MCTenz Gives Tibetan Teens a Dose of Authentic Hip-Hop

Cath Marsh, the New Zealander who taught my class last year, has been trying out her new English learning materials on the students on the weekend. Following from her conviction that language must be learned in context and with interesting content, the module she is currently testing is on hip-hop.

In Kangding she bumped into a vacationing Tenzin Gyaltsen, a half-Tibetan from California (not to be confused with my colleague Tenzin Mullin, who is not Tibetan). He is an MC in Chengdu performing around China, and is a director of Pro-Motion Solutions, working to expand the hip-hop and DJ scene in Asia. He blogs at MCTenz.com.

She invited him up to give the class his views on hip-hop and a first-hand example of MCing, with Sacsha on the beat-box. It was classic (don't miss Tenzin's lecture notes on the board). Even if you're in a rush, watch this video. It's about the sweetest thing I've seen since being in New Orleans or India (you know I wouldn't lie to you):



Update: here's the URL for the Youtube video in case the embed becomes corrupt.

Tenzin has a few pictures of some break dancers in Kangding and his version of the experience on his blog.

I got pretty fired up during his explanation of hip-hop culture, and the students were definitely into it. He stressed that the theme of struggle in hip-hop stems in part from the oppression of minorities in the Bronx in the late Sixties and Seventies. "Struggle, Revolution, Growth." I asked him if the emphasis on cutting down rivals in MC Battles, out-flexing other B-Boys in a face-off, and throwing up the best bombs and tags was a way of getting one's opponent to be the best they can be. He didn't think so, but agreed that that was a result.

At that time my moustache was freshly crafted, and I was a little paranoid that they'd think I was a redneck winger from Louisiana. I couldn't get Deltron's words outta my head:

A lot of white boys like the style and copy
Dig in something deeper and you'll peep that were not free
It's not about the separation its about the population

Word. I've been trying to reconcile the opposing ideas that hip-hop is about individual power and that it is about community. At some point last week when reading about something unrelated, I stumbled across this story in WireTap: The Political Power of the Midwest. In spite of the title, this post is about how progressive urban grassroots organizers use hip-hop to mold the characters of inner-city youth, in community centers like Elementz and Urban Underground. "Our central theme is respect. We don't have the typical metal detectors and security guards. Instead, we focus on letting young people in on nearly all of the decision-making."

On DailyKos I also came across an interesting diary when I was doing a little research on grassroots hunger initiatives. The Politics of Hip-Hop reads like a manifesto constructed from hip-hop flows, arguing that the nature of hip-hop is political, oriented towards the class struggle of the common man and woman (not necessarily the black man and woman) and based on revolution. I know it sounds Socialistic but it grow up. When I began looking, I found similar sentiments. One diary encourages us to "peep" an email from Nasty Nes, who lists the links for the Hip-Hop League of Voter's local voting guides and give a heads up on common practices of disenfranchisement. Young Voters are still makin' it happen... introduces the Hip-Hop Summit and its relationship to the Youth Movement.

Finally, wu ming asks is political hip-hop dead? I think you'll see from the comments that the answer is fuck no it ain't dead. The comments are also a sure spot to score some downloading ideas for your personal library of underground hip-hop.

Let's get one thing straight, though. I'm a Northern European mutt raised in a professional class family in Central Louisiana. I'm a white boy who "likes the style," but I don't copy. I didn't get into hip-hop until I was in college, when I realized the musical eclecticism of Handsome Boy Modeling School samples, the lyrical deftness of Kool Keith, and the powerful simplicity of the politics of Digable Planets. These are the same reasons I listen to independent music (not emo, Chris and Mike) like Pink Mountaintops, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Silver Jews.

I draw power from this music not because of my race or my extra-curricular habits, but because it inspires me and has the potential to focus the revolutionary fervor of my peers. We're not the MTV Generation, we're not Generation Y, we aren't the Generation of Social Values or the Millennial Generation or the Nine-Eleven Generation (maybe the Generation of the Federal Flood, just maybe). I'm not sure what we are, together, though I am certain of one thing: most of us know shit when we smell it.