913851333
11 April 2017
The readings from Tiongson Jr.’s book
communicate how the Filipino culture authentically incorporates an element that
derives from a completely separate culture. Rather than recognizing their
parent’s cultural identities as their own, the younger generation of Filipinos
appears to culturally identify with the originally African American cultural
component of hip-hop. This movement of culture throughout time and people
highlights the fluidity and changing nature of culture; because human activity
and beliefs create it, culture can never be standardized against the passing of
time. Therefore, the cultural legitimacy of hip-hop for the Filipinos
exemplifies culture as a negotiation between existing tradition and
contemporary practices. Interestingly, the readings explore how hip-hop may be
a worldwide movement that organically grows out of the need to express and
voice something. Instead of basing cultural categorizations in ethnicity, this
concept describes culture through human behavior, or the natural tendencies of
humans to behave in certain, shared ways. However, the readings also address
how people seem to naturally “racialize” cultural practices, making it
difficult for many to understand DJing or hip-hop culture as anything other
than “African American things.” People like Q-Bert who attempt to remove
themselves from these racial categorizations of society may be disregarding or rejecting
the history behind culture. Although complex, it seems there exists a constant conflict
of negotiation between the authentic history behind a cultural identity and its
organic incorporation in other cultural groups.
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