Where's the hip hop?
By Richard Nieva
Fist pumped in the air, Apakalips lets a flurry of rhymes and wordplay flow out into the crowd. He turns around to give a nod to Funk Master Phil, who scratches a record methodically on two turntables, building a new pulsating beat, creating something new out of the old.
This is hip hop.
Real hip hop, in simple terms, describes a culture, lifestyle and means of expression founded on four basic practices known as elements: disc jockeying, emceeing, break dancing and graffiti.
And it don't stop -- unless you are an MC performing at Santa Clara. Though rap music is a popular genre on campus, some students and MCs say the true meaning of hip hop culture has eluded many Santa Clara students.
Apakalips and Funk Master Phil looked out onto a stagnant audience on a Friday night last fall quarter. Many chatted with friends, some with their backs to the stage.
Apakalips is the alias of MC Joseph Miclette, a San Jose native and co-founder of South Bay hip hop organization Lyrical Discipline, which has performed at The Bronco on several occasions.
"Every time a hip hop artist comes onto the stage, it's like people aren't really there, and don't necessarily support what they're doing, or even seem to understand what's going on," said Miclette.
This is not the first time an artist expressing meaning through word flow has performed in front of an inattentive crowd at Santa Clara, he said.
Sophomore Hamilton Augustine recalled singling out members of the crowd last Wednesday while he was on stage at this quarter's Love Jones, an open-mic event presented every quarter by Igwebuike, the black student union, that has been one of the only university venues that consistently promotes hip hop culture, though it's open to all forms of artistic expression.
When Miclette performed at another Love Jones event last winter, he, too, had to stop in between songs and scold the crowd for being disrespectful during his performance.
Senior Kendra Okposo, Igwebuike's co-chair along with Augustine, said it's hard because The Bronco is such a public place. But nevertheless, she said she has been satisfied with the reception the event has garnered, but mostly due to the fact there is a set audience for the show.
"The community that comes to Love Jones is already a community that is exposed to that sort of culture. Whether that's a good or bad thing, I don't really think there is anything we can do about it," she said.
These hip hop event-planning hardships haven't only been limited to events in The Bronco, but larger venues, as well.
For the past four years, the Activities Programming Board has brought several hip hop acts to the university. "It's a hit or miss kind of thing," said APB director Natalie Cummins. "We do our best and hope people come to the shows."
The Roots, Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples and Mos Def -- each acclaimed artists in the hip hop community -- have all graced the stage of the Leavey Center. When senior Xavier Zapata attended the Mos Def show, he found some of the crowd lackluster and unenthused.
"A lot of times most people come just because it's a show, not because they know the artists," said Zapata.
While APB enjoys bringing hip hop acts, Cummins said it can be difficult to draw large crowds.
"Sometimes these shows just don't sell out. Then you have the Death Cab concert, which sold out, no problem," Cummins said.
Mos Def's show last spring did not sell out, while Jurassic 5's concert in spring 2006 sold out, she said, though she describes it as having been a "hard push."
A different setting
In a neighborhood nearby, a starkly different hip hop scene transpires.
Fast forward to a Friday night at Iguana's, a Mexican restaurant on Third Street in downtown San Jose, where Lyrical Discipline holds its bi-monthly MC freestyle show.
Apakalips and Funk Master Phil are again on stage. But this time when he pumps his fist, he holds the entire crowd's captivation in his raised hand.
Garbed in a shirt that reads, "Can I have my hip hop back?" Apakalips entrances the audience. He elicits thunderous applause after a clever rhyme, much like a jazz soloist after an improvised gem.
This is hip hop.
And this scene takes place just 10 minutes away from campus, but might as well be in another world, far away from the Santa Clara "bubble."
Senior Dre de la Peza, a DJ on campus, said that this disconnect may stem from the different experiences a majority of Santa Clara students have growing up before they reach the university setting.
"It's a much more sheltered and blind community to the urban expression. And hip hop always has been an expression of the underrepresented, urban youth," he said.
Miclette agrees. "The demographics of the university don't necessarily favor the culture. Not to say that rich, or affluent, or upper class students wouldn't associate with hip hop, but let's be honest," he said. "That's not necessarily where hip hop lies."
While white students typically comprise more than half of Santa Clara's student population 55 percent of this year's freshman class is nonwhite, said Eva Blanco, assistant dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid. These new students are more likely to have grown up with an experience more attuned to hip hop culture, Miclette and de la Peza said.
Student efforts
There have also been some recent attempts to raise the hip hop culture awareness in the university community. Santa Clara alumnus Aldo Chaidez was the president of SCU Lyrical Discipline, the former hip hop club on campus that was an offshoot of the organization co-founded by Miclette.
But since he graduated, the club has disbanded.
There still is one hip hop-inspired group left on campus. Hipnotik is Santa Clara's hip hop dance and step club, founded by Ashley Batz, Mandy Rawls and Janene Lopez-Fairfield in 2006.
"We wanted to let people know what hip hop dance and step are all about because they weren't on our campus at all," said Batz, who added that the club also explores other sects of hip hop dance, such as pop and lock and krumping, a Los Angeles-based dance form.
Batzalso said Hipnotik has recently been sponsored by Esface, a hip hop clothing brand that was founded in part by Santa Clara graduate Oladele Sobomehin.
This example of street fashion is one of the five extended components of hip hop that respected MC KRS-One mentions in his 2003 song "9 Elements." The other four include: beatboxing, street language, street wisdom and street entrepreneurialism -- though some hip hop purists don't adhere to these extended elements.
Hip hop as a culture
Still, as far as most Santa Clara audiences are concerned, Miclette said people think he and these other acts are just some guys rapping. He stressed that many don't realize that hip hop and rap are not the same thing.
Hip hop is an entire culture, said Miclette, and the reason most people don't know this is because the media doesn't promote it as such.
"I think if Santa Clara embraced hip hop culture, it would understand that it definitely ties in to our mission, in terms of being advocates for social justice," said Tamika Brown, a professor in the ethnic studies department.
Rap is the mainstream manifestation of hip hop -- the commercialized, corporate music heard on radios and seen on BET and MTV.
Augustine and Okposo mentioned the difference between mainstream rappers and hip hop artists as the dissimilarity between artists like Soulja Boy and Rakim.
"Rap is a word. It's a form," said de la Peza. "It's a very superficial expression of a more deeply rooted and community-based group."
Hip hop was born out of the dire societal conditions that precede the start of any great tradition, he said.
"Hip hop has the anger that comes out of post-industrial, free-market America," wrote Princeton African American and religious studies professor Cornel West in a 2005 article. While initially an avenue for black nationalism and social justice, hip hop was marketed in the late 1990s as rap music, with a new set of "elements": drugs, bitches, hos and bling bling, said de la Peza.
Fans who simply listen to rap artists without recognizing hip hop's socially conscious undertones are missing the point, he said.
Brown teaches the social messages in her history of hip hop class, which was piloted last year.
"It is not something that's degrading, or is destroying a community, but it is actually art. That's what I think people don't understand," she said.
De la Peza said that if nothing else, people should learn to appreciate the hip hop culture.
"You don't even necessarily have to be a proponent of loving the music," de la Peza said. "You just have to be able to accept the culture for what it is."
Contact Richard Nieva at (408) 554-4546 or rnieva@scu.edu.