This week on Chronversations: Columbia’s Hip-Hop Club introduces “The Bridge” a week-long celebration exploring Chicago’s dynamic hip-hop scene by connecting students and local talent and building bridges through beats in a week full of featured interactive events. 

TRANSCRIPT:

 0:08: Welcome to Chronicle Chronversations. 

 0:11: I’m your guest host, Greer Stewart. 

 0:15: Hip-hop, formerly known as disco rap is more than just a genre by incorporating elements such as visual art, DJing, MCing and breaking hip hop has evolved into a subculture and art movement influencing many generations. 

 0:31: Columbia’s Hip-Hop Club is celebrating the scene by combining elements of student work and connections through Chicago’s hip-hop community. 

 0:42: This is The Bridge. 

 0:47: Here we go. 

 0:48: This is a journey into sound. 

 1:07: What does hip-hop mean to you? 

 1:09: I would say definitely community. 

 1:11: That’s the center of it all. 

 1:13: It brings people not only together, but it brings people together in a way where they don’t see themselves as just like one person, they see themselves as like it’s very like togetherness in a word. 

 1:27: But hip-hop has always been a conversation starter for me. 

 1:30: I think hip-hop is a part of Black American culture. 

 1:34: To me personally, I think that it helps us get—helps me get through a lot of trials and tribulations of life. 

 1:40: I feel like I can find a song or artist to match any type of point in time or any type of emotion that I might be going through. 

 1:48: It just helps me more relate on the human aspect. 

 1:52: So I grew up playing the drums and then hip-hop for me, like as far as getting into it, I was always inspired by all types of music, but I could never sing. 

 2:04: So I always like poetry because I have really bad ADHD and it just hit me hard with my grandmother’s an English teacher and she used to read me poetry and I just learned, I definitely could process poetry better than regular literature. 

 2:22: So I started trying to get into hip-hop. 

 2:25: What was the album that really got you into hip-hop? 

 2:28: I would say the first album that got me really enjoying hip-hop,

 2:33: my mom grew up in LA, 

 2:36: I’m from Kansas City,

 2:37: my dad’s side of the family though is from Chicago, and The Chronic, I’d say The Chronic, Dr Dre’s The Chronic and N.W.A.s as well. 

 2:47: Like, that’s just a generational change to hip-hop music. 

 2:52: Also, my cousin who passed away, he got me really into what I still like the most proudly today that really impacted my actual, like, hip-hop, like, artistry was just nineties East Coast hip-hop, like the grimy stuff. 

 3:08: Wu-Tang [Clan], Nas, Mobb Deep. 

 3:10: I remember the first like album that—two of the albums that I can like rap from the beginning to the end. 

 3:18: And because my mom would just play all the time. 

 3:20: Reasonable Doubt by Jay-Z. 

 3:22: That was like, I could rap all the songs of that album. 

 3:26: That’s one of like the first hip-hop albums that like stood out to me still this day and I go back to it just, just talk about the grittiness of hip-hop, but also that, that humbleness too as well, that hunger, that drive, that lifestyle, that I want to live, that luxury lifestyle. 

 3:44: You know. 

 3:44: So it just, it paints a picture for you. 

 3:52: The building bridges through Beat Series will continue throughout the week wrapping up on Friday, December 13 with the Summit Hip-hop Jam, a public event, combining music performances, live art and networking opportunities to offer space and support for local artists. 

 4:08: I’m Greer Stewart. 

 4:09: Thanks for listening to Chronicle Chronversations. 

Copy edited  by Doreen Abril Albuerne Rodriguez