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Shout-out to Tony Muhammad, hip-hop educators and a friend of THE MESSAGE, for writing this report to document all that's going on in the other world of hip-hop. I was upset I couldn't attend the conference, so I'm thankful for this review of events. Thanks also to Davey D for posting on his MySpace blog as well.

From October 31st through November 1st I had the pleasure and honor of attending Born In The Bronx, A Conference Celebrating Hip Hop at Cornell University in Ithaca, (upstate) New York. A very interesting thing I learned about Ithaca and the towns that surround it before attending the conference is the painful and haunting reminders of racism and genocide found throughout in the form of signs, stressing that it was through the destruction of Native American communities that paved the way for their development. Also, Cornell University itself was one of various schools in the country that experienced protests in the late 1960s on the part of Black students in response to their mistreatment on campus, leading to the creation of a well developed Africana Studies program at the university. And now, well after 30 years after the birth of Hip Hop, a culture that has played a significant role in influencing the election of this country's first Black president, its pioneers and their rich early history are celebrated and honored at this Ivy League school. This I interpreted as being a sign of change; a breaking away from intellectual elitism and the beginning stages of embracing "the strength of street knowledge."

Read the entire piece.