Kenrick Wagner, Assistant Instructor of Commercial Music: Hip-hop still as transcendent 50 years later - BayNews 9

TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Black Heritage Music Fest is happening this weekend at Curtis Hixon Park.

Ahead of that, Friday night, the festival features a panel discussion, 50 Years of Hip Hop: Past, Present & Future, with the help of the University of South Florida (USF)’s director of the Contemporary and Commercial Music program at the School of Music.

The panel discussion is at 7 p.m. Friday night at USF.

Spectrum News sat down with Kenrick Wagner, who runs the USF program.

He gave a lesson on hip-hop and rap at Grand Bay Recording Studios in Tampa.

“And there’s one other thing that I talk about in my classes,” said Wagner to his students as they prepared for a recording session. “I want you to really focus on how fast you’re able to capture the main idea of the song.”

He also taught techniques from his trade.

Along with the class, Spectrum News listened to a creation by one of the students, Truman Hoang, who goes by his artistic name, Truman VP.

He is the president of USF’s hip-hop club.

Instructor Wagner explained why hip-hop transcends social groups and communities.

“A lot of the things that we say in the music, we say it in the music because in other spaces and places it may not resonate as strongly as it would,” said Wagner. “Unless we have a fly beat behind it.”

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