Ticket savings, great seats, and exclusive benefits, Our award-winning performances of Shakespeare, adaptations, and new works, Our early music ensemble Folger Consort and more, Our longstanding O.B. I am one that I sometimes am critical of mainstream hip-hop and the violence and the misogyny and whatever else. I dont think we can divorce Shakespeares global success from British imperialism and if India colonized the world, would we be reading the Mahabharata and the Rmyaa and these wonderful texts of Indian spirituality in the way that we read Shakespeare, as universal human text? MICHAEL WITMORE: This is a Shakespeare podcast so lets start by reading some Shakespeare. This man has a brilliant mind and a brilliant heart! This guys should be a guest lecturer in a lot off universities man. O'Brien said that Shakespeare has been adapted to different times in history since nearly the moment he wrote the plays, and calls the trend to bring hip-hop and Shakespeare together a great one. And through Hip-hop Shakespeares creative workshops and interactive lectures he is directly helping some of them giving them confidence in their own ability. The English language has not changed as much as people would like to believe. Akala is amazing!!! British poet, rapper, and educator Kingslee James Daley, who goes by the stage name Akala, likes to recite a passage and then challenge his audience with this question. Cause theyre not that interesting. If you can get him then anything is possible. He became very wealthy. What education should look like. So, if we take the sonnets, 154 sonnets, all ten syllables each, all end up rhyming. Shakespeare should not be taught in the ninth grade curriculum because it's too hard to teach; also its very difficult to understand, last it's not even relatable to today's youth. @Tiffany Summers I think it is only you and the person who liked your comment that have the problem. We can teach parts of some of them and really focus in on specific elements of that section. He is like the quantum physics of literature. They need more exposure. So, when we understand in Mali, for example, you have a character called the griot praising, you know, often on the payroll of the kingyou know, wrote long poems, the most famous of which is the Malian epic of Sundiatagenealogist, a historian, a musician that would actually go to school for 21 years: seven years for speech, seven years for musicianship, seven years for singing. Use this to follow along: Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 6 why might akala say that we should teach shakespeare. His points about Wu Tang are really interesting. Shakespeare and hip hop are two similar things. That is one of the things that has made me so passionate about education and made me want to dedicate part of my adult life to working with young people, in the way that people gave their time to work with me.. Whereas if I play you Lauryn Hill performing it on MTV Unplugged, immediately youre like, I didnt understand half the words. This is for my theater class _ good luck. BARBARA: Well Id love to hear your Dostoyevsky rap, but Im gonna content myself with your Shakespeare ones. interfere with the normal arrangement. What does Akala say is the main thing that hip hop and Shakespeare share? Akala ascribes the low educational achievement and aspirations of poorer children not just black children in England to two things: a divisive education system and an anti-intellectual culture. BARBARA: Well, thats a really important and controversial point because theres this huge amount of skill required in that level of rap, right? Akala comes across so intelligent and articulate. Can they identify which lines of verse are from hip-hop songs and which are taken from the works of Englands most famous poet and playwright? Akala also talked about howhip hop is commonly misunderstood and criticized because people dont understand it. remains to be my favorite ted talk, ive watched over and over and over again, I like the way he blends these disparate cultures (griots = bards) and mentions the need for explanation about Shakespeare's education as if only certain people have about the custodians of knowledge. MICHAEL: Akala works for the most part in the UK but recently he was in Los Angeles and stepped into the studio to talk with us about his work. No, thank you very much. Why might Akala say that we should teach Shakespeare? I mean its listen, I dont like to embarrass people but we did a workshop, one of our launch workshops. Everyone here because of their teachers lmaooo, if that is the case your teachers deserve more than you can possibly give if you find yourself in this position give him/her a hug or if that isn't appropriate shake hands or elbow bump a man that deserves to be heard, I loved Akala before my teacher and now when Im listening to it at school my teacher is on about how I like It now. His plays delve into the issues of love, loss, treachery, honor, tenderness, anger, despair, jealousy, contempt, fear, courage, and wonder. Chance never did crown me, this is destiny. In the meantime, find us online and on the road. This is a great Tedx talkand so far as his music goes I would strongly recommend his "Fire in the booth", along with "Find no enemy" and "I still believe" [featuring Black the Ripper & Lowkey]. Im gonna say thats not Shakespeare. So if you write a verse on a regular tempo sort of hip-hop beat, 70 to 90 BPM, its very difficult to write the verse in such a way that it transfers onto what we in the UK call grime, which is 140 beats per minute. AKALA: Sometimes. Using hip-hop to explore Shakespeare is not as unlikely as it might sound. I would take this fellows class or lectures whether I was a music lover/musician, writer or actor. But at the same time, in Titus Andronicus, one guy gets annoyed with another guy, so he chops him up, puts him in a pie, feeds him to his enemys parents, you know? -DJing -MCing -Break dancing -Graffiti art -Knowledge 5.) I show this video to my high school students every year prior to teaching Shakespeare. It doesnt come from any region in England. phillip watson age. AKALA: Yeah, he was sampling other peoples stories. Both she and the British Caribbean side of Akalas family encouraged his learning. So, sitting people down and forcing them to read Shakespeare Performance poetry has to be performance first. I heard every single word. @SelinaP95 I could not agree more. Why might Akala say that we should teach learn Shakespeare? Theres something for everyone. , the inclusion of a bill of rights in the u.s. constitution was the direct result of the. Absolutely gripping. Esp Rebelution and Sick Jacken etc. I didn't feel like sitting in the canteen on my lunch break, I felt like making better use of my time. The only differencesometimes iscultural understanding.. without knowledge, how can you understand? BARBARA: And what about rhyme? And so its that I want people to take away the fact that cultures there to be enjoyed. So, basically, this dude does a quick quiz and takes some phrases from both shakespeare and hip hop and shows how they are similar. I'm a high school English teacher. He then goes on to show how these oral traditions influenced a lot of music styles from jazz, funk, blues to hip hop. On point all the time! I teach Shakespeare and I absolutely agree. It hits so hard it's so lit.. Wow. And any good poet of any era employs similar themes and similar techniques. BARBARA: And kind of the ultimate re-interpreter. So, in a lot of so our last production as a company was of Richard II which was, we did essentially a concept, rock opera, if you like, think, you know. That why I think Shakespeare shouldn't be taught in . what information does he give him about the following: claud That boy Akalas a diamond fella.All you little boys are a Comedy of Errors,You bellow but you fellows get played likeThe cello. But Im gonna say no, again. He wasnt, you know, top of the top. The definition of hip hop he gave was fascinating. Your ears literally dont have the vocabulary to understand it. You are blessed with knowledge and you speak wise words. So, if you come to England, youll hear more people that sound like me but that way of speaking, Received Pronunciation, so-called Queens English, did not exist in Shakespeares time. Have some answers, fellow students!Shapesphere abd Hiphop shares: Rythem, 5 sets, 2 beats.Rythem or music imitates the "heartbeat of life".With Hip Hop, "the way you are saying it" is just as important as what you are saying.A misconception of Shakespeare is that he spoke posh and was for the rich. BARBARA: Thats right. HipHop ain't dead Akala's got it at Ted and has risen Shakespeare from the dead. AJ says: "Because hip-hop tells stories, Shakespeare is a good subject. And so if poets today try and do that, its like poetic mathematics. Thank you. AKALA: Because actually the sounds that rhyme to a Brazilian Portuguese accent are not exactly what we perceive musically to be rhymes in English and it was a really interesting thing that I kinda found and heard. We obviously live in a corrupt world.What would the world be like with leaders such as thisI also wonder what Akala thinks pertaining to more spiritual perspectives on life. "The most benevolent king communicates through your dreams" Hip Hop Shakespeare 6. It wasnt allowed to be in the city because it wasnt considered proper by the religious establishment of the time. I found it fascinating, enlightening and extremely educational. Alaka says I went to a school in one of the roughest parts of Trenchtown basically a war zone and the kids had higher aspirations than the average state school kid in England. You can hear immediately that is not the same as shall I compare thee to a summers day. It doesnt have the same roll to it. Thank you. Its Nas. Grudge. BARBARA: No. Similarly with Shakespeare, if you watch the Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet or, you know, Laurence Fishburne as Othello, I mean if you cant enjoy that, I would suggest that theres something wrong with you, maybe? Well considering this is a Ted talk i can't imagine any of this talk was 'on the fly'. This man is pure geniusshould be on telly. So, we can play you the Golden Gate Quartet, who are a gospel quartet. I benefited from a radical tradition of Pan-African Caribbean self-education and went to a special Black Caribbean Saturday school in Camden The Winnie Mandela School. Several phrases and terms still used by English speakers today are his creations. The main thing that they share is rhythm. So the point is to just show you that once you remove the baggage of what you think Shakespeares about and what you think hip-hops about, the all of a sudden it becomes much more difficult to differentiate. I always believed that knowledge was not something that was stationary or stagnant, but something that was verb more than subject. That English accent doesnt exist in England anymore. Alaka believed in the idea of uniting people under music and poetry, and Shakespeare has been appealing to all different types of people. Some of my uncles were gangsters. I study Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nottingham (2nd in the UK for my course according to the Guardian) and not one of my lecturers can deliver like this man! Some of the stuff that doesnt rhyme. Thank you for sharing. You know, hes not do you know what I mean? The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company explores the parallels between two seemingly quite different art forms. I reccomend people who are interested in this point watch his interview on Russia Today where he discusses the causes in detail. Got linked here through an article on decolonising shakespeare and one rabbit hole later. damn Akala's good. You think of Shakespeares best characters. One reason sometimes put forward is that there is something in Caribbean culture that devalues education. And a lot of people still have the belief that thats all kind of hip-hop has to contribute, has to say. From award-winning theater and music, to poetry and exhibitions, experience the power of the arts with us. Words by Sirius Gibson "I was not born under a rhyming planet" Hip Hop Shakespeare 5. This is a romanticized view of things, because it sounds nice for tourism purposes. So, even that in England people think, Shakespeare was posh, which, again, is a, you know, a statement of class and a statement of that way I was just talking. Then he says how iambic pentameter is so similar to a heartbeat and how it is 'intrinsic to life' and how it helps people get across feeling and what u want with that rhythm. Both Hiphop and Shakespeare are examples of the some of the most paramount poetry there is. - continued, whOS WAtChIng tHIs BeCaUSe oF SchOOl yeah ok but who got the answers, @Little_Dino_OwO Oml thank you, I really needed this. Shakespeare had them bars tho he is one of the G.O.A.T. I need this video, so i can show this to other people who say hip hop is shit. You dont have to like Shakespeare and you dont have to like hip-hop, either. So if artists wanna learn how to make stuff rhythmic that doesnt rhyme, you think of Hamlet: What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving. If rapping was so easy, wed all be Nas, right, or wed all be KRS-One or wed all be Lauryn Hill. And when you hear a song, same thing. Thank you! Part of my job, I think, and part of our job with hip-hop with Shakespeare is to sort of undo this undue reverence. 6 why might akala say that we should teach shakespeare . What kind of name means "messenger"? @Matt What is? Wow love that! AKALA: Of course. AKALA: And spending time with him and hearing him rap, in Brazilian Portuguese, I was like, the rhyme is not the same. What I would hear audibly as a rhyme in English isnt exactly what a rhyme is in Brazilian Portuguese. In a way, theyre kind of more perfect characters, if you like. He then goes on to explain how many people who often criticize hip-hop dont actually understand it. But what do you want people to go home with? Think about some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, such as Romeo and Juliet. I really do enjoy his intelligence expressed in his passion in hip hop. It's definitely a new way to teach our children who are not exposed to such comparisons. Its not there to beat you over the head with. I've not discovered a huge amount of Hip-Hop that is as good as Shakespeare. Such a freaking legend, I learnt so much from this. Although one might argue that all of his works should be included on this list due to his enormous literary . Even. One of the interesting things about the iambic pentameter is, because of this very consistent 10-syllable structure, you can do exactly that. And the word is *enunciation*. You have the commercial, the mainstream hip-hop which is commercialized and its mainly put out by these large corporations, again, primarily historically probably white owned and operated. **Just helping out :) Please correct me if any of these are incorrect!! He is incredibly clever, even picking the name akala, a Buddhist word meaning "immovable" and in "dat boy akala" there is a line that says "my name means you can't move me" I like little things like that! As someone who grew up listening to KRS-One and Lauryn Hill and The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron and that whole incredible tradition of the music of the African diaspora in America, for me, I never had that problem.