LAWRENCE — It was 50 years in the past this summer time that DJ Kool Herc used two turntables to entertain family and friends at a Bronx neighborhood get together, thus kicking off hip-hop’s gradual rise towards being a pillar of popular culture. However this musical type and tradition additionally started instantly influencing the musical theatre scene.
“After we consider theatre as a automobile to speak in regards to the human situation, hip-hop is part of that story,” stated Nicole Hodges Persley, a professor of American research and African & African-American research on the College of Kansas.
Her new ebook titled “Hip Hop in Musical Theatre” provides a historic have a look at the motion’s impact on appearing, dancing, singing, design and, after all, music. It’s a part of the “Subjects in Musical Theatre” collection printed by Methuen Drama/Bloomsbury.
“The impetus for this ebook is to say, ‘Let’s return even additional to among the early musicals and see when hip-hop is rising within the American soundscape,” she stated. “We begin to see it influence artists, choreographers, musicians and writers in methods the place they wish to convey these strands into their work.”
Additionally vice provost for variety, fairness, inclusion & belonging at KU, Hodges Persley is one in every of a small group of students within the U.S. who focuses on hip-hop’s musical and cultural affect in theatre.
“Whereas trying on the 50-year historical past of hip-hop, it’s attention-grabbing to see it not solely impacting music and society writ massive in our nation, however globally. That is an artwork type that has been tailored and translated throughout cultures all over the world – and it began proper right here in the USA. Like blues and jazz, hip-hop is a part of that continuum.”
Her ebook chronologically traces musicals from the Seventies resembling “The Wiz” (proper as hip-hop music and tradition had been rising in underground New York) to lesser-known up to date examples resembling “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” Broadway vacationer reveals “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical” and acclaimed worldwide hit “Hamilton.” With every entry, she makes an attempt to “decode the sights and sounds of hip-hop tradition” inside the sociological context wherein these musicals had been produced.
“Many individuals assume ‘Hamilton’ was the primary time we noticed a hip-hop connection in theatre, however there have been different artists who needed to convey this groundbreaking music and tradition to their artistry and use it as texture of their work,” she stated. “Typically they used it efficiently, typically in a commodified approach. So if you happen to have a look at ‘Starlight Specific,’ with people awkwardly rapping and curler skating, it’s like, ‘What is going on proper now?’ and ‘Why is that this occurring?’”
Regardless of acknowledging some criticisms about “Hamilton,” she stated it stays “essentially the most well-known hip-hop theatre musical ever.”
She added, “Lin-Manuel Miranda’s success in bringing visibility to the influence of hip-hop — and Black and Latinx music typically — on the American theatre is fairly substantial.”
Along with her evaluation, Hodges Persley offered a Spotify playlist for every part she discusses. She stated she supposed for the reader to understand the aural panorama current in fashionable tradition on the historic second these musicals had been being created.
As for her personal breakthrough hip-hop second, Hodges Persley stated it was within the late Seventies when she heard among the style’s early pioneers.
“The Sugarhill Gang was in all probability the primary document I used to be launched to by my brother. We had been simply mesmerized by the storytelling, and we needed to memorize it. It was humorous and really theatrical. There’s storytelling in it. There are sketches of the best way folks work together and a variety of issues we witness in Black life,” she stated.
A Detroit native, Hodges Persley got here to KU in 2009, the place she honed her experience in African American theatre and hip-hop efficiency. Her latest publications embody “Breaking It Down: Audition Techniques for Actors of the Global Majority” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), “Sampling and Remixing Blackness in Hip-Hop Theater and Performance” (College of Michigan Press, 2021) and “Black Matters: Lewis Morrow Plays” (Methuen Drama/Bloomsbury, 2022).
Finally, Hodges Persley hopes “Hip Hop in Musical Theatre” serves as a reminder that creative limitations of accessibility could be lifted by even a seemingly small occasion … like an unknown DJ at a home get together.
“This can be a name to motion for us to open up entry to the American theatre. We don’t want to attend any longer for an additional ‘Hamilton’ to floor. I’m glad it’s made historical past. However we must always ask what has it opened for not solely long-serving artists who nonetheless haven’t damaged by way of on this house however rising artists who’re simply beginning their careers?” she stated.
“If we don’t run to actually help artists of colour within the American theatre, we’re going to be extinct. And that could be a tragedy after we take into consideration the wonderful influence artists of colour have needed to form this establishment. I would like this ebook to assist convey consciousness that world majority artists are right here, and we influence all points of the American theatre panorama.”
Prime picture: iStock
