|
Hip-hop and lifelong learning |
PDF |
| Print | |
|
Hetty Rooth
|
06.03.2008 |
Science -
Articles
[en] [sw]
|
|
Creating hip-hop music is an evolutionary process which fits in well with the debate on lifelong learning. That’s the view of scientist Johan Söderman at Lund University, who has published the first Swedish thesis on the educational strategies of hip-hop musicians.
Johan Söderman has spent five years researching the artistic and educational strategies of hip-hop musicians. Hip-hop musicians have an educational element, in his opinion, and he draws parallels between today’s prominent hip-hop musicians and the study circle leaders in Swedish adult education.
The various genres of popular music have come to occupy a significant place in informal adult education in Sweden over the last 30 years. The study associations offer young people the opportunity to play in bands, develop their musical skills and at the same time get used to working together democratically in groups. With the help of the study associations, newly formed pop groups have been given access to studios, instruments and performances at local and national level, to concerts and festivals. The number of study circles, primarily in rock music, has grown steadily in adult education since the 1980’s.
Although the hip-hop movement has been big in Sweden since the 1990’s, it’s mainly rock music which has come to the fore in adult education. This is due to hip-hop’s loose organisation and flexible way of working. The members of hip-hop groups are constantly changing and the musicians often work separately in very different ways. The lack of fixed models has made it difficult for the study associations to calculate the cost of participation and study hours.
Johan Söderman’s thesis, which brings hip-hop into the debate about life-long learning, is therefore especially interesting as an additional contribution to the discussion about hip-hop’s place in adult education.
”Hip-hop is not just music, it’s much more”, says Söderman. “Hip-hop is an integrated expressive art form which reflects today’s society. Young people, who do not get involved in the traditional social debate, get an opportunity through hip-hop to take their place within the social structures and learn more about them.”
In his research Johan Söderman has examined the educational strategies of hip-hop musicians. By following Swedish hip-hop artistes in their creative process from a regular beat to a finished number, he demonstrates significant points of contact between the hip-hop musicians’ teaching and the educational vision within Swedish adult education. The creative process is collective in nature, as the members of hip-hop groups create a collage of texts, at both an individual and collective level. There is also an incomplete dimension in the working process which is evident in the fact that the texts are never finished products.
The rap artistes in the study see their own musical development in terms of increased vocabulary and knowledge of life. Whereas the beat-maker, who creates the beat, also develops technical, economic and social skills.
Johan Söderman thinks that as well as being performers keeping a tradition alive, hip-hop musicians can be seen as teachers and popular educators. Finally he stresses that an aesthetic context, such as hip-hop, should not be described as radically different compared with schools and other educational establishments. Formal and informal learning exists dialectically both within and outside the world of school.
Title: Verbally fa(s)t. Hip-hop Musicians' artistic and educational strategies.
Doctoral Thesis
Johan Söderman, Lund University
|
|
|
| Details: |
|
Topics/Keywords:
|
Science => Research
Subjects / Target groups => Culture (Art / Music / Literature)
Hip-hop; young; music; lifelong learning; adult education
|
|
Hits:
|
1935 |
|
