What is Hip Hop?

According to wikipedia -

Hip hop or hip-hop is a sub-cultural movement that formed during the early 1970s by African-American and Puerto Rican youths residing in the South Bronx in New York City.

It is characterized by four distinct elements, all of which represent the different manifestations of the culture: rap music (oral), turntablism or DJing (aural), b-boying (physical) and graffiti art (visual).  

But is this all to Hip-Hop? I don’t think so… I think the real question is what does Hip-Hop mean to me, to us, to the world of technology.

Let’s examine this case by case.

What Hip-Hop means to me?

Hip-Hop, for me has been about fighting oppression. Just fighting oppression. Oppression comes in many forms, like evil it has many faces. It has a face of racism, it can have a face of hating someone different, it can have a face of disliking disruption (In the case of the movie 8-mile), or it could have a face where in young, smart, college students are asked to leave businesses to “The grownUps”.

Hip-Hop is about fighting oppression, overcoming the challenge of oppression to make you a stronger individual. It’s about survival in a cut-throat world, but it is also a way to leverage aggression and angst into a never-die attitude and fight for your rights. It helps humans evolve into more enlightened beings.

This is what Hip-Hop means to me.

What does Hip-Hop mean to me in the context of the World Of Technology?

Hip-hop to me in the world of technology means two things.

Firstly it means to disrupt technology, to remind people that dogmas are meant to be broken. It means to create breakthrough technologies cause you have  a different sense of viewing the problem than the “Experts” in the field, and giving big corporation who are prisoners of “The Innovator's Dilemma” a run for their money.

Secondly, it also means that art and technology intersect at many points. In terms of culture and reminding us that the sole purpose of technology is to help the beings of this world lead happier, more fulfilling lives and not the other way round. It reminds us that “Hey! We are engineers and we need to find  feasible solution to this problem so we can make the life of a fellow human-being easier!”

Simply put - Hip Hop is not just music. Its a way of life.