Tish Jones, who works with abused women and youth rehabilitation programs in the Twin Cities, spoke about her personal experiences and struggles with domestic abuse and tried to break stereotypes surrounding female rappers.
In her first piece, entitled “Tracks,” Jones incorporated various phrases from hip-hop songs, including Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” — to emphasize the common belittling of women in some popular hip-hop songs. Throughout her performance, Jones responded to these lyrics.
“A generation of beautiful black women (have been) born and bred to believe that their beauty belongs to everyone but them,” Jones said.
Jones continued her performance by speaking about her mother’s experiences with domestic abuse. She told the story of a phone call with her mother where Jones pleaded with her to never come home again with “pieces of her soul missing,” referring to her mother’s emotional and psychological damage from being domestically abused.
Jones expressed particular admiration for Tupac’s unique brand of honesty. She referenced his ability to be both aggressive and emotional in his honesty, and said she attempts to mirror these qualities in her own work.
Besides her performance, Jones also mentioned her involvement with youth rehabilitation programs. Specifically, Jones talked about creating an open mic night in an effort to give youth a voice in their community.
After her spoken-word performance, Jones opened the floor to questions and dialogue from the attendees. Audience members discussed among one another the lecture series’ theme of the importance of hip-hop and its broad influence on culture and academia.
“Because it’s a real scholarship of something that is relevant even to the K-12 population, it’s really never analyzed as an art form of scholarly content, but there are a lot of great scholars that are researching it. We are the first university to give it its due,” said Willie Ney, executive director of the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives.
Other audience members echoed Ney’s perspective.
“This is a way for the campus to experience hip-hop and academia. It’s a way to bridge education with a culture that is often overlooked and stereotyped in a certain box,” said Jamie Yancovitz, UW senior and president of the Filipino-American Student Association. “It is a culture that should be studied in the way that jazz is studied, because education is an element of hip-hop.”
Jasmine Mans, a UW freshman and a member of the First Wave Organization, said Jones’ speech is extremely relevant for this time.
Mans added the issues of domestic violence raised by Jones’ performance are topics that are constantly talked about and are an influence on our culture and society.
“It has meaning and it comes from somewhere. It shouldn’t be ignored,” Mans said. “Anyone who dislikes it should come to a lecture and be proven wrong.”
