Performances, say what!

So(u)ld Out

So(u)ld Out: Hip Hop, the Academe, and the Objectification of Black Identity(ies)Or/ my hip-hop ain’t no Petri dish for neo-millennium, high-tech, ultra-cool racists

What is So(u)ld Out ?So(u)ld Out is a freestyle flyer performance/installation conceived by poet, teacher and performance artist ebony noelle golden, that critiques the Academe’s current, fetishistic/voyeuristic, interest in hip-hop culture. This piece seeks to question the intentions, motivations, and zest for “majority” institutions to host panels, seminar courses, conferences, “hip-hop weeks”, interdisciplinary degree options and other suspect reductive measures as viable attempts at earnest engagement with hip-hop culture.

CONTEXT/ CRITICAL RACE THEORY/ OR JUST COMMOTION
So(u)ld Out argues that this new found interest in hip-hop culture is not-so-new but instead harkens to the days when African bodies “performed” (i. e. cooning, shucking and jiving, dancing the juba,) on auction blocks, in fields, side-shows, and circuses to prove their value. So(u)ld Out wonders how the western “university” model, which is inherently racist in structure and application, implemented throughout the academe and wonders how glimpses into certain performances of Blackness are used as a type of coding, objectification, and framework in which oppression, violence, and silence is honed and re-enacted on Black bodies and communities.Ten years ago white academia dismissed the social, cultural, political, and artistic significance of the hip-hop movement, why are they so interested now?

C.R. E. A. M (cash rules everything around me)White male money and white male hands currently pull hip-hop’s strings and slowly silence the revolutionary voices of future Real Roxannes, Queen Latifas, Bahamadias, and MC Lytes. The objectification of black identity(ies) and expressions must be reclaimed now. So(u)ld Out believes the neo-millennium auction block should not only be dismantled but should also be burned to dust!

What You Can Do!So what do I need to make some art?Bring a pen, paper, and some of your favorite revolutionary hip hop lyrics and let’s make a statement, for real for real! I should say, we have not been invited but just like hip-hop began on the streets and in spaces where black people were traditionally silenced we are staking claim and making noise where we need to.

p.s. see http://brokenbeautifulpress.blogspot.com/2006/07/stick-it-to-man.html to order some brown and tan SOLD SOUL stickers for free(dom).