De Anza College’s Umoja learning community brought on spoken word artist and guest lecturer McTate Stroman II to speak at its “Harlem to Hip-hop” event on Feb. 25 in Conference Room A and B.
Stroman II also hosts monthly open mic sessions at the Euphrat Museum of Art, on every first Thursday.
During the event, Stroman presented the history of hip-hop as well as his own perspectives on art and professional development.
Transcript:
0:00
SANGO LEVONIAN – LA VOZ MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Umoja hosted its “Harlem to Hip-hop” event on Feb. 25 in Conference Room A and B, featuring guest speaker McTate Stroman II, a spoken word artist and guest lecturer who also hosts monthly open mic sessions at the Euphrat Museum of Art, known as First Thursday.
During the event, Stroman presented the history of hip hop as well as his own perspectives on art and professional development.
0:24
MCTATE STROMAN II – SPOKEN WORD ARTIST AND GUEST SPEAKER: Hip-hop was created based on taking records from our parents and mixing that. It said: where there’s a gap, fill in the blanks. You don’t have to wait for anybody. And so I think students can take that same principle of do-for-self.
0:40
AFLAH ALI – 18, BUSINESS MAJOR: In the middle of him teaching a lesson, he would kind of break off into song format and he would do a short little snippet of his spoken-word talents.
0:54
STROMAN (LECTURING): And like I said, back in ‘83, to me, was the old days. I used to (unintelligible) in them hallways. Where some (unintelligible) still have all A’s. While young Tracy Murray was hitting Jays … swish.
1:11
ALI: I listened to rap and stuff, so whenever he’d kind of break out and do all the rhymes and stuff, I thought that was very interesting
1:21
STROMAN: The turnout was okay. This is Cupertino. There’s not a lot of African-American students.
I’m still going to give it my quality, my all because hey, there’s times when I was somewhere and I was like,” I’m glad I came to this event,” regardless if it was not the most popular.
1:34
LAKAYA COLLINS- 19, BUSINESS MAJOR: I would say my favorite part about today was the valuable knowledge and advice that was given
1:41
ALI: The money and the career stuff. All of that will come later, but the main thing is to really educate yourself.
That kind of brought me back to what my dad said.
Even after you get your degree in everything, it’s always good to keep on learning, never stop learning. Always keep yourself educated.
2:01
STROMAN (LECTURING): You may not know what you’re passionate about right now, but I suggest that today you start thinking about it, because as soon as you figure out what you’re passionate about, everything locks into that.
For me, I went on to study psychology, got my degree in psychology that matches what that goes with spoken word.
2:21
COLLINS: And I feel like that was really significant to me, because I feel like in my life there’s a lot of people that had different opinions on the things that I want to do– but how am I truly going to understand what I like in myself and possibly go through these new doors if I don’t experience it myself?
2:39
STROMAN (LECTURING): In high school, I ran hurdles, so obstacles ain’t nothing but hurdles. All you got to do is keep the rhythm, you know? And just keep going. When I graduated from San Jose State, I was probably 39 years old, so it’s never too late, it’s what you’re gonna do with it.
TEXT: Stroman will host First Thursday on March 5 at the Euphrat Museum of Art from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. All students are encouraged to attend.
