Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures — featuring Professor H. Samy Alim on NPR’s The World

Professor H. Samy Alim, an Anthropology Professor and David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair in the Division of Social Sciences, talks on NPR’s The World about his book Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures.

 

Fifty years ago this summer, a Jamaican DJ named Kool Herc wanted to throw a party in his new neighborhood — the Bronx.

His concept: a celebration with music that would echo the “dance hall” scene he remembered back home in Kingston.

Music historians like Samy Alim, a professor of anthropology and director of the Hip Hop Initiative at UCLA, point to that August night in 1973 as the birth of hip-hop.

“My introduction to hip-hop was very early on,” Alim said. “I was born in 1977, and then about 10 years after that, I was probably 8, 9, 10 when I started hearing all of the music of that period blasting out of my older brother’s room.”

Alim, co-editor of the book “Freedom Moves,” is now steeped in the study of hip-hop. More than that, he sees how hip-hop has become a teaching tool for communities around the globe. When he first heard the sound, it struck him as multi-layered, and he saw its potential.

“I was listening to something musical, that was poetic, that was political, that was strong, and it was funky, and it had a rhyme and dance to it,” Alim told The World.

 

Continue reading the article on The World’s website.