Journal Entry: "Filipinos Represent"

"Filipinos Represent: DJing as a Filipino Thing"

It was interesting to read about a different perspective of hip-hop and its role in the Filipino culture. The author claims that the Filipino DJs establish cultural legitimacy and belongingness in terms other than proximity to blackness (p.49). Cultural legitimacy is portrayed through authenticating strategies that are based on lived experiences of the DJs. I always viewed and associated hip-hop with African Americans as it originally originated in the African American culture and community. Though culture is always constantly changing, and I know the hip-hop industry is more and more diverse, I still had the idea of “blackness” associated with hip-hop. The author makes another interesting point when he explains that culture as a source of identity is not a matter of heritage passed on from one generation to the next but it is negotiated on a daily basis (p. 52). This reminded me that though certain parts of culture is passed down from generations such as traditional routines, culture can also be very different. Culture is a flexible and open-ended process. Even though Filipino youth today consider hip-hop as an expressive form of their culture and experiences that is significantly different than their parents’ cultures, they do not consider it any less “authentically Filipino”. The emotional attachment and investment to hip-hop only legitimizes the fact that it is part of their culture. It also reminds me that hip-hop is not a racial thing. Rather it is a people thing and a “worldwide thing” (p. 54). Cultural legitimacy is demonstrated again by hip-hop’s transcendent appeal even though it has a black antecedent. I thought this was very interesting and taught me that no one group owns hip-hop, and that racial ideas should be eliminated.   There is an idea of togetherness in the hip-hop industry. Different individuals are able to express their own self using their own lived experiences.