What the heck is hip hop?

It's modern, gamey, and fun. It's about pulling a hat low or wearing sweet shades and kicks.  It's about making up or importing new words for things.  It feels creative, edgy, positive, exciting, and it feels ours.   It feels like a force that unites us, that brings people of all colors and backgrounds onto the dance floor, and through rhythm and rhyme we can all connect.  

Paula is from Colombia, and the girl can let fly to salsa, merengue, cumbia, or ballenato.  But when I put on some Weezy she put on the brakes.  She said, "I dig it, I guess, I just don't know anything about it.  Tell me about it.  Show me."  So the goal is to create a sequence of YouTube videos to introduce her to Hip Hop, to convey the kind of excitement that is held in this music, the kind of joy it brings to my heart, the way it makes my body move.  So the lineup could be Kanye's "Goodlife," Busta Rhymes' "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See," Xbox 360's "Jump In" commercial, something from Stomp!, and a dance sequence from Stomp the Yard or Step Up 2.

Hip Hop MOVES ME.  It's all about the dance, the sway, the shimmy.  It's the rhythm that sets a tempo, and the instrumentation and song that carries the energy up and down.  With tempo and energy, I can't help but dance.  No mom, it doesn't have the musical content of Rock 'n Roll as far as mastery of instruments, but that's not the point. Hip Hop creates a mood, a feeling, joyous or sexy, and in that space we can feel something beautiful, cultural, human.