Finding Out About Michael Schultz

The movie that I chose to do for my paper was Krush Groove, which was directed by Michael Schultz. Finding info on Michael was not as easy as I thought it would be; I had to travel to at least 6 web pages to find bits and pieces of information on him. The first step that I took in finding information on the director was to search Krush Groove in Google to find out who directed it. Wikipedia was the first link that came up so I clicked on it to try and figure out who directed the movie.

I read the first few sentences of it to see where they mention Shultz’s name, which had a link to another Wikipedia page about him. This page had a mini biography about Schultz and a link at the very bottom of the page. This link brought me to a site called IMDb, an internet movie database in which you can search for anything movie or television related. This includes information on characters, actors, writers, and producers of almost any movie that you can think of, so it made sense to look here for information. It was pretty reliable in content and the movies he directed were in chronological order. After seeing a list of his works, I had very little sense of who the director was so I tried searching for him in yahoo instead. Four web pages later, I was at allmovie.com reading an equally small biography on Schultz.

Finding information on Michael Schultz was very frustrating due to the lack of information that is out on him and the fact that there are other Michael Schultz’s out there. On the other hand, the last movie he made was in 1987 so that could be understandable to a certain extent.

Cheryl L. Keyes: Rap Music and Street Consciousness

The book that I decided to choose was Rap Music and Street Consciousness by Cheryl Keyes. In this book, Keyes gives a retrospective look to rap music by tracing its roots and thoroughly examining hip-hop culture. This book struck me as interesting because as soon as I read the first page, I was instantly in the middle of reading an argument on the origin of hip-hop. While some hip-hop artists were claiming that hip-hop came from West Africa, others did not believe it and questioning where it came from. Rather than just saying that it came from Africa, Keyes strengthens the connection between hip-hop and its African roots by bringing up the impact of the book, Roots. While that connection may seem far-fetched, she brings it all together and says that since the popularity of Roots, West African griots or musicians have been expanding their performances and rap artists could have easily seen them and recognized the connection. It is arguments like these that make the book interesting to read and help you identify more with what the author is saying. She supports her claims and point of view with testimonials from the actual hip-hop artists themselves, which makes her a lot more believable in what she is stating.

Keyes, an associate professor at the University of California, specializes in areas that deal with African American music and gender studies. In addition to researching hip-hop culture all across U.S and Africa, she also serves as the U.S president of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. Along with this, she also plays the piano and flute and is close to finishing an album. All of this proves that she is more than capable of writing this book based on her experience in studying and researching hip-hop music.

Dizzee Rascal and Hip-Hop Culture

Hip hop is not just African-American music, it is an art form that has managed to spread all over the world and its representation varies from region to region. What is hip-hop in one place could potentially sound totally different from what hip-hop is in another. This is evident in hearing the English form of hip-hop coming from an artist called Dizzee Rascal. Dizzee Rascal, born Dylan Mills, is an 18-year-old rapper and producer from London, England’s “East End”. Dizzee’s mother raised Dizzee by herself in a in a council estate, a fancy name for what is called the projects in America. He was expelled from school four times and was known for robbing pizza deliveries and stealing cars. Now, doesn’t this sound like the background of an American rapper? I sure do think so.


In listening to Dizzee’s music, I noticed that Dizzee shares alot in common with American hip-hop artists in his music in the topics, beats, and visual representation in his videos. I immediately noticed this while watching Flex, one of Dizzee’s videos. The women dancing, the club scene, the lyrics, and the beat he used are somewhat similar to what would be found in American culture. However, the women being fully clothed and the style that the lyrics were delivered in all serve as how much American hip-hop and English hip-hop cultures differ from each other. In English hip-hop, the lyrics tend to be very poetic and sound very effortlessly when English hip-hop artists say them. It basically sounds like a poem with a beat behind it. This is the case in Dizzee’s song, Dream. Even though he used a sample like American hip-hop, the lyrics were said in a way that was quick and poetic. Overall, I believe that although hip-hop share a couple of differences, the similarities are strong enough to form one genre.

My Peer Review Experience

Overall, I believe that my peer review experience went really well. I went into the peer review being skeptical, and came out with more help than I came in with. I was clueless in writing this paper, but the peer review helped me formulate new ideas to the topic. Instead of trying any of the new methods, my group just did things the old-fashioned way; we read each others papers and told each other how we felt about it. One thing that I liked the most was that my paper was seen from two different points of view. This made it much easier for me to identify my audience for the next draft of the paper. I also liked the fact that I received an explanation when something did not work in my paper; I was not forced to assume why I made the mistakes I made in my paper. However, I felt that there were some things that could have made the peer review experience better than it was. For example, I felt that we spent more time reading than giving out feedback. I think that if we spent an even amount of time doing both, then we would have taken full advantage of the peer review. In short, I felt that the peer review helped me figure out which direction I want to go in this paper.