The findings of this research indicate that Hip Hop Sul is part of the musical trajectory of the rap groups interviewed. They are frequent viewers, get organized to watch the program and see it as essential in their hip hop and musician behaviors.
They dream of being on the program and create expectations in relation to it. Besides this, the program stimulates and supports hip hop culture and rap groups, with performances by novice musicians.
To play on Hip Hop Sul requires preparation, and for many, an intensification of rehearsals, when musicians change their routines so they can prepare for the performance. At this time each member of the group grows musically because they are concerned with aspects of musical performance, as the letter-sync rhythm,
articulation and voice emission, “clean” sound, the sound and expressive gestures, and body movements. Care is due to the fact that many people will view their work on television.
The program also fulfills the function of role modeling to viewers as well as to participants, when hip hop musicians understand subjects related to music as DJ techniques, musical prosody, rap styles, and stage performance. While watching the program, they inspire you to take information to their musical performance. The rappers are emphatic in stating that the musical models seen on TV are performing their own musicianship, taking care not to copy what they saw, but feel inspired.
Thus, the television becomes a phenomenon active in musical formation for these youth, surpassing the roles of communication and entertainment, social functions, cultural, inclusive and training. These functions assume that television in modern society is the result partly of their complexity and power of seduction that covers the image, sound and movement simultaneously. This process allows music to be not only heard but also seen.
The program shooting is, to many, a dream come true. The sound check before the shooting, is a time that helps control the excitement of being “inside” the television, and it is also a time when the production team suggests hints for a better performance.
These hints refer to specific musical elements as well as to suggestions for stage performance, including: body movement while singing, looking at the camera that is shooting, singing to those who are at home, position of musicians on the stage, using the microphone, tuning and voice projection, voice balancing, instruments and the use of record-players. The suggestions and role models that the program gives to musicians become part of their lives, integrating into their own routine musical practice.
The role of television in the lives of these musicians begins in their experience when they are still viewers, goes on to the program shooting – when musicians are on Hip Hop Sul – and continues in the “look at yourself” on television and in the repercussion of the performance when it is broadcasted. When one sees oneself on television, it offers a chance for self-evaluation and a critical analysis of their work. It is at this time that the music and even the style of the group may change. Several groups shoot the program so they can watch it many times and analyze what they can do better. In the words of MC RM “if not the program we would not have evolved, because we only evolves when we see yourself. [...] Is this story only progresses when you see on TV, and ‘bah! I can improve, I can do better.’ Hence, it evolves.”
Fischer (2000a, 2000b) explains that performing on television allows “self-evaluation” because the television is a “place of information and ‘education’”
(Fischer, 2000a, p. 117; 2000b, p. 81). The formative aspect of the medium is discussed by the author argues that the “pedagogic element the media” (Fischer, 2000b, p. 81).
Another important factor is public recognition. MC Bronx, one of the musicians interviewed said she was surprised by the quick return of their television shows.
Immediately after going to air one invited him to record a CD and his music began to be sought in community radio of FEBEM of Porto Alegre.
After the broadcast, many groups developed their reputation in the rap scene, and then were invited to play in parties, receive song requests on community radios, and earn support to produce their infrastructure and songs. The broadcast motivates and encourages the groups to rehearse more and develop their musicianship. This happens, especially, because the group is known and being recognized by audiences beyond family and close friends. The result is social inclusion in urban cultural scene, gaining wider ranges of visibility.
Ending
The findings of this investigation indicate musical learning and social integration can be mediated by television. Through the program Hip Hop Sul rap groups consider more deeply about music making and what it means to be a musician. Besides this, the program opens space for the articulation of social and political art-musical production in the periphery. The Hip Hop Sul meets the principles of hip hop culture is, especially, creating opportunities to exercise the right of citizenship for young people on the margins of society, allowing a socio-cultural inclusion. There is no doubt that the program has a “pedagogical element” that “operates towards a production of meaning and social individuals” (Fischer, 1997, p. 63). This way, television is understood “not only as broadcaster but also as producer of knowledge and special forms of communication and of producing individuals, assuming in this sense a clear pedagogical function” (Fischer, 1997, p. 61).
By considering the “pedagogical element” of television, one cannot avoid valuing the dialectic process that exists between television and society. If on the one hand it proposes, “to look at and see the world,” on the other hand, this proposal is founded on a demand and on subsidies given and asked for by society (Fischer, 2000a, 2000b;
Casetti & Chio, 1998). From this point of view it is not enough “to think that media would be, for instance, taking possession of popular culture and transforming it in shows; or that television would use concrete practices of certain groups in order to, on programs, impose, idealistically, a way of being to the same groups” (Fischer, 2000b, p. 77). What happens is a circular process between social practices and television, where there is sharing of common meanings that are constantly recodified and consumed in two moments – on television as an organization, and in society as a place that allows and accepts them.
In the field of music education, this study suggested different ways of musical learning mediated by television: musicians as viewers, while participating in the program and finally, while viewers of their own performances in the program, self-evaluating. In the case of young people stigmatized by society this kind of learning relates to the possibility of social inclusion and cultural visibility.
There is no doubt that, for the groups that participated in the research, to see themselves or to feel themselves represented on television means to exist, to have an identity and leave anonymity. To be on television is, therefore, an experience that changes the musicians and their musical practices.
References
Assumpção, G. A. (2009). As representações do rap Brasiliense na mídia regional da cidade. Dissertação de Mestrado em Comunicação Social. Universidade de Brasilia.
Brooks, S. & Conroy, B. (2011). Hip-Hop culture in a global context:
Interdisciplinary and cross-categorical investigation. American Behavioral Scientist. Retrieved from http://abs.sagepub.com/content/55/1/3
Casetti, F. & Chio, F. (1998). Analisi della televisione. Milano, Strumenti Bompiani.
Fialho, V. M. (2003). Hip Hop Sul: Um espaço televisivo de formação e atuação musical. Dissertação de Mestrado. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Música da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
Fischer, R. M. B. (1997). O estatuto pedagógico da Mídia: questão de análise. In:
Cultura, Mídia e Educação, 22(2). Porto Alegre, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
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Fischer, R. M. B. (2001). Televisão e educação: Fruir e pensar a TV. Belo Horizonte, Autêntica.