Translator: Riaki Poništ Reviewer: Mile Živković
Why is hip-hop
not part of the national curriculum for performing arts?
We'll get into that in a minute,
but first, I just want to do a quick sound check, alright?
Audience: Yeah!
Jonzi D: So all the people on the left if you come correct, say yeeeeah!
Audience: Yeeeeah!
Jonzi: And all the people on the right if you want to unite,
say yeah, yeah, yeah!
Audience: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Jonzi: And all the people in the back if you know you're not wack, say ah yeah!
Audience: Ah yeah!
Jonzi: And all the people in the front if you got the funk,
say yeah, yeah, yeah!
Audience: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Jonzi: Say yeah, yeah, yeah!
Audience: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Jonzi: Somebody, everybody, somebody scream!
(Screams)
(Laughter)
This was an example of emceeing.
(Laughter)
Moving the crowd. Mastering the ceremony.
Public speaking.
A craft shared by everybody who steps up on this stage at TEDx today.
But the thing is, I studied my craft via hip-hop.
Oh, and don't get me wrong.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in the golden age of hip-hop
before the corporate started to steer rap music
into this "gangsta, pimp, ho fantasy" that we're seeing today.
(Laughter)
No?
Let's take it back to the old school, yeah?
1973, former gang warlord Afrika Bambaataa,
he established hip-hop culture
as being underpinned by peace, love, unity, and having fun.
And the four elements, the artistic pillars of the culture, yeah?
DJing;
(Scratch)
Dancing, b-boying.
Graffiti art.
(Hissing)
And the MC.
All of this was about conflict resolution.
It was an alternative to the gang violence that was eating up the community
at the time.
So, for me, growing up as a young guy in Bow, East London, into hip-hop,
I looked at these devices as theatrical.
It was just obvious for me.
Let me give you an example.
So, I don't know if we've all done creative movement classes in school,
and at some point, your teacher would say to you:
"Could you be a tree?"
(Laughter)
And most of us would go ...
(Laughter)
Just gently blowing in the wind, you know ...
(Laughter)
But my tree was this.
(Laughter)
Because, for me, trees were sprawling and angular.
And I felt that body popping was the best technique for me to describe this image.
So, I ended up going to study dance in school,
but unfortunately, they only really had on offer
ballet, contemporary, and jazz, yeah?
Now, that was cool; don't get me wrong.
I really enjoyed it. It was very cool.
But having to get used to wearing tights and lycra,
it was really hard - you know,
I like my clothes baggy, do you know what I'm saying?
So, already there were some ideas that wasn't really connecting with me.
But anyway, I remember, in dance theory class,
I was like, "Miss, are we going to study hip-hop?"
She said, "Well, this course is designed to prepare you dancers
for your jobs in the marketplace, so, no."
(Laughter)
I took that, at the time, as saying hip-hop was not valuable for the theatre.
But why not?
I mean, look at Slick Rick and his deep, intricate narrative.
And look at the social commentary of people like Chuck D and KRS One.
And look at the huge virtuoso movement of the Rock Steady Crew.
And the mimetic intricacies of Popin' Pete.
Surely, this would be amazing, right?
But no, the aesthetic was not respected.
But why? I didn't get it.
I completely was confused at the time
that this creative joy was not being used in a theatrical practice.
So, is it because -
the actual social context of the art form,
does that define its right to be within the proscenium arch?
Is hip-hop not quite high art enough?
Why is it that Shakespeare and classical ballet,
these are the core forms
from which then you can learn anything you want about theatre?
I don't know.
I ended up leaving the London Contemporary Dance School
with my body, this hip-hop body,
colonised.
(Laughter)
Well, I also left with a load of really exciting theatrical tools
I could then start exploring with hip-hop.
For example, I remember I was watching a Busta Rhymes video,
and I turned the volume down, and I just saw loads of choreography.
So check this out.
Silence
Cuz' I patrol a scroll like a copper
Clock in, hot cores in a helicopter
You think he dropped her
Ill skill?
Go see the doctor
Cuz' my diction, friction fix them with no prescription
Administer sinister serums to silence all your bitchin'
(Applause)
So, basically, I had a spare verse lying around,
and I graphically Illustrated each line of rap with a movement,
then I just took the rap away,
and I was left with movement material
that I could deconstruct and do all types of things:
reverse it, forward it.
It was really, really exciting.
So, as a result of that,
I created a show called "Lyrical Theatre" in 1995,
which was made up of loads of little vignettes, should we say.
We explored stuff like gang violence,
police brutality, social displacement,
with a group of really broad-minded poppers and lockers and b-boys,
who was down.
I tagged it as a tag line: "Hip-hop Theatre"
mainly because I wanted to attract the hip-hop audience,
who could basically give me some kind of validation,
which is what I needed at the time.
So, after that first show in London, basically completely sold out,
and I had this brand-new hip-hop audience that I'd never seen before,
so I think, it worked.
(Music)
(Music Ends)
So, 20 years on, I am now artistic director of Breakin Convention,
the international festival of hip-hop dance theatre.
We're based at Sadler's Wells in London,
one of the biggest high art venues in the world.
And for the last 12 years, we've done, like, five UK tours,
and we featured over 5,000 dancers
from over 20 countries around the world and around the corner.
And last year we were really lucky enough to go to our first international day,
which was the Harlem Apollo,
literally a stone's throw away from where hip-hop culture began.
I was just so, so excited, man.
But unfortunately, it was so good it raised loads of questions.
For example, you know, this was always intended to be a platform
by which the hip-hop community could be valued,
to create an industry that we can play by our own creative rules
and perform to an audience that understands the language.
Also, to be an alternative to all of the negative imagery
that we see in the media about hip-hop today.
I mean, really, hip-hop could be an institution.
Uggh.
(Laughter)
In 2011
I was awarded an MBE for my services to dance.
(Cheers) (Applause)
Problem is, the political activist in me would not accept it.
(Laughter) (Applause)
But I wondered, you know,
for all of the recognition I've been fighting for for all my career,
this symbolized acceptance, and I rejected it.
So, I wrote a hip-hop theatre piece about it.
I wrote a piece called "The Letter,"
and it features six characters
that were all speaking to me about my decision.
So, I'm going to do one of the characters.
Do you mind if I do one of the characters for you right now?
His name's Nigel, the mechanic.
So what, Jonzi. Are you going to take it?
Okay, so you're going to take it, innit?
It's simple question, brudda. Are you going to take it?
Right.
Because that's a disrespect, my brudda.
Member of the British Empire?!
What kind of membership?
It's like they can't remember shit
like rape, pillage, dismembered kids, some horrendous shit.
And if you accepted it, wouldn't you accept their shit?
You know what?
Give me a VBE!
Victim of the British Empire!
(Laughter)
"The ultimate measure of a man
is not where he stands at times of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
Blop! Martin Luther King Jr.
About ... about.
Hear what now, brudda. Do they pay you?
No? Liberties!
So they brand your achievement with a badge of allegiance
to an Empire that's thieving like a pack of demons
Colonialism is in fact bereavement
where they embedded an axe into our mental being
Left us blacks believing us blacks are heathens
They gave us the Bible then took our land like we're even
So the missionary position left us actually bleeding
I'll tell them to take it back with a whole stack of reasons
To accept it would be an act of treason
"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything!"
Blop! Malcolm X Remember the lesson
And there's nuff to stand up for
You've seen that shit on telly
Our government's foreign policy The WikiLeaks conspiracy
The murder of innocents in police custody Like smiley culture, Mark Duggan
I could go on and on and on but I will stop at John Terry
(Cheers) (Applause)
So,
is hip-hop or can hip-hop be an institution?
Well, considering all of the advancements
that it's done in culture over the last 40 years,
it probably already is.
Thank you very much, guys.
(Cheers) (Applause)