Celebrating MLK Day

Our very own Beneficial and the Spiritual Dimensions Choir in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Every Goal Requires Sacrifice

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Happy MLK Day

Local Hip Hop School Keeps Kids Doing Something Positive

Need more local schools like these.  San Jose hip hop talent school teaches music, dance, and the values that come with it.  Keeping kids focused on something positive and away from negative distractions that streets and peers can bring.  Really cool.

Article here:
Hip Hop Talent Studio Has A Social Mission

Hip-Hop Establishes Its Place in Higher Education

Hip-hop has held a place on many college students' mp3 players for years. However, this music genre has also become part of academia, influencing the way degree seekers learn as well as how professors teach.

During the fall 2011 semester, hip-hop made higher education news when Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University, offered students a class on Jay-Zand his career, Fox News reports. The course, which was titled Sociology of Hip-Hop: Jay-Z, aimed to use the celebrity to teach students about topics such as gender identity, capitalism and economic inequality.

Calling Hip-hop continues to establish itself as an important part of higher education. Jay-Z "an icon of American excellence," Dyson told Fox that the hip-hop star is an example of business acumen, as he is a clothing entrepreneur as well as the owner of the NBA's New Jersey Nets. Additionally, he feels Jay-Z's lyrics offer students a unique look into contemporary African American culture.

Still, this is not Dyson's first time integrating hip-hop culture into his classes. The professor told Fox that when he worked at the University of Pennsylvania, he taught a class on deceased rapper Tupac Shakur. However, even this course was not a first for hip-hop in academia, as the University of California at Berkeley gave student instructor Arvand Elihu permission to teach a course on the controversial rapper in 1997, according to VH1.

While many classes focusing on hip-hop have sprung up over the years, some academic leaders feel that the genre's influence has an even wider hold on academia. Emery Petchauer, an assistant professor at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, explains this theory in his new book, Hip-Hop Culture in College Students' Lives, according toInside Higher Ed.

The book describes what Petchauer calls the "hip-hop collegian," or college students who express themselves through the genre and apply this worldview to their academic lives. Petchauer argues that the verbal, kinetic, technical and electronic skills students learn by writing and producing hip-hop can be very useful in the classroom. For example, degree seekers who emcee or rap can develop shorthand, memorization and persuasive speaking skills, which Petchauer said can "transfer over nicely to the classroom and actually support learning."

In this way, the assistant professor believes colleges should work to understand hip-hop culture. Doing so will ensure that schools are using the best techniques possible to engage students.

"Colleges that don’t understand their students don’t serve them well," Petchauer toldInside Higher Ed. "If hip-hop is the most important cultural phenomenon in the lifetime of current students, which it is, then no institution can reasonably think it understands its students if it hasn’t engaged with hip-hop in some way."

Original Article: http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/articles/hip-hop-establishes-its-place-in-higher-education_12045.aspx

By Catherine Groux

From the Reef

Hip Hop Beats by Reef Studios

  


If you interested in collaboration or any of these beats for purchase or lease please contact us now.

Apps To Come For Spotify

-post via Steven Musil of CNet

Spotify may announce tomorrow the addition of an open app platform to its popular music service.
The "app finder" may include the ability to read reviews of the music as they listen to songs, people "in the music business" tell the Wall Street Journal. One app will reportedly display lyrics to the songs playing, while another will list upcoming concerts of artists in a user's play list and link to ticket sales sites.

The apps are expected to be free and available to users of both the free and premium versions of the service, the Journal reported. Wired reported in October that the Stockholm-based service would unveil a commercial API (application programming interface) that would allow third-party developers to build apps on top of Spotify's song catalog.

The announcement could come tomorrow during a press conference that Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify, has called for 9 a.m. PT. Speculation has suggested Spotify would unveil an online-video service or a download music store in the United States.

Spotify, the largest paid music subscription service with 2.5 million paying customers worldwide, has been looking for ways to stave off free music streaming sites such as MOG and Rdio. The company recently announced it was partnering with Facebook to integrate their services in an effort to get users to listen to a wider selection of music.

Take The Shot

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. - Wayne Gretzky

Leroy Nieman Olympic Basketball Painting