Hip-Hop 101 is WSJ’s attempt to educate people who otherwise might not ever be told about what hip-hop is. The website explains that hip-hop is a culture not a genre of music. There are four elements of traditional hip-hop, MCing, DJing, break dancing and graffiti. WSJ added poetry or spoken word. Each of these five elements is explained with video, audio slide shows, even a game.
The site is well done as far as content delivery is concerned. It is well laid out, easy to navigate, and interesting to the eyes. The functionality of some of the segments of the website work better than others, I experienced some herky-jerky video on some of the pages, while other videos played flawlessly. I enjoyed the fact that they covered all four elements essentially differently. Yes, most of the coverage was a mix between video and audio slide shows, each video was shot differently, some more journalistically, some more feature-y, and some documentary style. I appreciated the fact that the people talking about the corresponding sections of the website actually lived the life they were talking about, this lends credibility to the site.
The flash work on Hip-Hop 101 looked great, but was a little difficult to control. On the video clips, they auto-played which I just personally am not a fan of, and to go forward and back in the video you had to drag a slider the size of a pin’s head, not easy. The same goes for the controls on the time line (which is cleverly disguised as a turn table). The game was a good attempt, but the audio was a bit off, which bothered me considering how true to hip-hop the website was overall.
The website is great so long as your cursor-eye coordination is good. All in all, well done to the Wisconsin State Journal, and more importantly, thank you for covering this.
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