Q&A:
Tuned in to issues in music of today
Raphael C. Heaggans
NIAGARA FALLS— Raphael C. Heaggans, Niagara University assistant professor of teacher education, was influenced by activists like gifted speaker Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights vice chairwoman of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, beaten in jail during her mission to ensure that everyone could vote.
Hamer would sing hymns like “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “This Little Light of Mine” to inspire other civil rights volunteers.
This summer of 2009 is far away from that Mississippi Freedom Summer of the 1960s and those Christian hymns. Heaggans, blessed with an electrifying speaking voice himself, has just put out a compelling new study on rap music-based hip-hop—“The 21st Century Hip-Hop Minstrel Show: Are We Continuing the Blackface Tradition?”
Heaggans’ academic background is in multicultural education. He’s a former college administrator, and seventh-and eighth-grade language arts teacher. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society that also has Albert Einstein, George Washington Carver and Eleanor Roosevelt on its rolls. Heaggans originally hails from Statesville, N. C., and earned his Ph. D. from West Virginia University.
Would you tell us about your childhood, what it was like growing up in the South?
I’m the seventh of 10 children born to Joseph and Dorothy Heaggans. My parents and siblings describe me as a child who was mature—as a result of frequently being around older persons. My parents emphasized education and hard work. I enjoyed going to school. They also motivated me to teach. Racial tensions were still prevalent during the late 1970s and ’80s.
Why did you go into education?
Former English and French teachers motivated me to go into education. Their excitement and support of the academic success of all students motivated me to teach.
It became frustrating, as a student, to see teachers only become concerned about celebrating multicultural education during diversity-themed months, like Black History or Women’s History months.
Why is it important to examine those hip-hop lyrics and video images on MTV?
We must consider the impact the lyrics have on how our children choose to behave. Our children oftentimes cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy. When they imitate what they see and hear in socially unconscious hip-hop lyrics, they are actually placing self-fulfilling prophesies upon themselves. They don’t know that part of hip-hop music’s goal, according to hip-hop artist Ja Rule, is to control the youth’s mind-state.
And socially unconscious hip-hop is doing just that, since it determines youth’s fashion, lingo, walk, hand signs, dance styles and attitudes about life. But it’s not necessarily the youth’s fault, since we really don’t have a youth problem— we have an adult problem. The adults behind the lyrics are making much money off of the naivete of the youth, while many of our youth are going to jail and prison from acting out what they’ve seen or heard in the videos.
Do you think the trend pendulum will eventually swing the other way to a new beat? Will the kids who are coming up, grow weary of those images and think they’re old-school?
I am not sure. Currently, sex and violence in hip-hop lyrics make distribution companies too much money for hip-hop artists not to create an extended genre of hip-hop. The misogynistic songs youth listen to now will become the golden oldies 10 or 20 years from now.
When you were a teen, who did you listen to?
Jeffery Osbourne, Kenny Loggins, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, Anita Baker, Teena Marie and Phyllis Hyman are some of the artists I listened to. I enjoyed rap artists such as Whodini, Sugar Hill Gang, Roxanne Shante and Public Enemy.
What do you listen to today?
R&B from the 1980s, and jazz primarily. I enjoy Common, Jurassic Five, Lauren Hill, and the Roots.
Your next project?
A children’s version of my book.
Your goal for “The 21st
Century Hip-Hop Minstrel: Are We Continuing the Blackface Tradition?”
I’d like adults and youth to re-evaluate how some elements of hip-hop music take us back to slavery. All hip-hop is not negative. I’m not on a hip-hop witch hunt and am not advocating for its censorship. However, our white and black youth are clueless about the struggles white and black abolitionists faced in the name of promoting equality for all.
Now the usage of the Nword, celebration of marijuana, glorifying criminality and objectifying women have become a false representation of African- American culture via the hip-hop artists who promote it. We have to begin a dialogue about how it reinforces stereotypes about African-Americans, and how it mis-educates youth about their history.
Our youth are 100 percent of our future. What kind of cultural capital are we leaving them? Are we allowing unconscious hip-hop music to serve as a surrogate parent to skirt our responsibility to teach youth about their history, and how some hip-hop contradicts that history? The book provides a springboard for such dialogue.
Who inspired you?
Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King. Why the project?
I’ve witnessed many of our youth relishing their mis-education. They see themselves as gang-bangers, drug users and/- or sellers, haters of women and ignorant. As a result, they don’t know their history.
Why is history important?
Any person who doesn’t know his or her history is doomed to repeat it. My book articulates the ways in which some youths are repeating history and analyzes correlations between hip-hop music and themes in slavery.
e-mail: Have an idea about a Niagara County-resident who’d make an interesting Q&A column? Write to: Louise Continelli, Q&A, The Buffalo News, P. O. Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240, or e-mail her at lcontinelli@buffnews.com
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