Educating Young News Consumers in the Age of Hip Hop

The second conversation between Steve Furay, a graduate student of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Karim Adel, aka Rush from the Egyptian hip hop group Arabian Knightz.  This series of dialogues between the two will discuss global affairs, relations between Islam and the West, and how hip hop affects the youth of these two worlds.

 

Steve Furay: When I first heard you messaging your social networking connections about the situation between Egypt and Algeria regards to the World Cup qualifying football matches, I threw you a line questioning the news sources where you were getting your information. I wasn’t sure how you were going to receive that.  Did I say anything that you didn’t know or feel already?

 

Karim Adel: Nah, I knew all that, but I also know our media got involved last month, and their media was going off 6 months before, not just related to a football game.  I saw their crowd here in Cairo on TV burning our flag, and I saw them leave three hours after the game so that no one from the Egyptian crowd was there.  Algerian media has been saying its war and Egypt is an enemy since June.

 

SF: So it sounds like for months now their media has been using opinion speakers to say “Algeria against Egypt“.  That of course is much different than real news, its opinion.  For a media to declare war is propaganda, it’s very unfortunate because it’s causing a serious split from within the region.  So let’s talk about actual conflict versus propaganda.  This happens in hip hop a lot, remember that whole Kanye versus 50 Cent “beef”, who’s gonna sell more albums?  That was completely manufactured to sell albums and magazines.

 

 

KA: Yeah and it was obvious back then, they even did shoots together to hype it like a boxing match.

 

 

SF:  There’s an interesting point to your perspective, the idea of another infiltrating and stirring up the conflict.  There’s a lot of history to this, even current events in the Middle East are related to outside influences interfering.  But you say in Algeria, it was their media that created this hype and divide with Egypt.  If the Algerian people were led to war by their media, this would make their own media the “other” or the “outsider” that creates a divide.

 

KA: No, the media is only the tool that the other is using, when rumors happened about Algerians being hurt in Egypt, Algerian media and Al Jazeera both were the only ones hyping that news, with no credible evidence.  Even the pics taken of a victim, there was zero proof that this picture was even taken in Egypt, yet Algerian papers had nothing else to talk about for four days.

 

SF:  That’s where a lack of unity in the Middle East is evident, creating that unity is a central theme to your music, and hopefully media sources pick up on this positively.  We use media to help understand the world, and a lot of our understanding of the world is based upon black and white divisions that have been manufactured.  Like the world has some sort of scorecard, like you can look at your team’s win-loss record and then see who’s on the schedule next week.

 

SF:  Well that’s interesting too how Israel is percieved as the greatest “other” in your region, and a lot of your references come back to Israel.  For Israeli Jews who feel their security threatened, Arabs are the “other”, but in reality people don’t benefit from these divisions at all, yet they are perpetuated.

 

Peace activists here in the US have argued that our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have only strengthened our enemies and distracted us from the real battlefront.  The real battlefront is to defeat poverty, because that is the origin of unrest.  The world recognizes what the real enemy is, but seems to be running in circles around it.

 

KA:  A lack of food and lack of freedom for most people.  These are two battlefronts that are equal in strength. 

 

SF: Education is another battlefront.  I feel that lack of education, a good education, allows people to be manipulated by the opinion media, perpetuating these divisions.

 

KA: That’s true, education lets you know that you can’t believe everything without applying your own research.

 

SF:  What obstacles to education are there in Egypt?

 

KA:  Quality of education, I’m more aware of that.  The quality of education and its methods here are really lacking.  The syllabus’s here are made to pass people who memorize, not those who learn and apply their knowledge.  I took the IGCSEs in high school and also took Egyptian college courses in my university years so I know the difference, our education is made to create yes-men and women.

 

A: The government’s education branch, that’s referring to government public schools, not private ones. 

 

They need to create more syllabus’s that encourage creativity, research and thinking.  It’s a scientific fact that Egyptian kids and babies have the highest IQ amongst the rest of the nations from that age category, and they lose it growing up.  That gap is created by the education system.

 

SF: A scientific fact?  That’s funny, there’s nothing scientific about IQ tests.  All humans lose intelligence when we get older, our brains are fastest when we’re babies, but if you don’t use your creativity and stimulate your brain by learning, you do lose your intelligence, your brain does become slower.

 

KA: Well, I heard it’s official info so it’s on you to research that like I said.  I push for searching for any info you’re given.  That’s the first weapon against corrupt media and brain wash.  And next time you’re in Cairo, try to talk to an Egyptian kids.  Them kids are waaay too smart.

 

SF:  Trust me I know, just by seeing them hustle on the street.  I’m not even talking about in school, just the way they move on their grind, whatever it is they do to make their little bit of money off of tourists.  It’s impressive.

 

KA: Yeah, whoever runs these kids begging business and manages them and spreads them in the streets generates millions every month off them.

 

SF: I think if people realized that children are smarter than us, we’d be a lot more humble and start a lot less conflict.  Here in the US with the education system, which has become very poor over the past few decades, they also teach children to pass tests.  So like you say in Egypt, a lot of memorization or learning a specific thought process, but not enough teaching children how to think for themselves.

 

KA: I got to say the education in Europe and areas in Asia such as Japan and so on are way ahead.

 

SF: It’s a function of how much you invest in the system, you only get out of the system what you put into it.  I know for years public school systems here in the US have been failing to invest, the buidlings are decaying, text books are out of date, teachers are afraid of the children in some cities. 

but the school system is not the only place that needs to invest…we as a people need to invest as well…here in the states it is so great when you see a community group or activists or artists step in and play a mentor role with children

 

KA: There is a lot of people in both regions who waste millions on less important stuff,  they can at least invest some on education.

 

SF: school budgets seem to get cut a lot here. But you can’t say the same for local police budgets, or federal military spending.

 

KA: Exactly, people in those areas are powerful, and they make sure their budgets are on point.

 

SF: I’m not afraid that the US will have an economic decline, I think it seems inevitable at this point, that idea scares a lot of people here.  But what I’m afraid of is we’re investing so much to get our financial industry going strong, and our putting insane amounts of money into  the military to rebuild nations after we invade them.  But it’s our school budgets that are being affected, our next generations are going to be lacking a necessary education.  That’s how America got to be powerful, through education, and now it is possible that it could be our downfall.

 

KA: Same here, we had the biggest civilization of knowledge for 25 thousand years, best believe we had to have the best education back then

 

SF: But we don’t need to depend on the schools to do it all.  Maybe that’s one way hip hop can reach the children.  For a child to be able to decipher an entire song, they’ve gotten a great education about poetry.  Their minds are going to be very inclined to learn poetry, which makes creative thinkers.

 

 

 

 

KA: Yeah, hip hop reaches kids heads and ears more than any book or teacher now does.

And we both notice attention in universities towards poetry, it’s now beyond any other recent time in the past.

 

SF: For certain, hip hop studies at the university level is taking off more than ever. 

 

KA: Yeah, and the influence is also greater than ever

 

SF: Do you think university professors in Egypt would ever pay attention to hip hop studies?

 

KA:  Rap?  Nah, we still a long way from that, maybe later when it spreads more and receives more respect.

 

SF: It still only gets a limited  respect here as well.  A lot of people on campus hear about our hip hop studies program at UW-Madison and dismiss it, like it’s a waste of people’s time and money.  But tell that to a student who relates to their education through hip hop.