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In Defense of Hip-Hop | Roland Fryer | TED
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Do you remember where you were when you first heard The Sugarhill Gang?
“Now what you hear is not a test
I'm rapping to the beat
And me, the groove and my friends
We’re going to try to move your feet.”
OK, you kind of remember it?
(Laughter)
OK, I'm a professor, so here's your quiz.
Everybody say “Hotel, motel” --
Audience: "... Holiday Inn."
RF: OK, stop that.
(Laughter)
We can't have that kind of fun, I work at Harvard.
(Laughter)
I first heard that song --
It's, like, 1985.
It was a block party in Daytona Beach, Florida,
and people were moving in ways I'd never seen before.
Now, I'm not talking about my friend Manman.
I'm talking about my grandmother.
She was doing stuff I can't unsee.
(Laughter)
She was like, down in here,
and I was like, “Whoa, grandma!”
(Laughter)
That was 40 years ago.
And hip-hop has taken over.
It is the most popular music genre in the world,
particularly among young people.
It has. its effect on music, on language,
on clothing, on social media,
even to a data nerd like me, is immeasurable.
But somehow, that's all obvious, right?
It didn't really dawn on me until a few months ago.
I'm a Peloton addict.
And I went to New York for the live ride.
And I'm in the studio ...
we’re 35 minutes in -- I was thinking, “How do you simulate the bicycle?”
Here we go.
I was 35 minutes in,
I peeped the person next to me,
and her handle was RideorDie2000.
And they get us up out of our saddles, 35 minutes in ...
and, on beat,
she gets up out of the saddle,
she starts screaming, and pounding the handlebars,
"Kill, kill, kill, Murder, murder, murder"
(Laughter)
Scared the crap out of me.
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