4:04 p.m., Oct. 16, 2009----Whether it was talking about Newtonian physics, how Napoleon was the first great graffiti artist or President Ronald Regan's skills as a DJ, emcee and producer KRS-One left no stone unturned as he addressed a packed house at Mitchell Hall about the “Fundamentals of Hip-Hop” on Wednesday night.

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Before delving into the specifics of his lecture, KRS-One, the stage name of Lawrence Krishna Parker, proclaimed that “this is a historical night, and here's why: What we are discussing, the fundamentals of hip-hop, is not really discussed in the university environment, the collegiate environment, the academic environment.”

KRS-One conceded that there are hundreds of colleges that teach hip-hop courses, but that they tend to get it wrong -- not wrong as in inaccurate, but wrong in the sense of “immature to mature.”

The main way that these courses, and many history of hip-hop books get it wrong, according to KRS-One, is that they try to document hip-hop from a historical, physical perspective when hip-hop is not a physical thing.

Rather, he said, hip-hop is a metaphysical principle, “an energy, a consciousness, it is an awareness, it is a behavior, it is an attitude, that's what hip-hop is. The attitude, the behavior, the collective consciousness produces rap, break dancing, graffiti art, DJ-ing and everything else that comes out of the culture.”

KRS-One went on to proclaim that because hip-hop is not a physical thing, “you cannot document it according to traditional historical methodology,” the main reason for this being that “when history is looked at physically, I'm trapped in my color, my ethnicity, my race. But when history is looked at as first causes, origins, not history yet, when you look at the origin of something, you step out of physical time and space, and you adopt ideas, not physical matter.”

This led into what KRS-One stressed as one of the original and most important effects of hip-hop -- it changed the perception of its people. When two friends are poor and are standing on the corner acknowledging that they are poor, they are always going to be poor. But, as KRS-One explained, when two poor people are standing on the corner and one of them starts rapping and proclaiming that he is the greatest rapper alive, and both he and his friend start to really believe it, then they actually become it.

“When you step into that personality, that personality has powers that come with it. Your psychology, your perception creates the environment you see. If you say 'I am Mark and Mark's reality is what Mark's reality is,' then that's what you'll stay in. If you say, 'I am the M-Ark' then M-Ark has its own reality. If you call yourself something, you will change your perception of the environment you are in.”

KRS-One then discussed how it is important in hip-hop to compliment a friend, to be positive about his rhyming skills and to “big him up” as the greatest rapper alive in order to change the perception of him and get him noticed. “Russell Simmons did it with LL Cool J, Puffy did it with Biggie, Eminem did it with Fifty, Dre did it with Eminem,” he said. “If you keep complimenting your friends, you get rich.”

KRS-One also explained how hip-hop gave value to a lot of things seen as worthless simply by changing the perception of those items, be they the rappers themselves or physical products like Timberland boots or bandanas.
“Back in the Eighties, you could get Timberland's for like $30. This is a construction boot, the Timberland boot. Hip-hoppers took it, used the perceptual ability of hip-hop, and said 'I like that shoe' and this ain't worth $30, it's worth $150. This is what hip-hop is about. They give you lemons, you make lemonade.”

The event was sponsored by the University of Delaware's Cultural Programming Advisory Board.

Article by Adam Thomas
Photos by Evan Krape