Using Hip-Hop Fusion Music in the Classroom

Over the years, artists have fused hip-hop with many other types of music: rock 'n roll, reggae, new wave, spoken word, and many others. This page will give you some tips on using unique fusions of a familiar and popular music genre. You can explore political themes, social issues, metaphor/simile use, or just plain have fun with the turn of a phrase.

• Check out "Sleep Now In The Fire" by Rage Against the Machine . The song discusses ethical issues, political issues, and several historical events (the "discovery" of the Americas, slavery, lynching, Viet Nam, Hiroshima), and uses metaphor as the song's basis.
  • See this page for a fuller example of what you could do with this song.

• "Renegades of Funk" by Afrika Bambaataa offers many opportunities to discuss great historical figures and talk about word choice and tone.
  • "Renegades" are positive figures in this song.
    • Talk about how the sound of the music reinforces positivity.

• Visit Flocabulary for tons of great information on teaching with hip-hop.

• The work of Saul Williams (musician and poet) is very inspiring to the teacher trying to incorporate music in the classroom (especially music with poetry). His work is primarily a fusion of hip-hop and industrial music (Trent Reznor collaborated on Williams's latest album) or hip-hop and spoken word.

• The Beastie Boys mix hip-hop sometimes with rock, sometimes with jazz, always with style. Their album To The 5 Boroughs is a thoughtful letter to New York post-9/11.

• Listen to all of these artists and (full) songs for free at Grooveshark or Pandora.

Also check out this mini lesson, which compares a hip-hop fusion artist's cover of a Bruce Springsteen song to the original to study allusion and tone.