What is 'real' about Hip Hop?

As Nabeel was finishing his lecture on hip hop, he showed a few clips on ‘the darker side of black’ and it was what Tricia Rose said that got me thinking. She stated that what they (black rappers) portray is sometimes not ‘real’ but just a ‘play on figures’. This notion of Hip Hop as being ‘real’ is getting a bit overuse or misuse I think, and its getting more and more confusing. Lets take Ice T’s TV program on C4,’Ice T’s Rap School’ for example, the whole synopsis of the program is that Ice T takes kids from New York City's exclusive York Prep on Manhattan's Upper West Side and teaches a class of 7th and 8th graders how to become fresh MCs. In the beginning of the programme voice over exlpains;
“ For Ice-T, “Rap School” is a chance to show some privileged kids what hip hop culture is really all about, while also transforming these prepsters into playas—and proving to skeptical parents and faculty that rap can be a positive force.”
Watching a few episodes of this programme was so interesting. While Ice T is teaching these ‘beat challenged kids’ he constantly tells them to ‘be themselves’ and repeats over and over to the camera that ‘the key to getting Hip Hop is Being who you really are, being real”. This I found interesting and ironic, as it goes against what his program is setting out to do. They have taken kids who not only do not know anything about hip hop neither could rhyme, time and dance, place them in front of a microphone and tells them ‘just to be themselves’…how can you ask kids to be themselves when ‘hip hop’ is clearly and obviously not them…so by the end of the program you get kids that instead of ‘being real and being themselves’ but are acting and pretending to be these ‘playas’ that Ice T has taught them to be. It is here that I think this notion of hip hop as “being real” gets confusing and a bit out of hand. No wonder we have so many teenage gangsta wannabes swamping the streets of South Auckland. You can ask any one of them why they dress, walk, talk the way they do and they will tell you that ‘its just who they are’, some will probably unpleasantly say more than that, but what they will say will eventually slide along those lines. The sad thing about this however, is that I know that this is not true, as someone who has been living in South Auckland all my life and is working with south Auckland youth, these kids did not always walk, talk, behave like gangsters, the way they do now and this goes to show just how huge of a influence and power Hip Hop has and the fact that it is not necessarily about ‘being real’. So if this is the case, then what is so ‘real’ about Hip Hop?. I guess i can say that the way Ice T is influencing these kids on his programme is the same way Hip Hop is impacting and influencing the generation today.

If you want to check out Ice T’s Rap school, you can find series of this program on the website below
`http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/ice_t_rap_school/series.jhtml