Events
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20 November 2012
GCPH Seminar Series 9 Lecture 1: Akala presents Hip Hop Shakespeare
Location: The Lighthouse, 11 Mitchell Lane, Glasgow, G1 3NU
View mapAkala presents Hip Hop Shakespeare
Overview
Founded by MOBO award-winner Akala in 2009, The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company is a musical theatre production social enterprise which offers young people a different view of the arts and ultimately of themselves.
Working in a variety of settings including schools, prisons and community venues, engaging in music and literature, the Hip Hop Shakespeare company strives to inspire and enable young people to better meet their potential, express themselves and highlight their creative talent. Central to their approach is an exploration of the social, linguistic and cultural parallels between the works of Shakespeare and modern day hip-hop artists.
In this illustrated lecture, Akala introduced us to the work of the hip-hop Shakespeare approach.
Scroll down to view the seminar or listen to it again.
Download the summary
THSC Lyric-writing and Performance Workshop
Akala also presented a lyric-writing and performance workshop for secondary school pupils and young people. The workshop provided an energetic opportunity to explore Shakespeare and hip-hop by encouraging young people to challenge their preconceptions about Shakespeare and hip-hop, and to discover something new about both, and about themselves.
Despite how hip-hop music is sometimes perceived or represented, most people are not aware that all of the rap legends (Biggie, Tupac, Jay-Z, Eminem to name a few) were and still are excellent English students.
Each group of pupils was given a theme, for example ‘conflict’ and asked to compose their own lyrics.
Scroll down to view some of the pupils' lyrics.