New Mexico State University Alumni, community educators, and hip hoppers Lee Rhyanes and Justin De Senso, in collaboration with NMSU Humanities Librarian
Mardi Mahaffy, bring you a celebration of National Hip Hop History Month at NMSU’s Branson Library.
On November 7th, 2009, Rhyanes and De Senso will introduce the opening of the Hip Hop Stacks
book display at 2 pm in the Branson Library. In collaboration with Mardi Mahaffy, they will describe and discuss the history, importance, and relevance of Hip Hop Stacks,
a partnership between the NMSU Library and Hip Hop Alumni. The discussion will connect hip hop scholarship to the varied academic disciplines across
the University, ranging from Critical Race Theory to Musicology as well as its connection to the Las Cruces community. Rhyanes and De Senso will then
present selected texts from the Hip Hop Stacks. The books will demonstrate the importance of hip hop scholarship and provide information on the explosive
academic power that is hip hop studies.
At 4 pm, Rhyanes and De Senso will hold a free film screening of Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano at the CMI Theatre in NMSU's Milton Hall.
Hip hop has no doubt been a trendy, fashionable topic for reality television shows, Hollywood films, talk shows, and community round tables. At
the same time, however, hip hop has fueled several master’s and doctoral theses, documentary films, ethnographic studies, community programs, fiction
and non-fiction books, chap books, and acclaimed television series. From Adam Mansbach’s Angry Black White Boy, Byron Hurt’s Beyond Beats and Rhymes,
Jay Z's Blueprint 3, Voices' full length debut album Gumbo, and Akbar's Big Bang Boogie to The Wire, The Chapelle Show, and
The Boondocks, hip hop studies is forever eager to analyze the offerings of hip hop cultural production across genres and tastes.
But, as KRS-One reminds us, don’t get it twisted. Hip hop scholarship is serious business. Just pick up That’s the Joint! or the foundational
Black Noise, and one will soon realize the complexities involved in studying, dissecting, and interpreting hip hop in the academy.
Spawned from a 1970s South Bronx in disrepair, hip hop has become the most dominant global culture of the 21st Century. Rearticulated and glocalized
by millions across the globe, hip hop continually finds itself as the center of cultural production—whether it be through dance, music, scholarship,
fashion, novels, poetry, films, or performance. Since then, hip hop has also found itself in several university course listings and campus programs
across the country including the Cornell University Hip Hop Collection, McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, the Hip Hop Archive at Harvard and
Stanford University, and course studies at Bucknell University, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown, North Carolina Central, Princeton,and Purdue.
Above all else, the NMSU Library and Hip Hop Alumni Partnership aspires to promote
the interdisciplinary field and culture of hip hop as it continues to be implemented in classrooms across academic levels and community spaces worldwide.
So please join us on November 7th, 2009 at the Branon Library at 2 pm followed by the 4 pm screening of Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano at the CMI Theatre,
Milton Hall in Las Cruces, New Mexico State University.
In 2006, I signed up for a Jazz Lyric course with Dr. K.West one year into the Master of Fine Arts program at New Mexico State University. A
class of about 12 students in the Clara Belle Williams Hall, one of our first activities was to introduce a fellow classmate that we didn't know very well for
an accentual verse assignment. Dr. K.West arranged the groups that first week in September and I was assigned to introduce a hilarious, charasmatic character
by the name of Justin De Senso who had just touched down in Las Cruces from out East after a brief stay in Arizona's academia. This was prior to dropping by
Henry Helmet's crib to break down the 06' semester in December. Prior to meeting up with Phil Da Poet, DJ SA, Mz. Franco, Chris & Jus for the free Talib Kweli show
at the Pan-Am. Prior to co-hosting The Representation Show on KRUX 91.5 fm. Prior to buildin' with Phil Da Poet aka Pidi Pecan (B.Fire), Chris (B.Thunder), Gorillasis
(B.Darkness), Jus (B.Gravity) and me (B.Chess) on the beginnings of soulVerse. Prior to covering the campus walls in 07' past midnight in the late January cold to promote the first Open Room
event. Prior to the limonada no straw threats and chicken strip plates at Dennys as served after hours by Big C. Prior to the thunder storm blackout at High Desert. Prior
to checks, stale mates and check mates. Prior to Jus passin' Phil Da Poet a microphone, me bringing the volume levels down on WAR's "The World is a Ghetto" LP and
Phil getting over a hundred people in room to say "Hoot and Holla" (repeatedly). Prior to Tekken characters like Law, King, Eddy Gordo, Bryan Fury, Yoshimitsu and
Chris' random select. Prior to sniper rifles and Halo.
Prior to Phil and Jus introducing me in front of a crowd of family,
friends and colleagues for the poetry reading that would complete my Tape Decks thesis and time spent at NMSU as a graduate student. A favor I'm forever grateful for. Thank you brothers.
In closing I wanted to share with you the introduction I wrote up for Justin De Senso during that assignment in Dr. K.West class (2006)
which without us knowing at the time would build into all the priors I just mentioned.
My name is Lecroy Rhyanes, poet with the MFA program and I'm here to introduce Justin De Senso, originally from Long Island, NY, who is now here with us in New Mexico, as part of the MA Lit program. Upon being inspired by his mentor at Penn State where he acquired his bachelors in English, Justin has set out to work on putting together a text on Hip Hop MC/rapper/poet/activist/actor, the late Tupac Shakur, to be implemented as a close reading study throughout high schools and early college level courses. He currently teaches English at the Dona Ana Branch Community College and has his goals set on completing a doctorate degree in the near future at another distant location in the country. It is my honor at presenting an individual who like myself recognizes the power that exist through the culture medium of Hip Hop and its potential as an educational resource for both the young and experienced in our respective communities.
