Eng201A
Professor Sabir
MW 1-2:50
Group Assignment
Give me a Pen and Paper

Cast:
Vinson Lieu as “Big Tray Dee”
Josh James as “Mos Def”
Lisa Ryan as “Toni Morrison “
Albert Dennie as “Tupac, Dyson, Narrarator”
Poem: If I Fail

Setting: A talk show that Michael Eric Dyson hosts.

Summary: In chapter 4 of Dyson’s Holler if You Hear Me, numerous artists try to define the term “Thug Life”. There are so many justifications of the word and its true value it has on society. Also, Tupac has his ups and his downs, his constructed criticism and his bad criticism, but most of all this chapter shows how he overcomes everyone’s opinion and molds it into what he is today an Icon! Even though people opposed to Tupac’s music there were others who embraced him.

Dyson: Good afternoon welcome to the Dyson show, today we will discuss ch.4 from my book Holler If You Hear Me. I am going to have a guest show host: Mos Def and we are going to have a few special guests. The guest show host will have a live interview with Tupac from jail via satellite link.

Commercial

Dyson: Welcome back. I’d like to welcome hip hop luminary, Mos Def.

Mos Def: Thanks for having me on the show Dyson!

Dyson: I’d also like to welcome special guests from The Eastsidaz, Big Tray Dee.

Big Tray Dee: Good afternoon Dyson, Mos Def.

Dyson: I want to know Mos Def, your views of Tupac? “Tupac’s art as a hip hop emcee was acquired taste among the genre’s cognoscente, even as the masses embraced him through huge record sales and he gained international noriety as a symbol of rap’s fortune and follies.”(Dyson 106)

Mos Def: “Tupac did not for instance posses the effortless rhythmic patterns of Snoop Dogg, the formidable timing and breathe control of the incomparable K.R.S. One, the poetic intensity of Rakim, the delt political rage of Chuck D, the forceful enunciation of M.C. Lyte, or the novelistic descriptions and sly cadences of Notorious B.I.G.- the mathematician of flow”(Dyson 106)

Big Tray Dee: “I’m real critical and skeptical about lyrics or what people say and how they put it from an artistic standpoint.” (Dyson 105)

Dyson: Tray Dee, what do you have to say about Tupac’s method of creation, highlighting in the process what made him such a big force in hip hop?

Big Tray Dee: “It would be maybe like thirty percent of his songs that I really wouldn’t feel all the time I would be like “That’s all right”. But, [his songs] wound up in my head because they grew on me, and I would see where he was coming from. I had to get that feeling or be in that mood to really relate to what he was saying at that particular time, on that particular song. He showed me how he made music through his heart and through his spirit, showing me that you have to have a certain vibe and continuity. You r not going to appeal to everybody”

Mos Def: “I wasn’t a big Pac fan when he was out, but I’ll tell you why people loved him. Because they knew him! Despite him being viewed as a “gangster rapper”, Pac ranged freely over the landscape of hip-hop, pursuing themes that bled through a number of rap’s subgenres, among the conscious rap, political hip hop, party music, hedonism rap, thug rap, and ghetto centric rap.”

Dyson: Let’s go to commercial and when we come back special guests Toni Morrison will be here.
Commercial

Dyson: Welcome back I’d like to introduce guest speaker Toni Morrison.

Toni Morrison: Hello everybody.

Dyson: “Rap is viewed as a barometer of what ails black youth. It is apparent that a great deal of bitterness and anger clutter the disputes between rap’s advocates and its critics. It is equally obvious that black youth have been under attack for many quarters of our culture. In hip hop, as with most music, that is nothing new.”

Toni Morrison: “All art created by young people are despised by adults. If it’s young, it always has to fight…, and what shakes out of that of course is the best.”

Dyson: Your view of hip hop is admirably international giving [you] an appreciation of the genres inspiring, and subversive, global reach. (Dyson 116)

Toni Morrison: “Just seeing what happened to it in Europe is astonishing. When I was in Frankfurt- the center of rap music in Germany- I got some unbelievable rap disc from a Turkish girl who was singing in German. What unifies hip hop throughout? Nobody admits it. The fact that it is ails the music you can’t sit down to [be] what really gets you up, it’s what made it so fetching.”(Dyson 117)

Dyson: Morrison, “You are completely ware of the controversial subject matters broached in hip hop.” (Dyson 117)

Toni Morrison: “It is always up for grabs and sexuality and violence. (Dyson 117)

Dyson: ok we will go to commercial and when we come back guest show host Mos Def who will interview Tupac via satellite.

Question:
Mos def: What are you trying to tell the people through your music?

Answer:
Tupac: “Most of my music tells the truth. I’m just trying to speak about things that affect me and about things that affect our community… Sometimes I’m the watcher, and sometimes I’m the participant, and sometimes it’s just allegories or fables that have an underlying theme.”

Question:
Mos Def: Has hip-hop caused or reflected the violence we should detest.

Tupac: “It’s the violence in America,” What did the USA just do, flying to Bosnia? We ain’t got no business over there.” America is the biggest gang in the world. Look at how they didn’t agree with Cuba, so… they cut them off.”