“Bespoke analysis”
–Diversifying scholarship through transformative pedagogical practices.
A conversation with Ellie Hisama and Evan Rapport.
The first newsletter that the Institute for Studies in American Music (ISAM) published with Ellie Hisama as its director in fall of 1999, documents some of the ideals that guided her leadership the many years she was in leading the institute. These ideas are inevitably aligned with the principles that have accompanied her long trajectory as a scholar and a teacher and won her accolades for offering paths to diversify the study of music across disciplines. At the turn of the century, Ellie wanted to use ISAM as a platform to champion American music of all kinds, to spotlight the music of New York City, and to provide a forum for “research that presents bold new perspectives, especially from the work of younger scholars.” Much has changed in the cultural and technological landscape of American music since then, but most of these ambitions still resonate with the ideals in the work we put forward today in that very same institute, now named the Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American music.
Critical Minded. New Approaches to Hip Hop Studies, the monograph we celebrate with this issue, was inspired by those guiding principles and propelled by an eagerness to champion new perspectives and methods of musical analysis; the determination to broaden conversations about hip hop and popular studies in yesterday’s educational institutions; and the foresight of using the limited resources academia some- times affords us, to create platforms that showcase and legitimize marginalized music, artists, authors, and approaches to scholarship.
The quest into learning more about this monograph delivered me with an unexpected gift. It humanized scholars and mentors I look up to. Critical Minded was, for many of them, their first foray into the academic publication process. Reflecting on it, people I spoke with felt humbled, honored, and mostly surprised that anyone cared so much about this book to throw a party for it. Taking recognized senior scholars through memory lane showed me that not long ago, they were just like me: curious readers, anxious writers, people excited to put their ideas out there, thinking and learning a great deal from the processes through which they create long-standing records of their thoughts.
Professional development is something that Ellie Hisama always prioritized in the different roles she held at various prestigious academic institutions. “I felt then and I feel strongly now that graduate students need to learn about the field, not just about the content of the topic of the seminar” she shared with me in a recent conversation. “Critical Minded, Ellie reflected, is part of that spirit or impetus of ‘let’s do something besides read articles, talk about them in class, and write a final paper’ which most seminars basically did at the time”.
Offering a doctoral seminar on hip hop studies back then was a similarly progressive move. Despite hip hop’s proliferation across the globe, its immense impact on popular music markets and momentum across mainstream media, this affirmatively black music expression was long marginalized from music studies and educational spaces in academia. Ellie told me that: “the idea that we can change what we offer to students, opens up worlds of possibilities to them.” This is what happened when she pitched the idea of a hip hop seminar at The Graduate Center. That class “History/Theory/Criticism of Hip Hop” later took different versions and iterations following Ellie’s move across different educational institutions.
“We were the hip hop generation”, Evan Rapport, the co-editor of this publication, told me during the same conversation. “[When] we grew up, this was our music.” Evan was one of those students whose “world of possibilities” was broadened by taking this seminar. “I didn’t know I could do any of this” he shared candidly that afternoon. He knew he could do stuff, like records, artwork, flyers… because he joined the graduate program in ethnomusicology coming from punk and jazz scenes. He saw things like conference proceedings as another version of a DIY publication for a highly specialized audience. He was the one to approach Ellie with the idea of materializing the seminar’s final projects into a long-lasting thing. He recalls pitching the idea to Ellie along the lines of: “everyone’s doing these cool projects (…) it would be cool to see what happens if we publish them.” At the time, he didn’t think they were actually going to publish them, nor understood the ins and outs of how a publication like this comes to be. But Ellie was excited and led the project with commitment. She ran with it in a very exciting way. Evan remembers, “I had no idea that it would turn into this real thing. I’m so glad that it did”, he shared.
The essays that made it to Critical Minded (a riff on Boogie Down Productions’ album Criminal Minded) were celebrated for their diverse approaches. Ethnographic analysis of local scenes and artist are mixed with exciting experiments for understanding hip hop’s unique aesthetic techniques and lyrical outputs. Each article was a necessary contribution to the void in hip hop scholarship this publication was set to address. The decision to compile them was never meant to be a blueprint, a strict recipe on “how to study hip hop,” rather, Critical Minded was envisioned as a toolbox to inspire different paths within a new space of inquiry. Opting for “New Approaches to Hip Hop Studies” rather than “THE new approaches” was key to make this distinction, according to Ellie. “New approaches”, she explained to me, is more inclusive: “we are part of the new, but we aren’t defining the new as some- thing we’re doing.” The word that came to mind as she described the author’s contributions was bespoke. In her words, this work is the result of a “bespoke analysis of whatever comes to us and we bring to that work”.
Bespoke methods of analysis are disruptive in nature. They challenge pre-fixed forms of cultural understanding. As situated scholarly practices they open avenues of study, they design inclusive patterns to make sense of inspiring music. Giving people tools to communicate about music has always inspired Ellie’s approach to pedagogy and practice. She is particularly preoccupied with reaching listeners who are not taking music theory courses or never studied notation.” “They are avid listeners”, she asserts, “but they want to do more than just listen for the 200th time. They want to talk about this [music] in detail, they want to share something with someone else. And we can [help them] do that. We, being people who teach, through the vocabulary we share, and the kind of methods and practices we give to our students”. This volume represents that in part, she believes.
Hip hop, since its inception, has been an avenue for critical engagement with unfair and oppressive conditions, and a tool for communicating and creating community against them. As Robin Kelley expressed, it was “born global” because it emerged from the multiethnic neighborhoods of South Bronx, Harlem and Washington Heights, from the sons and daughters of immigrants. Any attempt to create scholarship around it must be guided with an openness and inclusiveness that speaks to this transcendental and global nature; that –inspired by hip hop’s ability to bring political issues onto global markets– uses pedagogy, writing, and critical reflection to inspire radical pockets within the seemingly innocuous milieu of academia.
This event, and the publication that succeeds it, adds onto the commemorations around hip hop’s fifty anniversary that spread throughout the country last year. But fundamentally, it celebrates more than two decades of ongoing hip hop scholar- ship coming from CUNY, the largest urban university system in the United States, which primarily serves the marginalized populations hip hop gave a voice to. A kind of scholarship that is organically informed by the experiences of living in this multi- ethnic city where speaking about social injustice is never an abstract exercise. Just last week a black man lost his ability to walk after being shot by the NYPD for some- thing as minor as a 2.90$ fare evasion. A kind of scholarship that is co-constructed in our classrooms, by the beats that our students create in their phones and the questions that they raise about systematic issues that affect their loved ones.
Theorizing as someone from CUNY should always carry a political undercurrent, driven by the force to communicate with others in the engaged ways we connect with our students and our surroundings, and learn from them. “We in the academy can give voice or platforms to people who normally don’t have them” Ellie asserted during our conversation. “sharing our resources, what we have to offer sometimes is academics. We think we have very little to offer because we’re overworked, underpaid, subject to a lot of other forces. But in some ways, we do have a lot that we can do with people, and there’s a lot that we can learn from them,” she told me.
The Critical Minded symposium, the student-centered block parties that we will plan after it and this publication, are little ways to honor these people often marginalized from our educational spaces. The DJs, emcees, dancers, readers, listeners, teachers, and writers that continue to push for bespoke music analysis, that give us tools to uncover the ways in which expressive culture can be an agent of change. I hope you feel inspired by what you hear today. Thank you for accompanying us as we celebrate 20 years of hip hop scholar- ship from CUNY.
Agustina Checa