Hipterism In Harlem

Introduction Contrary to common opinion, hip-hop is a holistic culture and does not refer to rap music alone. According to Ahmed (n.d), hip-hop is the overlying culture from which rap music has its roots. By definition, hip-hop as a culture includes other creative elements and cultural nuances such as breakdancing, turntablism/deejaying, beatboxing, and graffiti (Ahmed, n.d). Initially considered a fad encapsulating the playful tendencies of urban African American teens, hip-hop has evolved into a permanent fixture in America’s entertainment landscape.

Allen Ginsberg was a common author during the postmodern era and was considered the most famous living American poet in the 1980’s. He was born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Paterson. His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a teacher and poet. Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi Levy Ginsberg, suffered most of her life from recurrent epileptic seizures and paranoia. Some of Ginsberg’s famous work includes “Howl,” which was the significant start off to his career, and “Kaddish” which is written based on the life and death of his mother as she spent most of her adult life with a mental illness.

The hippie movement is arguably one of the most famous culture movements from the twentieth century, made widely famous in pop-culture involving romanticized images of overly friendly people clothed in bell-bottom pants and flower-print button down shirts. The romanticization of this movement allowed for a widely accepted and skewed view of the true events that happened during this time. The reality is much darker than publicized to the ignorant generations that followed. It can be maintained by many that personal experience and firsthand knowledge provides the most accurate depiction of the true happenings of the time period. Through vivid imagery and impersonal diction, Joan Didion offers a critical unveiling the mayhem that she witnessed during her various firsthand immersions in the developing culture of the 1960s.

"Howl" is without doubt Ginsberg’s best poem, and it is “associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation”(Savage, B.). “Howl” was published in 1956, in “Howl and Other Poetry”, and it instantly became famous. All copies were seized by the authorities, since the book was considered as offensive, especially because of this particular line: “who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy”. Fortunately, a year later, a court ruled in favor of the author, and Ferlinghetti, publisher of Ginsberg’s book, who was charged and arrested, noted that: “it is not the poet but what he observes which is revealed as offensive”(ACLU). Allen Ginsberg was raised by his mentally sick mother, who took him to the gatherings of radical left party.

Hip Hop was the wildfire that started in the South Bronx and whose flames leapt up around the world crying out for change. James McBride’s Hip Hop Planet focuses on his personal interactions with the development of Hip Hop culture and his changing interpretations of the world wide movement. Many of his encounters and mentions in the text concern young black males and his writing follows an evolution in the representation of this specific social group. He initially portrays them as arrogant, poor, and uneducated but eventually develops their image to include the positive effects of their culture in an attempt to negate their historical misrepresentation.

Poet Allen Ginsburg was born in New Jersey to an English teacher. This fact likely influenced him as did Walt Whitman, jazz music and drugs. Ginsburg attended college at Columbia University. Here he created a team of writers that later contributed to the beat movement. This movement was characterized by freedom and breaking away from mainstream life, influences include: drugs, jazz, sexuality and eastern religion.

Many African American artists who accepted support from white patrons often found themselves in an obviously dependent position. However, the motivation of these patrons ranged anywhere from genuine interest of the movement and friendship to more of a social controlled situation. Patrons, also known as Negrotarians, became the primary financial and aesthetic maintainers of the literary and art movement which lead to a cultural exchange between the two races. However, financial arrangements often lead to resentment among black intellectuals. On one hand, financial patronage served to maintain the Harlem Renaissance, but by that same notion, provided access for whites into black culture.

During the Roaring Twenties and before The Great Depression, the span between 1918 to 1929 created a new artistic explosion of African-American Arts. This explosion was called The Harlem Renaissance due to the fact that it was took place in Harlem, New York. It can be also known as the New Negro Movement named after an excerpt by Alain Locke. Not only did this movement influence the arts, but also the expression of cultural and social experiences. “In a few short years it created a flowering of black talent that has left an ineradicable cultural legacy.”

If swing and bebop were movie characters, swing would be the energetic, organized sibling who gets voted for prom queen, while bebop would be the defiant younger sibling who hangs out with the wrong crowd after school. Swing became so formulaic and predictable that artists needed a new creative outlet for their emotions. This is how bebop emerged, as a criticism and rebellion “against the populist trappings of swing music” (Gioia, 187). In the 1940’s bebop matured as a style in New York City, where influential artists such as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis mastered their craft while playing at locations such as Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, 52nd Street, and San Juan Hill. New York City became a hub for African-American artistic culture starting back in the 20’s with the Harlem Renaissance.

Allen Ginsberg’s, Howl, is a cry of sheer animalistic pain written from the 1950s beat generation. The poem written by Ginsberg revolutionised what was considered true contemporary literature by challenging the basis of what gave work literary merit. Howl muses on the counterculture that was swirling around Ginsberg in San Francisco following the Second World War — a culture built on sex, drugs and Jazz. Much like his fellow writer Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg manipulated his form and structure to enhance the rebellious lifestyle he observes. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl utilises spontaneous, Jazz-like structure in conjunction with religious symbolism to support the rebellious culture about which he writes.

Most Americans considered the Beat generation to be nonconformist due to their art, literature, lifestyles, and beliefs that placed them at the margins of social norms. The Beat Movement’s rejection of traditional values and acceptance of homosexuality, drug use, feminism, environmentalism, and new religions put these members outside of the mainstream of society. Although they comprised a minute part of the population, hippies represented the essence of the counter culture, and were regarded as nonconformists for the way in which they cast off typical middle class standards. Hippies pursued free love, used drugs like marijuana and LSD, wore colorful clothing and unkempt hair styles, often did not have jobs, and lacked a structured life,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born in 1926 to a Jewish family that lived in New Jersey (“Allen Ginsberg”). He was “the second son of Louis Ginsberg, a lyric poet and teacher, and Naomi Levy Ginsberg, a teacher and political activist” (Lewis 1). His first published work came early in life to his school magazine, The Spectator. After graduation in 1943, he became a student at Columbia University in New York. He had every intention of becoming “a pre-law student, hoping to pursue a career in labor law” his classmates that “he studied with… were partially responsible for shifting his focus toward literature” (“Allen Ginsberg”).

I do believe that Ginsberg’s poem, “Howl” suggests that the repressive atmosphere of the 1950s drove homosexuals and others who had to hide their true identities insane. The poem starts by saying “I saw the best minds of by generation destroyed by madness” (line 1) and continues on by diving into details describing those people and how their minds were destroyed. The repressive atmosphere of the 1950s is strongly shown throughout the poem when several people are described changing or hiding what they are for one reason or another. For example, line 40 discusses boys who “…lost their loveboys…” to the “…one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar…”.

Literature is an interesting way of viewing American society. After WWII the new American Poetry emerged, and one of the poetic movements was the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation, of which Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso were prominent members, was a group of students from Colombia University in New York City. They rejected materialism, followed Eastern spirituality like Buddhism, they were often homosexual so they stood for alternative forms of sexuality, and freedom from societal constraints. These poets went against mainstream culture, their drive was counterculture, and they believed that if there is conformity people have to be against it.

In many aspects, the era from 1940 to 1960 were the United States' golden age, and the American dream pictured at this time is still very present in the way we see America today. It is also a time were young people, as embodied by James Dean in Rebel without a cause, are lost, a bit rebellious, and looking for a meaning to life. In literature, this mindset is at the core of the Beat Generation. As a response to the expanding consuming society of the time and its materialism, the authors of, lead by Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs or Jack Kerouac reject the traditional way of writing and their narative, and instead portray the raw reality of humanity, explore America and look for a spiritual answer to life.