Today in class we listened to Too Short's The Ghetto then discussed the work looking at its themes, style and place in the literary canon. Kim shared her experience this weekend at deFermery Park where Too Short performed this work for an audience of about 1000 people. She said it was a positive event hosted by Youth Uprising and others for the West Oakland community.

Joe comment on Short's work was though is was good, and certainly popular off the page, Too Short's writing was not in the same class as Tupac, whose work is still being read, analyzed and celebrated 11 years after his death. Pam pointed to the language Pac uses, his introduction of historic references and how these relate to the present--his writing far surpassed that of his peer Short.

We read aloud another work of Too Short's called Life is Too Short. This was followed by students working on the Tupac profiles; one group of students did a profile on Afeni, using Holler to support their analysis. We ran out of time and will continue the profiles on Thursday after completing the film.

Homework was to fill out the Initial Planning Sheet for the essay on the topic per Hurt's film and to read the handout Encountering the Essay. In Holler, we have completed Chapter 3, next week we'll try to get through chapters 4 and 5.

You can watch the film at http://grabbavid.com/hip+hop+beyond+beats+and+rhymes.
The final draft is due via email by Friday at 12 noon. You can send it to me at professorwandasposse@gmail.com.