ERIC Number: EJ1199737
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1740-0201
EISSN: N/A
Preventing Violence through Hip Hop: An Evolutionary Perspective
Journal of Peace Education, v15 n3 p325-344 2018
For decades Hip Hop cultural practices have been disparaged for allegedly inciting and being responsible for the eruption of urban violence. This assumption, likely built upon pre-existing biases regarding the street culture and ethnic minorities where Hip Hop emerged, ignored how some of the genre's main elements -- particularly freestyle rap, "breakin'" or breakdancing and graffiti tagging -- initially served the purpose of providing at-risk youths with real alternatives to direct physical violence in their day-to-day lives, and continue do so today. It has also ignored broader analogies with other cross-cultural and cross-species manifestations of similar practices that have served for millennia as effective mechanisms for reducing the likelihood of potentially lethal violence. By presenting these manifestations -- namely song dueling and mark making -- in comparative terms with Hip Hop's freestyle song and dance battles and tagging territorial contests, this article seeks to highlight the relevance and potential of Hip Hop for preventing violence while also suggesting a common evolutionary backdrop within the context of strategies aimed at minimizing intraspecific aggression.
Descriptors: Peace, Violence, Prevention, Conflict Resolution, Aggression, Popular Culture, Music, Urban Youth, At Risk Persons, Competition, Urban Culture, Juvenile Gangs
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A