This commentary is by Joe Resteghini, principal of Champlain Elementary School in Burlington.
In August 1988, I went to football camp with my school team. One of the kids at camp brought a radio and at the first morning’s practice he popped on the song “Don’t Believe the Hype,” by Public Enemy.
I was mesmerized. The beat was hard. The lyrics were hard. Flavor Flav’s vocals blew me away.
I grew up outside of New York City, and had already been listening to DJ Red Alert’s radio shows on Friday nights. Frederick Crute (DJ Red) had sparked my curiosity about hip-hop music.
I had already been cranking Run D.M.C. in my room, reading comic books, studying the lyrics, wanting to get a pair of Adidas shell toes. Thanks to my parents’ appreciation for New York radio, I listened to all types of music, but hip-hop was new and it was not a genre my parents quite understood. The lyrics were controversial. Then again, Marvin Gaye didn’t shy away from controversy, did he?
On that hot August day, when I got home and dialed in on the lyrics, I was hooked. My interpretation, Black men making a statement on dealing with racism, spoke to me. My friends on the team and at school were of diverse race and culture. The music was making statements, intelligent arguments wrapped around beats, that placed me on my journey.
In college, playing baseball, on a trip to Virginia, all we listened to was Nas’ legendary Illmatic. Again, statements on a lifetime of struggle that my friends were enduring at that moment, and continue to endure today, racism.
Hip-hop music and culture — the art of hip-hop — integral aspects, intertwined culture, and also integral in dismantling racist systems that existed and continue to exist. Hip-hop influences clothes, language, dissidence, politics, food. A beautiful thing about hip-hop is that it continues to evolve and reinvent itself in lyrics, beats, and artists that inspire me to listen to my son’s Spotify playlists, and help him to respect the roots of the music he listens to.
Whereas I would listen to my father’s music, The Temptations especially, my son can appreciate De La Soul. At the same time he is shaping his taste, hearing the message. Check out “Pray for Haiti” by Mach Hommy. As a statement of disruption, as art, and as a way to offer my respect, I give my thanks and praise to the music and the culture.
As February just came to a close, and as we continue to celebrate Black history and mark 50 years since the birth of hip-hop, I would like to acknowledge and praise the music that has helped shape my life. Hip-hop is a method of antiracism, of identifying a struggle that white people cannot fully understand.
Just as the music continues to evolve, we need to continue to evolve, to grow, and to recognize that there is hope if we are committed to change.
I am a white man who has had all of the advantages of my whiteness and my gender. I am also a student of hip-hop music and lyrics, an avid antiracist educator, and an ally for the voices of marginalized people.
Go ahead and proudly crank Kendrick Lamar. Listen deep to the lyrics (parental guidance suggested). Check out Black Thought’s homage here. Black history is our history.
