GROWING UP HIP HOP PROFESSIONAL

And I know that thinking to be inaccurate. But as someone who has had such an intimate and early experience of connection across difference, I know that to be a lie. If we look at human history, we have a lot of examples of that sadly being the case. Difference doesn't create the vision, but we're deathly afraid that is the case. And so absolutely: people conflate difference with actually being farther apart and division. It is not a contradiction, but it certainly is a complexity. In your talk, you say that we should revel in our differences rather than kind of gloss over them and use that kind of tired phrase 'We have more in common than when we do differences.' But you also say that reveling would bring us closer and give us a world of shared values and meaningful community. Here is an excerpt from their conversation. Pitter's lecture was entitled The Future of Culture Is…Īnd after her talk, she spoke to IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed.

Her work has taken her to over 25 cities in North America, including Lexington, Kentucky – at a time when the city was experiencing a moment of white-knuckled tension over Confederate monuments.

GROWING UP HIP HOP PROFESSIONAL

And so… I became really interested in the idea of just making space for myself and for my peers.'Īnd that's what Pitter has been doing as a professional placemaker: combining social justice and urban design, and celebrating pluralism from the ground-up. Her peers felt downtown was somehow out of reach for them, a place where they didn't belong.Īs a result of the excursions with her second father, 'I felt like I belonged absolutely everywhere I was. It was then that she saw people living vastly different lives than those in the suburbs. Her second dad was a gay, Irish-Canadian man who would later take Pitter on cultural excursions downtown, where she not only went to operas and museums, but to green spaces, and open-air markets. And that was a really big turning point in my life.' Most kids might have clammed up at this point. But Pitter explained what she was talking about, although she can't recall the specifics now: 'But I do remember him saying that what I had to say was indeed important. And my second grade teacher - who in fact became my second dad and lifelong mentor - he asked me to come to the front of the class and share what I was saying if I thought it was more important than his lesson.' 'I was that kid who sat at the back of the classroom, talking out of turn all the time. She grew up in public housing in east end Toronto, and is proud of it. But there's little of the conventional about Pitter. It may not be the conventional way most speakers take to the stage. And so that transmutation and pluralism for me exemplifies the very best of culture.' Hip hop is fundamentally very pluralistic… hip hop transcends race and culture. 'I chose hip hop,' she told IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed, 'because hip hop emerges from community, from the ground up. When Jay Pitter strode out on stage in November 2022 to deliver the Ontario Heritage Matters Live Lecture at Toronto Winter Garden Theatre, she did so accompanied by a track of hip hop playing over the PA system. Ideas 53:59 Jay Pitter: The Future of Culture Is.

Growing up hip hop