The mission of the International Association for Hip Hop Education is to assure the continued worldwide growth and development of hip hop and hip hop education. As a means of advancing its mission, International Association for Hip Hop Education initiates programs which nurture and promote the understanding and appreciation of Hip Hop and its heritage, provide leadership to educators regarding curricula, aesthetics and performance; assists teachers and practitioners with information and resources; and takes an active part in organizing clinics, festivals and symposia at local, regional, national and international levels.

Wordplay is the essence of Signifyin(g) and it is how meaning is derived from double entendre.  Hip hop’s ability to convert, sabotage, or flip meaning in any context is the trademark of the trickster, Esu, or the Signifyin(g) Monkey.  Just as Esu was the god of the crossroads in the African pantheon, hip hop culture has become the African-American equivalent of the crossroads; the place where western ideologies and theologies of money, capitalism, rationalism, God, and materialism meet and merge with African ideals of community, ancestors and living spirits, oral tradition, and reciprocity.  Jazz combined the western elements of music and performance with the African to create an audience-oriented art form that thrived on competition and survival methods and was a response to social and spiritual oppression.  Hip hop built on those ideals and created its own art form that in some ways mirrored western ideals yet paradoxically tore them down.  It took the modus of survival that exists in Western thought (the cutthroat, competitive, capitalist nature) merged it with the ideas of community (crew and posse code ethics), the use of art, music, and dance as functional items to communicate (graffiti, hip hop, breakdancing respectively), and created an art form that unlike jazz, gave actual words to the cries of the ghetto.

MCing: The art of the microphone controller or master of ceremonies; the MC practices mastery of the verbal arts and can create meaning of any circumstance in lyrical performance.  Knowledge of current as well as historical events, vernacular, and grammatical technique is key to constructing a meaningful rhyme.  The ability to call upon this information spontaneously is the trademark of the underground MC who takes this artform to its highest level in the art of “freestyle” or improvisational rhyming.

 DJing: The art of the turntables; short for disc jockey; hip hop “heads” spend hours at home and in the club perfecting their ability to mix, scratch and “cut” on the turntables.  Knowledge of the equipment, techniques (i.e. rubbing an ice cube on a warped record will smooth out the warp), and the acquisition of an up-to-date collection of the latest singles, is imperative. 

B-Boy: The art of hip hop movement; b-boys practice relentlessly to incorporate basic breakdance movements with individual styles to make an exciting display of physical control, endurance, and agility.  By contorting the body in ways that are extremely difficult and by spinning and sliding across the floor, they are able to develop their own individual poses and movements. 

Graffiti: The art of “tags” and “burners;” artists paint, draw, and/or ink elaborate pictures on various surfaces.  The ideas are created in a sketchbook and converted to whatever surface is preferred.  Historically done in subways on trains or walls, now many graffiti pieces are done on building walls and canvases as murals sponsored by local city governments or art exhibitioners.  “Tags” are names sprayed in an individualistic calligraphic style.  “Burners” are full-fledged artistic masterpieces that use bright colors and imaginative images to depict scenes of urban life.

© Except from Hip Hop As Performance and Ritual, Smith, William E, PhD.

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