Questions of race, relationships and rage on campus were recently raised through hip hop inside Dinkytown’s Varsity Theater when The Hip Hop Committee, an unofficial student group, put on the dialogue and spoken word based production, “HOW IT IS: The Space Between You And Everyone Else,” at the end of March.

The production, based on interviews with college students from all over the country, touched on many “gray areas,” says senior Toussaint Morrison, writer, co-director, actor and head of the Hip Hop Committee. Scenes include: a frat rejecting a biracial student and accusing him of carrying drugs; a theater professor allowing students to laugh at racist jokes in class; and a male student beating his girlfriend outside of a party, after which she protects him from getting beaten up by someone else.

“The scenes are really common, but still they’re really racy scenarios,” says sophomore Shirani Jayasuriya, co-director and actor. “Toussaint sparks some nerves and then lets the audience deal with it,” she explains.

Morrison says the production is meant to “paint a better picture of how things are, rather than how they could be.” He explains, “I don’t want to prescribe behavior or demand tolerance or some kind of bullshit like that … I just want to create a discussion that will go outside the theater.”

To introduce this discussion to audiences, Morrison spent close to $600 of his student loans on the production, after spending more than two months writing the script. The Hip Hop Committee does not receive student fees because it is technically an “expired” group, having not applied for fees on time, Morrison explains. Morrison applied and qualified for a grant from the university’s Crisis Point Theatre, but due to editorial disagreements about the nature of the production, and its posters, he declined the money.

Morrison says he is not concerned about earning his investment back, although he admits it would be nice. “The event is a lot bigger than making back my finances … it’s about getting people to come in to see it,” he says. Encouraging audiences “to come see it,” is the point of the Hip Hop Committee itself, Morrison explains.

The Hip Hop Committee is a sort of “logo,” Morrison says. Although 20 actors were in the production, the student group “is basically nobody other than me,” he admits. The group does have a few official members he says, and around 25 people are active in various events, but the title serves primarily to publicly legitimize Morrison’s own hip hop endeavors. Other hip hop ventures include his Friday night shows at the Steak Knife and last year’s hip hop production.

Morrison says having the official seal of a student group helps him bring hip hop back into Dinkytown. This show “is one of the first hip hop ventures to come back in theater.” According to Morrison, a few years ago Bon Appetit (a restaurant, now closed) was a hot spot for hip hop, until the Dinkytown Business Association labeled hip hop “un-American” and “volatile.” This motivated Morrison to start the Hip Hop Committee and shop his rap and spoken word around other venues. Morrison is also in a band, The Blend.

Though Morrison will not be at the university next year, he says the Hip Hop Committee will be up and running, and he plans to guide it and continue getting new people involved. First-year theater and psychology major Patricia Kugmeh, who acted in the play, says she got involved because “it was going to open eyes to some things going on on campus and I wanted to be a part of that.”

Opening eyes was not only a goal of the production, but also the very nature of the medium—hip hop. Jayasuriya says that “it’s a common misconception … that hip hop is just rap, spoken word … dancing … beats.” In introducing the production, Morrison quoted Tricia Rose, author of Black Noise, who defined hip hop as a way to share voices from “the margins of urban America.” The production—denied a university grant, a stage at the Rarig Center, class credit to those involved, and even rehearsal space—expresses a marginalized voice, Morrison says. Founder and President of the “one man committee,” Morrison concluded the play in true hip hop fashion, saying, “even though they may not see your stories, I’ll make sure they hear them until we wake up.”

Tags: Dinkytown, Hip Hop