In a perfect world, I'd like to start running comics for kids - by kids.
I love 'Yo Gabba Gabba!' because it's a real kids' show. There hasn't been a real kids' show since 'Dora the Explorer.' It mixes hip-hop with being a kid. Hip-hop came from youths anyway. It's just a great, funky show.
I came up in Brooklyn singing doo-wop music from the time I was 13 to the time I was 20. That music served a purpose of keeping a lot of people out of trouble, and also it was a passport from one neighborhood to another.
When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There's nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language.
Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.
I always loved the way music made me feel. I did sports at school and all, but when I got home, it was just music. Everybody in my neighborhood loved music. I could jump the back fence and be in the park where there were ghetto blasters everywhere.
Punk is the way of those who are unable to express themselves, but they aren't dangerous; at worst, they may kill their audience.
I love the fact that there is now a skate park in almost every city, but it will always have a rebellious/underground edge to it because it is based on individuality.
Historically, hip-hop is about a generation of artists rapping about the realities they see in their neighborhoods or the 'truths' they hear growing up in their homes.
There is, moreover, very little sense in preventing young people from giving expression to their ideas on the pretext that they have less experience than have older persons. There are many who may live a thousand years without encountering experience of any value. It could only be in a society of persons equally gifted that such an idea could have any meaning.
There's a lot of spaces that care about what kids are buying. There are a lot of spaces that care about what kids are watching. But there aren't a lot of spaces that care about what kids are saying.
Every generation brings its own presentation of what hip-hop is to them.
Hip Hop emerged fearlessly and unappoligeticly reflecting our society.
Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.
'Niggy Tardust' is the voice of a generation, a generation that does not define itself simply by what it's born into.
Politics is work. Hiphop is music. The idea that hiphop, because it makes the body feel good to move to it and it makes the soul feel good to hear out angry young black men, can be transmuted into changing the world is narcotic but nonsensical. Wherever hiphop is ever "going," we can be sure it will not be in a constructive direction, anymore than fashions in the color of cars. And it shouldn't "concern" us in the least.
My place in design history is to sort of interpret youth culture, and I think we've seen that done in fashion before - it's not a new concept - but it hasn't been done with the same vigour in a modern context.
Every generation has had some sort of focus for their unrest and discomfort with growing up. But today, the music that's in the charts is probably liked by their parents as well, and I think it's a part of youth that you need something that isn't liked or understood by the older generation.
The Congressional Art Competition encourages and cultivates the ingenuity and creativity of young people in our region.
Hip-hop - it's the safari: it allows people who aren't under those circumstances to come closer to inner-city life, to explore it without actually being in danger. It's something kids in middle America indulge in to be rebellious.
So, rap has that quality, for youth anyway; it's a kind of blues element. It's physical, almost gymnastic. It speaks to you organically. Rap grows out of what young people really are today, not only black youth, but white - everybody.
When I was younger, I had pink underneath my hair, and I got detention. I went to an all-girls school where you wore a uniform, and pink hair was not OK.
Fashion and music are two great artistic forms that can be molded by the youth culture - our taste and our passion for evolving things in our limited time on earth allows us to look at things with fresh eyes.
Body piercing and baggy clothes express identity among black youth, and not just beginning with hip-hop culture. Moreover, young black entrepreneurs like Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs and Russell Simmons have made millions from their clothing lines.
Being on 'The Voice,' I have a voice. I'm speaking for my generation, and that's huge.
