Hip hop

Hero or Antihero
Hero
noun, plural heroes;

1. a person noted for courageous acts or nobility of

character:

2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has special

achievements, abilities, or personal qualities and is
regarded as a role model or ideal;

3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.

Antihero
noun, plural antiheroes.

1. a protagonist who lacks the attributes that make a

heroic figure, as nobility of mind and spirit, a life or
attitude marked by action or purpose, and the like.
Professor Frank Farley,
Temple University, School
of Psychology,

“Most heroic figures like

Franklin D. Roosevelt or
Martin Luther King are
what you call T-type
personalities or habitual
risk-takers, people who
will risk everything, put
everything on the line,
including their lives, in
order to accomplish a
goal”
 “It is tempting to classify literary,
cinematic, and historical characters into
groups. The trouble, of course, is that
such labels can be misleading at best,
and severely subjective and variable.
When using terms such as hero, villain,
anti-hero, anti-villain, or adventurer, it is
important to remember how vague and
movable the borders really are, and to
ask why a certain label is or should be
placed on a specific character. It is never
enough to simply classify a character or a
person. One must take into consideration
what the creator of this character had in
mind, what circumstances affected this
person’s actions, what culture or society
this person came from, what his or her
own beliefs or intentions may be, and
finally, how our own principles,
prejudices, and associations may
influence our perceptions.
Katherine Blakeney
What makes a person a hero or a villain? How much
comes from inner predisposition, from personal destiny,
from mere interpretation? Is someone obliged to
become a hero or villain by virtue of their existence, or
are heroes and villains molded over time with an
outcome that could potentially have gone either way?
How much of it is voluntary, and how many of these
people truly anticipate (and care) how they will be
interpreted by others?”
 Richard
1970 Nixon
 1973
1520, Sedgwick avenue, Bronx

Dj Kool Herc
 Ronald
1980’s Reagan
High unemployment rate
 “My mother's, my aunt's greatest fear
wasn't that we wouldn't get into a
good school, or we'd have bad grades.
It was that we spend the rest of our
lives in prison.

No college meant prison.

And so, for us, hip-hop was this audio
documentary,

it was telling us and detailing these

stories of prison, and murdering, and
gangs, and drugs,

but it was also communicating to us our

story, and what we were going through,
right?
Lecrae
Our parents were the products of the Civil Rights era, they weren't even
allowed a quality formal education. So high-paying careers were not
really an option.

I watched again and again families work odd jobs,

move from city to city, chasing factory work only to find it was not
available.

And then drugs came.

When drugs came, it was like a gold rush, it was literally like a gold rush.
In the 80s, nobody understood the implications, but the 90s reaped
havoc.

I lost every man that was important to me, including my father,

to the infestation of drugs or the war against them.

So yeah, in the world outside my community Ronald Reagan was a hero,

but in my backyard, he was a villain. How could Ronald Reagan possibly
be a hero to us, how can Scarface possibly not?”
1990’s
Hip hop’s golden era
Embracing your stigma is a political act, an act of
defiance.

In a society that seeks to demean a group of people

based on an unalterable trait.

We found ourselves in a nation that saw us as

criminals, so we embraced it.

-Michelle Alexander, "The New Jim Crow"

Now
“The thing about hip-hop today is it's
smart, it's insightful. The way they
can communicate a complex message
in a very short space is remarkable.”

-Barrack Obama
Peace out!