Digital Griots

Adam Banks' Digital Griots brings to light the issue of African American storytelling through a digital medium.  Traditions that run throughout the African American community are explored, which allow composition instructors to understand the culture at hand.  In turn, this practice has the potential to improve instruction in the classroom, specifically for African American students who struggle to identify with images that do not represent them. 

As Banks states in the following quote, he is concerned with the complete realm of griots that function to represent the African American community.       

While I'm not one to have a problem with a creative video game, I'm interested in far  more than simply the isolated techniques of scratching on a turntable or hitting a  cross-fader-for me, it is the wide range of cultural practices, multiple literacies,  rhetorical mastery, and knowledge of traditions that DJs in black traditions represent that make them griots, link them to other griotic figures, and offer a model for writing that thoroughly weaves together oral performance, print literacy, mastery and interrogation of technologies, and technologies that can lead to a renewed vision for both composition and African American rhetoric (13). 

As cultural traditions are represented through mediums of technology, theories of pedagogical practice are thus formed to include those who may be left out of the traditional classroom.  Banks mentions an important point when stating that he's more interested in the rhetorical practices of those constructing remixes.  By incorporating African American individuals who have made creative works into the classroom, students can thus see themselves in their own writing. 

One aspect of a griot is that of a storyteller. One that expresses oral traditions by memorizing stories to share amongst a sizable crowd.  One way this is still seen through the digital medium is via Def Poetry, also known as Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam.  The show featured both famous and lesser known spoken word poets.  The majority of the poets were African American.  This show allowed individuals to express themselves freely on television through the use of poetry.  The style of poetry was different from that of other forms, which shed further light on African American rhetoric. The poetry that the audience heard and saw was unique to the African American experience.  Poets presented issues of race, class, poverty, economics, and gender to a world-wide audience.  Their voices were thus heard and appreciated by a television medium that did not have such programming that predominately included African Americans, since the inception of this show.  This program explored the power of the spoken word, which relates back to the traditional griot, but in a modern digital world where millions could share in the experience.     

In a similar way, freestyle rap has also emerged onto the digital scene, which also holds a historical tradition, specifically with the original griots. Freestyle rap allows musicians to rhythmically put together lyrics off the top of their heads, otherwise known as improvisation.  Individuals who partake in such an activity express themselves through rhymes that paint various pictures of personal stories of one's past.  It is poetry in motion, and those who practice in the medium have the opportunity to express themselves freely, while making a connection to the past.  In the classroom, if students are taught the conventions of poetry, and then allowed to put theory into practice through freestyle rap, instructors receive a firsthand acknowledgement of their poetry lesson at hand. In order for a student to learn, being able to relate to the matter will help during any instructional lesson. 

Question:

Is the practice of creation democratized if certain individuals in society don't have access to devices to create with the use of technology?