Hip-Hop artist James Calhoun and a professor from the University Of California sat down with students about the effects of the Black Panther Party on media and music. The talk was part of a month long series on the Black Panther Party at the University of Tennessee.Artist Calhoun founded a hip-hop group, The Black Panter F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.S. who communicate positive messages to young people.
“I am hip-hop,” Calhoun said. “I have lived, I have breathed it, I have eaten it.”
Calhoun spoke on the changes in hip-hop since its beginings of the 60’s and 70’s and he believes the music genre has strayed from its roots as a political form.
When hip-hop was born, “lyrics were really driven by the politics of the time … It was really a way to express culturally the need to gather, the need to reform. It was really a powerful time to have that synergy going on … The Black Panther Party is not directly…the father of hip-hop. But, it is certainly a huge catalyst for it.”
Professor Michael Hanson from the University Of California in San Diego said
Early hip-hop artists made bold attacks on the state and spoke out about black dispossession, said Hanson. These artists were not concerned with making their music “palatable” to white listeners. Instead, they were seeking to make the Black Panther Party’s stance known.
Calhoun then went on to say that record labels made hip-hop into being about ’thugs’ rather than putting out a positive message.
He has called on artists to do more for their community
“Demand more out of what they do,” Calhoun said. “Demand the artist to do more rather than say more.”
Source: TNJN