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Speech Behind Speech: Senior Explores the
Messages Embedded in Hip-Hop
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Michael Partis seeks to use hip-hop in his work with urban youth.
Photo by Chris Taggart
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By Gina Vergel
When hip-hop began permeating popular culture in the 1980s, music critics labeled it a passing fad. Now more than 20 years later, the genre has influenced an entire generation and, as a result, provided academic fodder for Michael Partis, FCRH ’08.
Hip-hop is an inspiration for the 22-year-old, but not in the “I want to become a rapper and sell hit records” kind of way. Partis sees it as a way to reach urban youth.
“I want to research how hip-hop affects the black and Latino cultures,” Partis said, “how people in those cultures form their identities around it; how it affects their socioeconomic status; and how they reproduce it and consume things because of it.”
The topic is important to Partis, an African-American studies major with a minor in philosophy, because he aspires to work with youth. Now all he has to do is decide which step to take next.
He has been accepted by the New York City Teaching Fellows program, which recruits and trains talented people to teach in New York City public schools, as well as the City University of New York’s doctoral program in cultural anthropology, where he would focus on the material causes of inequality locally and around the world.
When Partis was growing up in the South Bronx, hip-hop was an outlet for those who struggled in the inner city.
“It was a way for them to air out the issues they had with socio-economic factors—like violence and drugs—that were surrounding them and affecting their lives,” Partis said.
“Ever since popular culture accepted hip-hop, it’s been different,” he explained. “There is a belief that if you follow a certain mold, you’ll be successful. You look at what sells and it seems that a lot of youth are buying into a dream fantasy of diamonds, platinum, girls, expensive cars—it’s troubling.”
Discussing, researching and writing about hip-hop and how it affects today’s youth is nothing new to Partis. He has expounded on these ideas throughout his academic career at Fordham, thanks largely to his professors in the African and African-American studies department.
“They embraced it; they saw it as relevant and said, ‘Let’s explore this further,’” Partis said. “I have something to offer academia that’s not there now.”
Ironically, Partis, who said he experienced culture shock when he arrived at Fordham, might have taken an entirely different route had it not been for the African and African-American studies department and Asili, the black student union on the Rose Hill campus, which he served as president.
“I briefly thought about leaving,” he said. “But I found academic influences that mattered to me; people who really cultivated me. And in Asili, I was able to help provide culture programming with a holistic view about the black experience in America for all audiences.”
Fordham’s Jesuit education also has had an impact on the thinker that Partis has become.
“The core curriculum actually meant a lot to me,” he said. “It exposed me to different things. I found teachers to be introspective. They taught us to develop our thinking using the socratic method.”
In four years at Fordham, Partis also did his fair share of influencing.
“He is one of the most extraordinary students I have worked with in more than 35 years of college teaching,” said Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor of African-American studies. “He single-handedly changes the atmosphere of every class he is in because his comments are so insightful and thought provoking.” |
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Copyright © 2008, Fordham University.
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