N.W.A. (Nilgiri's With Altitude)

Hip-hop is everywhere. From its humble beginnings on the streets of South Bronx to its explosion to every corner of the modern world, hip-hop has evolved from an underground counterculture into a worldwide phenomenon. Despite its global reach, hip-hop owes much of its commercial “success” to the emergence of gangsta (or reality) rap in the late 1980s. Through this medium, misunderstood and marginalized black youth narrate(d) the harsh realities of being black in America. Artists and groups such as Ice-T, Public Enemy, and N.W.A. used music as a revolutionary cultural resource to resist unjust social norms, viz., racial profiling and police brutality. N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes), despite their controversial lyrics, provided critical social commentary and pioneered the sub genre, gangsta rap, from the block to blockbuster.

N.W.A. (from left to right): Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, & MC Ren

After four days in Mumbai, I flew to Coimbatore en route to Coonoor. Coonoor, resting over 6,000 ft. above sea level, is located in the Nilgiris hills of Tamil Nadu. Unlike Mumbai, Coonoor’s temperature is pleasantly mild. The change of pace was welcomed after four days of sweltering heat (avg. 110° F), severe jet lag (9.5 hr time difference), and traveling sickness (no diarrhea tho, thank God!). I wasted little time once I arrived; after a day of recuperation, I began my work.

Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu

Much of my work takes place at Stanes Secondary School, where I teach 11^th and 12^th graders ‘Value Education’—a life-skills building course. Excited about this opportunity, I approached my first class filled with energy and enthusiasm. After introducing myself—where I’m from, what I do, and why I’m here—I asked my students if they had any questions for me. After a brief silence, one of the students stood up and asked, “Can you rap?” Hmmmmm… Before I could answer, a series of suspicious questions followed. “Can you show us how to dance? Are you good at basketball?” Hmmmmm… It was at this moment that I accepted something that I had subconsciously tried to ignore. Can I rap? And just like that, a voice deep within me began to speak, nah to flow, to myself, “you never stop being a nigga / and if you get to be educated you jus an educated nigga.” This prophetic proclamation, authored by none other than N.W.A., became my testimony.

First day teaching at Stanes Secondary School

Despite travelling over 8,000 miles, finishing my first year at a well-respected institution of higher education, and landing a competitive summer internship, my potentiality was reduced to my (in)ability to rap, dance, and dribble a ball. Now let me be clear. I do not, by any means, hold my students responsible for their misguided imaginations. Instead of condemning a group of teenagers, I prefer to critique the system by which people from around the world acquire these racialized caricatures of black identity, viz, mass media. (This caricaturization applies to peoples of all marginalized groups including but not limited too Muslims, Latinos, women, immigrants, the poor, the lgbt community, etc.).

Mass media, an intricate network of channels by which consciousness is created and cultivated, (too often) substitutes complexity for miniaturization—hampering our ability to conceptualize complex cultural realities. The ownership and management of racial and cultural consciousness by a conglomerate of big corporations has devastating effects on the way people around the world view each other, especially the most vulnerable (see Dr. Jared Ball’s I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto). The manufacturing of racialized identities combined with the overall commercialization of culture converts cultural realities into media fantasies. Mass media, in this sense, functions as a kind of technological ‘terrorism,’ in which popularized images can be used as cultural W.M.D.s (weapons of mass distortion).

Media and Mass Incarceration

Considering the onslaught of police and “security” executed violence against black bodies via murder and mass incarceration combined with the racial injustice practiced in the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” campaign, N.W.A’s lyrics offer a prophetic critique of America’s criminal (in)justice system. In a country where 1 out of every 3 young black men are currently under some form of incarceration (see Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow)—prison, probation, or parole—there is no better time to revisit the lyrics that made gangsta (or reality) rap so prophetic and powerful. Off "Niggaz 4 Life," the young Ice Cube spits:

Why do I call myself a nigga you ask me?

Because police always wanna harass me

Fuck tha police

Comin straight from the underground

Young nigga got it bad cuz I’m brown

And not the other color so police think

They have the authority to kill a minority*

Like N.W.A.’s adversarial lyrics, my presence in the (or any) classroom, by definition, is a form of countercultural communication. Although I’m not from Compton, I haven’t sold over 10 million records, and I’m not responsible for the emergence of gangtsta rap, I am a product of hip-hop. In a sense, “Straight outta Compton” came “straight to Coonoor.” The “Nilgiri’s With Altitude” met a “Nigga Wit Attitude,” embodying the spirit of hip-hop and carrying on the tradition of oppositional communication. Can I rap? Well, if rap is to be defined as hip-hop’s speech element (Ball, 3) and speech can be defined as any form of linguistic communication—spoken word, rhyming, public speaking, writing, then… Hmmmmm… I’ll let you decide!

*(see Ramarley Graham, Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Bo Morrison, Darius Simmons, Clarence Aaron and many other black and brown bodies murdered by police and "security" personnel since January 2012).

"Curry Culture": A Mumbai Memoir

It’s impossible to have a thorough conversation about culture without considering food. Food, a biological necessity, is threaded into our cultural fabric. You would be hard-pressed to think about the splendor of Chinese culture without considering the decadence of its egg rolls (yes egg rolls!!). You will find it difficult to discuss the complexities of the black experience in America without taking seriously the creativity of soul food. And you cannot properly contextualize India without contemplating the complexity of Indian curry. (And this can be said of any culture: Jamaican Jerk, German beer, Muslim Halal, Italian pasta, "Hood" Ices, Japanese sushi, and so on).

Mumbai, Maharashtra

Curry is a culinary phenomenon originating from the Indian subcontinent. It was anglicized from the Tamil term kari, meaning ‘sauce,’ perhaps around the mid 17^th century (here I am referencing the origin of the term 'curry,' not its usage which may date back to 2600 BCE). Currently, curry is a type of cuisine that can contain meat, seafood, or vegetables. It can be served “wet” (with a lot of sauce) or “dry” (with very little sauce). Essentially, curry is the integration of a, more or less, complex combinations of herbs and spices.

My first meal in Mumbai

Although my time in Mumbai (Bombay) was full of adventures, my most consistent memory is the forcefulness of the food. Now let me be clear. I do not mean to reduce the fourth most populated city in the world to some sort of cultural kitchen. Mumbai is a bustling city with a strong economy and a rich history. Nevertheless, I could not deny the indubitable relationship between what I ate and what I experienced.

Like curry, Mumbai is a complex combination—not of herbs and spices, but—of peoples, religions, castes, animals, music, smells, etc. From the moment I touched down, I couldn’t help but notice the religious and cultural pluralism that dominated every street corner. From the Hindu shrines to your everyday street hustlers…from the unbelievably dirty Arabian sea shore (never thought I’d see ocean water worst than Jersey) to the beauty of the Taj just feet away, I soon realized that I could not fit Mumbai into the confines of my camera pixels (or even this blog entry). Like curry, Mumbai is plural. Indian curry comes in many different forms, as do the people of Mumbai. Like my consumption of curry, my experience in Mumbai was spicy, hot (113° F my first day), and diverse. By the end of my stay I realized that curry is not just a food to be eaten; it is a culture to be experienced!