

Yes 57%  -  No 43%

2.Do you know people who use alternative transportation methods?

Yes 100%  -  No 0%

3.Do you believe that the majority of students at DU use alternative transportation methods?

Yes 48%  -  No 52%

4.Do you believe that these methods are viable for getting around campus?

Yes 95%  -  No 5%

5.If you had the access or skills required to use them, would you use these transportation methods?

Yes 90%  -  No 10%

Finally, for the interview we found someone who was carrying their longboard in a building and asked them the 4 questions for our interview. The answers were:

1. What forms of transportation do you use to get around campus (include walking)?

To get around campus, I either walk or longboard. 2. What would you say about alternative transportation methods around campus?

I don’t really have an opinion on alternative methods, however people want to get to class is how they’ll get to class. 3. How do you think using this transportation has affected your life at DU (academically, socially, etc.)?

Longboarding has made having back-to-back classes a lot easier to get to, and is fun just to ride around on nice days. 4. How do conditions such as whether effect how and when you use other transportation? Weather is the major factor of whether or not I longboard. If it’s nice out or at least dry, I will longboard. Otherwise, I walk.

Discussion

The initial research question that we aimed to answer through this primary research was, “Do the majority of DU students prefer using alternative methods of transportation to walking”? From our rigorous primary research that we conducted over the last week, we were able to come to some conclusions about the answer to our question.

For a question like we had, we did not think that the interview was as important as the observations or survey. The answers that we received from the interview were valuable insight into the mind of a person who uses a longboard, but for our question ,which revolves around hard data and numbers, the interview wasn’t as useful. The best answers we got from the interview wer from question 3 and 4. The answer to 3 told us a possible reason that students use alternative transportation, to make “back-to-back classes a lot easier to get to”, which is a completely viable reason and aids in academic success. Also, the answer to question 4 has relation to our observations, that if it is a bad day in terms of weather, less students will be likely to be using the boards or bikes.

To us, the observations were very valuable to our overall research. They showed us that in between classes while watching different people, the amount of people riding a bike, skateboard or scooter was fairly consistent. Also, as I said before and connecting to our interview, the day in which we observed was not the nicest day in terms of weather, so that most likely influenced the amount of people using their transportation. I think we all agreed that if we were to go back on a day  that was beautiful and sunny, we would notice a lot more people riding their skateboards or bikes.

Finally, the survey was the most important piece of research that we did. For our question, this was the best because it gave us solid evidence and number to draw conclusions from. From the small population that we did survey, about half said that they actually used alternative transportation methods, but 90% said they would use it if they could, and 95% believed it was a viable form of transportation. This was amazing information for us, as it led us to believe that the majority of students don’t use alternative transportation, but would if they could.

[seanmcroberts-blog]

HP#6: Reflection and Metacognition

Reflection and metacognition have very similar applications to learning and how we as students learn. Reflection is to “take a step back”, as David Higgins states, and think about the applications and effects of what has occurred, whether it be an event, an experience or, specifically, a paper you have written. This is vital in the success of both students and other professionals alike, as it allows people to see the experience from a larger view and contemplate what that experience or event actually means on a larger scale.  I really like what Sharon Pianko said in Reflection by Kathleen Yancey, that reflection moments are “pauses and rescanning”, giving it the idea that reflection allows us to re think what we have already done.

Metacognition is very closely related to reflection , but goes one step deeper. To me, metacognition is the active process of thinking about your reflection, or thinking about your thinking in order to find deeper meaning and significance to why you are reflecting. Although these two terms and actions are slightly different as reflection is directly focused on the previous experience, while metacognition is focused on the analysis of that experience, or reflection.

In high school, our IB class was given the assignment to write a paper on the purpose of characters in The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner. In this assignment, we had to look deeper into the text and reflect on the meaning of the characters to us as readers and the impact that they had on the story as a whole. This was a time that reflection really helped me to understand more about my own thoughts on the specific character, “Benjy”, and how he played a larger role in the significance of the book.

Also in high school, for our final paper in History class, we had to write a historical investigation, a research paper on a chosen topic from history. This ended up being the worst grade I had ever received on a paper, and now, looking back I can infer that it was because I did not use reflection. I was a big procrastinator and due to that, I had to write this paper in a short amount of time, giving me no time to step back and think over what I had written and the significance of what I had written.

NowthatIhavetakentwoclassesincollegefocusedaroundreflection,Icanseehowimportantitisinthewritingprocess.Reflectionhelpsthewritertolookandthinkoftheiepaperfromawiderview,allowingthemtomakechangesthattheyseefitbecauseofthereflectiontheyhavedone.Metacognitionalsoaidsinthewritingprocessbyhelpingyoudecipherthethoughtsthatyouhavetowardsthewritingyouaredoing.MYSPACEBARSTOPPEDWORKING!!!!

[seanmcroberts-blog]

Research Journal: Week 4

Along with the previous 3 sources that I found for my topic, this research journal will contain 4 more, and these are more pop culture sources than the last 3. The sources are:

1. Guirgis, S. A., Luhrmann, B. (Writers), Bianchi, E., & Williams, M. (Directors). (2016). The Get Down [Television Series]. USA.

Summary. This source is an original Netflix series called The Get Down. The basic plot of the series is that of a young man living in the city streets of New York, specifically the Bronx in 1977. He is introduced to the new culture of the DJ world and the origins of hip hop. With influences like DJ Kool Herc, and DJ Grandmaster Flash, he and his friends discover the new popular culture of rap, and this is where it all started. In a discussion between the two main characters, Shaolin Fantastic and “Books”, Shaolin describes that “the beat goes on and on, the beat goes on, the wordsmith can go on”, and Books asks, “ what’s the wordsmith” and Shaolin tells him, “the MC”. This specific moment shows the origins of the rap culture, and over the show, audiences can see the wordsmith become the rapper.

Connection. When thinking about what sources I should turn to to get information about the start of rap and hip hop culture, this was the first thing that I thought of. I have watched the entire series previously and it really does a good job showing the culture of hip hop and music production in New York during the start of hip hop. 

2. Lynskey, D. (2018, April 22). From Street Kid to Pulitzer: Why Kendrick Lamar Deserves the Prize. (Guardian News) Retrieved April 23, 2018, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/22/kendrick-lamar-wins-pulitzer-prize-damn-album

Summary. Kendrick Lamar, one of the most influential if not the most influential rappers of our time, just won the Pulitzer Prize. This esteemed award is given to one artist a year, and this year it was given to none other than a hip hop artist. As the article reads, “The Pulitzer board has gone from 0 to 60mph in a spectacular way”. The reason the author states this is because of the controversy behind rap music and the culture of hip hop. To give such a large and impactful award to a rap album is making a statement in the modern age.

Connection.  Rap music has always been controversial in popular culture, and this recent Pulitzer win by Kendrick is a big step forward for the genre and for the culture. This shows that rap is evolving into a more respected type of music, and that this is the start of the recognizable beginning to rap becoming accepted. Also, people like Kendrick Lamar are a perfect example of the change that has occurred along with sticking to the roots of the genre as a whole.

3. Mead, R. (2015, February 9). All About the Hamiltons: A New Musical Brings the Founding Fathers Back to Life - with a lot of Hip Hop. (Condé Nast.) Retrieved April 23, 2018, from The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons

Summary. Lin Manuel Miranda is the first composer and performer to incorporate true hip hop songs in his musicals. The most popular musical on Broadway at the moment is Hamilton, a musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton told in rap songs. In the article it states, “When the organizers of the White House event called, Miranda proposed a rap about Hamilton, and they said yes”. This is when he begun his journey to create the most popular show ever made on Broadway, with hip hop and rap influences all throughout.

Connection. Rap has come a long way since its inception. Just like Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer for a rap album, this show was and still is a big step in the right direction for the culture. Rap is beginning to be used in new outlets with new ways of influence every day. This article, and the introduction of Hamilton into the world, show great evolution of rap.

4. Blanchard, B. (1999, July 26). The Social Significance of Rap & Hip-Hop Culture. Retrieved April 23, 2018, from Edge: Ethics of Development in a Global Environment: https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/socialsignificance.htm

Summary. The history of hip hop is long and full of struggle. The article points out that, “If rap music appears to be excessively violent when compared to country-western or popular rock, it is because rap stems from a culture that has been seeped in the fight against political, social, and economic oppression”. This is a general idea of what the article is about, the true ideals of rap music and how these came to be. The origins of rap and the influences that drive the origins are discussed in depth, like roots in jazz and reggae music.

Connection. The origins and roots of rap music are very important to the content of my research. This gives me a great base to decide how much rap has evolved from these roots. Also, this gives me good insight into the ideals and topics that rap music aims to cover like oppression, violence, racism and much more.