‘Makin’ Somethin’ Outta Little-to-Nufin’’: Racism, Revision and Rotating Records – The Hip-Hop DJ in Composition Praxis

Abstract

Prompted by a moment in the classroom in which the DJ becomes integral for the writing instructor, this article looks at how the hip-hop DJ and hip-hop DJ/Producer become the intrinsic examples for first-year college writing students to think about how they conduct revision in their writing. After a review of two seminal hip-hop books and other scholarly sources that situate the viability of hip-hop discourse in the classroom, this article frames the hip-hop DJ as critical to the progression of the hip-hop producer and uses the hip-hop DJ/Producer as the catalyst for revision by looking at the original version and remix of two classic hip-hop songs. The unique collaborative investment between the hip-hop DJ/Producer and emcee/MC in creating ‘the remix’ presents an intriguing conundrum for the ways we might envision teaching practices in composition studies. Central to this moment is the way hip-hop flips the script on racist ideologies constructed as anti-hip-hop sentiments in academic spaces and allows students to absorb the idea of revision in writing studies. Finally, interviews from three hip-hop DJ/Producers help to demonstrate how the hip-hop DJ sits at the centre of this disrupt.

Keywords:

• hip-hop DJ
• DJ/Producer
• revision strategies
• writing studies
• DJ rhetoric

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In this article, the term ‘emcee’ and MC will be used interchangeably. Because many in hip-hop culture will cite the spelling of ‘emcee’ as intrinsically hip-hop, the cultural configuration will supersede the popular spelling of ‘MC’.

2. The four elements of hip-hop culture are known as DJing, MCing, Graffitti and B-Boy/B-Girling. Many also acknowledge the fifth element to be ‘overstanding’: an elevated level of consciousness and analysis of a particular set of circumstances usually connected to socio-cultural and/or socio-political circumstances in relation to hip-hop.

3. The word ‘jock’ in the US refers to a student considered to be more concerned with athletic, than academic, success. The stereotypical perception is that ‘jocks’ only care about scholastic achievement when it becomes a roadblock to continued involvement in team membership and play on the athletic field.

4. The closest remnant I could find of this ‘theft’ was a book chapter written by Wendy Bishop (2002); it is important to note that if the assignment was stolen from here, it was stolen without giving credit to the source. When asked, the person led me in a direction other than Wendy Bishop, using her more as a side-note than an actual source.