Professor Maurice Johnson at Florida State University teaches his students about Black history, society, and culture through hip-hop. Through various forms of media, Johnson’s Hip Hop Culture and Global Mass Communication class explores social and political issues in the Black community. Examples include “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five or films like Boyz in the Hood.
Additionally, this course is based on his own HBCU experience at Florida A&M University. At the college radio station, The Flava Station, he was an MC, while his friends were DJs. After completing his graduate studies at FSU, he focused on Hip Hop culture in his Master’s Thesis, “A Historical Analysis: The Evolution of Commercial Rap Music.”
Maurice Returns To FAMU To Teach Hip Hop Culture
Professor Johnson returned to FAMU in 2011 to teach in their School of Journalism and Graphic Communication until 2021. He designed a course called Tupac Shakur: Popular Culture, Politics, and Social Justice for FAMU’s first-year experience program in 2021. The text for this course draws from the lyrics of Tupac Shakur.
Upon joining the faculty of Florida State University, he brought in Hip Hop culture to discuss mass communication theories. His approach received strong support. Further, Johnson felt a change when he went from teaching at an HBCU to an institution with mostly white students.
“Being in Florida and you have a governor that supports a bill that doesn’t allow educators to make white people feel uncomfortable, it empowers children and young adults to be less tolerant. I feel like the culture can be used as a connector provided it’s taught in the proper context. Everybody can’t teach about Hip Hop,” said Johnson.
According to Maurice, white people consume Black and Hip Hop culture but do not always cherish or value them. Therefore, students must understand that his class includes more than just listening to music. Instead, it involves understanding the socioeconomic and political issues discussed.
“If we’re talking about NWA addressing police brutality with ‘F*ck The Police’ and you have a family member that’s in law enforcement in the heroic image of police officers that you grew up with may not necessarily correlate with the information that I’m giving in class and there may be some backlash,” Johnson said. “But at the same time I have students who come up to me after class everyday or send me emails like ‘Man I appreciate this so much. I wouldn’t have known any of this if I hadn’t taken his class.’”
Hip-Hop As A Reflector Of The Issues Facing The Black Community
Since Hip Hop culture began in the Bronx Borough, Johnson explains how it reflects the reality and issues of the Black community. One example is the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. In some cases, these facts are used against the artist as evidence. For instance, Johnson stated that the shaming of Black men in the media is not a new phenomenon, referring to 2 Live Crew’s previous slander lawsuit.
“If you’re not culturally competent it’s easy to misconstrue what’s being said. If you’re a suburban white parent and you hear ‘thug life’ you’re going to think of a thug living a particular way of life. You’re not going to think about the acronym, The Hate U Give Little Infants F*cks Everyone,” said Johnson.
Moreover, Maurice shows films to his students to increase their awareness of issues such as racism. His class uses materials dating back to the production of Birth of a Nation in 1915. One semester, Johnson showed films from the Blaxploitation era, including Mandingo, which presents the first Black protagonists on screen. Later, he used movies from the “hood movie” era, like Menace II Society, to address Black issues in the 1990s.
Study Presentation
In time, he wishes to demonstrate that Hip Hop culture is important beyond the classroom. Currently, he is presenting a study entitled Beats, Rhymes, and Life: A Testimony of Hip-Hop as Collective Leadership in P-20 Schools at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in San Diego. Together with Dr. Asif Wilson from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Dr. Vanessa Ochoa from East Los Angeles College, Maurice will present research on how students interact with Hip Hop media in his First-Year Experience class at FAMU.
He is also pursuing a Ph.D. in educational leadership at FAMU College of Education. In his research, he explores how school leaders can engage students and boost academic performance using Hip Hop culture.
Written by Nikiya Biggs
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