Name: _____________________________________________________________ Period: __________ Hip Hop and Shakespeare Today we will watch a video of a TED talk delivered by a man named Akala who founded the Hip Hop Shakespeare company. As you watch/listen to the video, answer the following questions, which we will discuss after. Your work will be collected, so pay attention! 1. Play along with the Akala’s pop quiz and see if you can tell which of the following quotes are hip hop lyrics and which are lines from Shakespeare: For the following quotes, choose whether you believe the quote is from Hip Hop or Shakespeare. “To destroy the beauty from which one came” Hip Hop Shakespeare “Maybe it's hatred I spew; maybe it's food for the spirit” Hip Hop Shakespeare “Men would rather use their broken weapons than their bare hands” Hip Hop Shakespeare “I was not born under a rhyming planet” Hip Hop Shakespeare “The most benevolent king communicates through your dreams” Hip Hop Shakespeare “Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses can't define” Hip Hop Shakespeare 2. What does Akala claim hip hop and Shakespeare share? Akala raps the following Shakespeare sonnet. Use this to follow along: Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 3. What is Akala trying to prove by rapping this sonnet? 4. Why does Akala ask the audience to put their hands on their hearts? What does this have to do with hip hop or Shakespeare? 5. Which two words does Akala use to prove that Shakespeare spoke the language of the common people—not the wealthy, noble people—of his time? 6. Akala says that over ________________% of Shakespeare’s audience could not read or write. 7. According to Akala, why don’t some people believe that William Shakespeare wrote the plays for which he’s given credit? 8. What is the definition of the phrase “hip hop”? 9. Akala claims that hip hop was originally a way to record knowledge or to brag about one’s intelligence. How does this description compare to the hip hop music you are familiar with today? 10. Which hip hop artist and album does Akala say was most influential to him? 11. Akala says that the point of his presentation and the work he does with the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company is all about who becomes the “custodians of knowledge.” What does he mean by this? 12. Most commercially successful rappers boast about what two main things, according to Akala? 13.What does Akala say is one of the most inspirational things about hip hop? 14. According to Akala, hip hop and Shakespeare share one great power. What is that power? 15. The success or failure of societies in the 21stcentury will be dependent on what?
