S5E15: Hip-Hop's Influence on Medicine and Health Care

Hạ: I feel that taro is never something that's going to fail me. Taro is always a solid boba.

Harjit: Lately, I've been really just liking a basic milk tea. I love comfort food.

Hạ: Yeah.

Harjit: Well, I'm really excited you're recording with me today. Shall we start?

Hạ: Yeah, let's do it.

Harjit: Let's do this thing. Hi, everyone. Welcome to "Bundle of Hers." This is Harjit in the virtual studio. And with me today, I have Ha.

Hạ: Hello, people.

Harjit: It's just us two cutie bears. We're going to be talking about cute us stuff.

Hạ: Cutie sloths.

Harjit: Oh, cutie sloths, yes. Ha loves sloths. She's a baby sloth.

Hạ: I'm trying to master and become an adolescent sloth, eventually, hopefully.

Harjit: I know. And then you will be an adult sloth. And then you'll be an oldie sloth.

Hạ: A grandma sloth.

Harjit: A grandma sloth. I'm really excited for your sloth evolution. But I'm really excited to actually have a conversation with you today. I think it's something near both of our hearts, kind of the cultures we grew up in, in the neighborhoods that we grew up in. We wanted to talk a little bit about hip-hop.

I mean, you would probably be like, "What does hip-hop have anything to do with medicine?" I would say it has everything to do with medicine, and we'll tie those connections towards the end.

But I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about what hip-hop is. Ha, do you know what hip-hop is?

Hạ: Well, when I think about hip-hop, I think a lot about it as a huge cultural collective in a way, and I like to sometimes think of it as this big cultural reset in a sense of some communities who are from more oppressed identities coming together to be able to express themselves.

So I really see hip-hop as this form of expression, though I know that when a lot of people think about hip-hop, they think about it as the music, they think about it as rap, and about it as certain artists.

Harjit: I think that's kind of what I also have heard people say. But what is hip-hop? And I learned a lot of this through a class I took in college called Remixing Hip-Hop and Feminism. I've quoted this class before.

But basically, hip-hop was, I would say, born kind of in the 1970s in the East Coast, particularly New York. And it's really a culture, right? It's not only rapping, but it's producing music. It's about emceeing, it's about graffiti, it's about dance. There are a lot of components of hip-hop. It's just a culture, right?

And I feel like every culture has some value, or value base they always hold on to. Honestly, how I like to describe hip-hop is it's an act of resistance, right? And it's really taking these groups who are like, "We're going to reclaim our power through artistic expression." It's a way to pass on stories and narratives, which I think a lot of cultures do.

So that's when I first learned about hip-hop, and I was thinking about it and I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." I always connected to the music growing up, but I really didn't know the roots of hip-hop were so a part of the resistance, and really allowing oppressed people to have a voice.

I would venture to say this is one reason why we're doing "Bundle of Hers," is for the exact same reason, really to make a voice and create a voice. That's, I think, really what hip-hop means to me.

Hạ: You talking about it being as an act of resistance is very powerful. And it's definitely why I've continued to really love hip-hop, and I really love to explore it and to listen to it and really analyze it very deeply.

Funnily enough, my first exposure to hip-hop was, in a way, a reflection of the way that power can be taken from oppressed groups. And to clarify that a bit more is that I actually became introduced to hip-hop first through Korean music. So as a little kid, I loved K-pop. My big goal has always to get people to know more about K-pop. And I'm so happy about the K-pop revolution right now.

Harjit: Yes, you're definitely getting me into K-pop as well.

Hạ: Exactly. It's amazing. But the thing that I always tell people when I say, "I like K-pop," is that K-pop is actually a very problematic music industry. As we've discussed in "Bundle of Hers," a lot of systems can be very problematic and can be oppressive.

In the context of hip-hop, what we need to understand is that a lot of Korean music benefits from simultaneous anti-blackness and appropriation of black culture.

I got introduced to hip-hop through its appropriation, which is a very sad thing to admit. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of people got exposed to hip-hop through its appropriation too.

And similarly, once I started listening to the rap in K-pop and going, "Hey, this is so cool. I really like rap," and started to explore, trying to look for artists in the U.S. industry scene, a lot of the artists that a lot of my peers that I would hear about at the time would be artists like Eminem or Macklemore.

I'm not trying to start an argument about what's the best hip-hop music and what's the worst, but the truth is they were all white artists, when really hip-hop was built from resistance, as Harjit has said.

They were built as ways for oppressed communities, majority black, Latinx communities, to come together and really share their feelings and to really go deep into it.

And how I got exposed to hip-hop was taking that raw power and making it into something great for consumerism. And it's something that's very interesting, that that was how I fell in love with it.

But what made me stick with hip-hop was when I started getting into really exploring it deep. And I think what started it for me was, again, a different country's origin of hip-hop, and it was French music. I got really interested in French rap, because it was a good way for me to be able to learn French. And again, I loved hip-hop music by that time.

What was really interesting was that a lot of the French rap I listened to, their lyrics weren't the Korean hip-hop that I listened to, which was just always about love and about being at the top and things like that. But it was really trying to reflect the social chasm of life in the banlieues, which is the French word to describe the suburbs where a lot of the French migrants, the French people of color lived.

So it was really their lyrics, as I was trying to learn French and trying to dig deep into it, it was really about oppression, was really about trying to make it in a world that did not accept them.

If you look into French history, too, and even French current events right now, there's always racial tension. There's always ethnic tension. And that was what really solidified my love for hip-hop and why I am such a huge fan of it today.

But I think it's a very interesting dichotomy to think about. Now I love hip-hop for its actual core and its history. But a lot of the world doesn't know hip-hop that way.

Harjit: No, they don't. And I'm so happy that you brought up how you were first introduced to it was kind of the appropriation of that culture. I think there have been adaptations of that in a lot of different countries. India has a rap scene too, but it's generally the people who grew up in kind of the slums of Bombay that really . . . They were these people that were oppressed, I think, and poor, and they saw what hip-hop meant and could do. So they also started their own movements out there.

But I kind of have a little bit of a different story of how I got introduced to hip-hop. I grew up in West Valley City, which is kind of the west side of Utah. And the genre of music that was often played in junior high and high school and elementary was hip-hop. You'd hear these beats. R&B was in it a little bit too. And R&B and hip-hop have this kind of loving relationship, is what I would say. But I started listening to that music. And at my time, artists that were really popular were Jay-Z, and Kanye West, and . . .

Hạ: Missy Elliott.

Harjit: Missy Elliott. Yes, all of these people. That's kind of where I got introduced into hip-hop. And obviously, since then, I was like, "This is the music of my community."

I really never understood the power hip-hop carried until I came to college. And that's when I started listening to older folks like Tupac and Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, and really seeing how these poets and producers put together music arrangements and also utilize their voice to tell a story.

I think there was so much power in it in the way they spoke about their stories, and even their more glamorized tracks were very catchy and made you want to have a good time and feel good and feel positive. And I think that's one reason I really connected to hip-hop.

And then I realized that there's actually much more to this. There's the dancing, all the different forms of dancing, and the graffiti of hip-hop. All these expressions were coming in and I was like, "Wow, this culture is freaking amazing."

But I also heard a lot of people talk shit about it. It's not like "the classical music" or the well-read people. What I call it is the "fufu-fafa." You've probably heard me say this so many times. What I mean is it's not the thing that "the rich people" can connect with.

And I think that's what the power of hip-hop is. It can actually connect with people regardless of your gender, ethnicity, status in society. It's something that's really threading and connecting and brings together communities that really made me feel a lot of power in listening to hip-hop.

And I would go to say it is my favorite genre of music, 100% by far. And also, just like every other music, there are different types of hip-hop music. But I think the reason why that people throw a lot of shade on hip-hop is because it's an industry that was built out of an oppressed group, specifically black individuals.

I'm going to come out and say it's very like racist to be like, "Oh, my God, hip-hop is like a shitty genre." And it's like, "Yeah, but why? Why do you think that?"

Hạ: It's also very interesting, because a lot of times when people think about genre as being "premier" or "very worthy of attention," they use a lot of music analysis, right? I say this as someone who learned how to play piano, so had my thing of learning theory and learning classical music and all of that. People hold classical music to a super high standard because of the theory about the thought that had to be placed into it.

And then a lot of people see hip-hop as, "Oh, it's just these people with swag, who are throwing down rhymes, and it's so easy. Anyone can just throw down some rhymes."

But if you actually go look into . . . For instance, looking at rap, what makes a rap song good? There is so much to it. There's rhythm, there's flow, there's wordplay. People focus a lot on speed, but speed is not the only thing about it. The voice becomes this very fine-tuned instrument that's able to just switch from rhythm to rhythm, from one flow to another. Great hip-hop artists have a very distinct voice that if you listen to it, you just know, "I'm about to listen to the song from this person, and they have a very distinct style like that."

In a way, very similar to what people talk about when they listen and they go, "Oh, that's a Mozart. Oh, that's a Bach." People don't give it that much due diligence.

And for a while, similarly, when I was young and enjoying hip-hop, I was like, "Why do people look at it very differently than what I see about it and about how all the effort and thought has to be placed to really express the soul?" Which is so difficult. Why do people not see hip-hop like poetry? We spend all this time studying Shakespeare and all of that when hip-hop is, its own right, a very beautiful form of art.

And it was a very sad awakening for me to realize it's because of racism. It's because as our culture, we like to appropriate things that come from oppressed communities, particularly the black community. When we accept it or have someone who looks like the majority population does, then it's acceptable and it's interesting. But we'll never put it in the same standard as the majority population, because we will always see it as beneath because of its origin. And that's very heartbreaking to think about.

Harjit: Yeah, I actually love that you have this analysis, Ha, because I'm going to actually tie some similarities to even medical school. There's a right way to do things, but there are a lot of different ways things can be done, and you can still be a good doctor, right? And that's the same thing with music. All because it's not done in the way that you were taught or learned or went to school for doesn't mean it's not genius.

And I honestly think a lot of hip-hop artists are working hard. They're tying connections in ways that maybe someone else doesn't see, and that's why they're an artist, right? Art is really something that people put together and it's what other people take from it.

There is this huge population that loves hip-hop. I would say a majority of the population loves it, but it doesn't get the value or the worth that it deserves because I think it was, like we said, born out of communities that were oppressed, and them using it as an avenue of power, of agency, and of moving their culture forward.

When I said a lot of the places that I first learned about hip-hop were on the west side, when I say west side, it's west side of Utah. We have a main highway. It's called I-15. So basically everything west of that is considered the west side. And the biggest city I would say is West Valley, but you're from Glendale, and you grew up there, right, Ha?

Hạ: Yeah, I did. So I was at first more born and raised . . . For people who don't know the intricacies of Salt Lake neighborhoods, I was born in Poplar Grove, which is right on the border of Glendale, still west side area. And then I eventually moved to Glendale, in the area very close to West Valley.

And it's so interesting thinking about my experiences growing up in the west side, especially as I now navigate more of medical school and people who are often a bit more familiar with only the east side of Salt Lake City.

For instance, I grew up in the west side. I went to West High School, as did our former beloved Bundler, Bushra. And so West High, for me, was a very interesting mix. I was part of a program where I ended up interacting with not as many people from the west side because of the program I decided to do academically. But in the hallways, yeah, I would always hear hip-hop music playing too.

And I would always arrive at school pretty early and then stay pretty late because I didn't live in a way that public transit was easy for me to get back home, and I didn't have a car and things like that. So I would always hear that hip-hop music, too.

Harjit: Ha, when you heard hip-hop in the hallways . . . I know K-pop was kind of your introduction to hip-hop. What did you feel then when you would hear all these kids playing hip-hop in the hallways? What was your connection to hip-hop then?

Hạ: I loved hearing hip-hop music in general. But as I mentioned, being in this different academic program where a lot of the kids were from the east side or much more affluent and much more different backgrounds than I came from, sometimes it was hard for me, as this high-schooler who was just trying to fit in and do the things and feel like I was a part of my groups, to really make the connection that, "Yeah, this hip-hop music is home to me."

I love listening to hip-hop and my peers in the program that I was in also probably liked listening to hip-hop. I don't really know. We didn't talk about music that much. We talked more about school a lot of the times.

It was kind of one of those things where I didn't connect about it, and I think it took me leaving that environment and entering environments that there wasn't even a little smidge of the west side anymore for me to fall back on for me to realize there was a sense of home in those environments that I didn't realize until it was gone.

Harjit: Yeah, I love that you say that, because when I say I grew up in West Valley, it was the music in the hallways where I would hear hip-hop being blasted off and I would love it.

We had a huge Pacific Islander community, and a huge Mexican community, and they all would be in the hallways in their groups, listening to hip-hop music, and I'm like, "Wow, this is so cool."

And I remember when I started coming to college in Salt Lake, which is considered the east side, and med school, which is considered the east side, I had a cultural shock. And I remember thinking, "People don't value hip-hop the way that it was valued when I was in West Valley."

Again, it also reminded me about how people from the west side aren't valued the same as the people in the east side are, right? People would always be like, "Oh, you're from West Valley. Do you listen to a lot of hip-hop and rap?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I do." I'm freaking proud of it, right?

What I'm trying to say is it's those communities that closely tied to hip-hop because it was a cultural thing, and it allowed us to feel this agency into our stories the way no other music would relate for us, right?

Growing up in West Valley, you growing up in Glendale, I think both of us had very unique experiences when it comes to the medical school world in Salt Lake City, because a lot of our classmates aren't from the west side.

When I was a med student at The U, a lot of them weren't from the west side, and a lot of the POC that were a part of the school came from either out of state or they came from places that weren't the west side, but the east side. So their experiences were very different than mine. And that's why I feel like that's one reason why I relate so much to you as well, Ha.

Hạ: It's super cool being able to chat with you about navigating medicine as someone who does come from the west side. It's true, there's a very weird sense when I'm navigating through medical school and people say, "Oh, Salt Lake is just not that diverse." Is it because you stay on the east side where it's not that diverse versus going to the west side? You see there are so many immigrants. There are so many refugees. There's so much culture.

I remember at the clinic where I always went to for my family's healthcare and for my healthcare, it's just all people of color for the most part there. Or sometimes people will say, "Oh, I'm really scared about going to the Walmart close back to your house," and I was . . .

Harjit: Oh my god, I've heard countless times, "You're from West Valley?" And now I tell people straight up when I meet them, "I'm from West Valley, and it's the best city in Utah."

The thing is I'm reclaiming that now, but it was always looked down upon negatively. And this ties to even our conversation of hip-hop. People look at these things in a different manner because it comes from an area that doesn't have the power that it should because of white supremacy, right? And the ways that capitalism and imperialism also impact our systems, we don't get the credit we deserve.

The west side is so awesome. And it makes me so sad because I had classmates . . . And even as a resident, a lot of people will be like, "Man, Utah, there is no diversity." And I was like, "Man, you don't know. There is actually so much diversity." It's just a lot of that doesn't mix together, and that makes me really sad.

Hạ: Also, the thing is that the only time I feel that in medicine they talk about the west side is to talk about it in terms of savior sort of way.

Harjit: Oh, 100%.

Hạ: I remember one of my first few lectures I had in Population Health, they were talking about zip codes and how the zip codes were related to your mortality. Basically, they showed that, "Oh, someone who lived in the Avenues," which is a really boujee side of Salt Lake City, "will live 10 years longer than someone living in West Valley City or Glendale." And it's put as a statistic to think, "Oh, look at this healthcare disparity. We have to fix it. We have to think about it. We have to swoop in and try to save this issue."

And when they put that statistic out there first, it's done in a way that says like, "You don't expect that there's anyone in medicine who's going to relate to those statistics shown at you."

And it felt so weird seeing, "Yep, that's my area code. These are my neighbors who are a statistic right here as a comparison to talk about healthcare disparity."

And it's true, there is healthcare disparity. And there is a mistrust of the medical system here. But there's also so much more to us than just something to pity, something for you to swoop in and bring all the knowledge that you have, without really thinking or collaborating or working with us to see where we're coming from and why things are the way it is.

Harjit: Yeah. And circling back to hip-hop, why I really wanted to go and have this conversation about the west side and hip-hop, is I think there's a common thread here. And the common thread is that the value is not seen in these areas because they're not appeasing the masses or what is the standard of what is good music, what is good cultures.

I think that, really, we are storytellers from the west side. I think that's why we're so deeply connected to hip-hop, because hip-hop is storytelling. It's narrative based. And that's why I think it's heavily connected to medicine. I think it's from hip-hop that I learned about the intricacies that our social aspects of our lives have on our biological systems. And it was through that that I think I've been able to become a better provider.

Hạ: I like a lot of what you expressed, and I feel that you said it quite beautifully. And I think the other thing is I just connect with hip-hop and I love hip-hop because I see it as a way for me to always remember about different forms of expression and different forms of stories.

I think that hip-hop also reminds me the power that you can have if you give the person the agency to tell their story and have their voice in the way that they want it to be told. And that's something that I always carry with me or I hope to always carry with me when I interact with patients, because I want them to be the agents of telling their story.

Harjit: And I think that's exactly what hip-hop is, right? It encourages that agency. And it's something that I hope my future patients also utilize, is their agency.

You and I both, actually, were on the episode about healthcare clinics and I think it ties really well to this topic, about the saviorism and understanding that agency is power and hip-hop is powerful.

And I am so grateful that I was immersed in that culture. I was born into that culture because of where I was from. Being from West Valley is my biggest advantage in my life, I think, here especially and even as a doctor, and it's something that I never, ever will take for granted.

Hạ: Yeah. For me, yeah, I was born into the west side. I was born into being surrounded by the genre. But for me, it was a lot of having to learn to love the genre on the genre's terms and not on the terms of a lens that others have created for it. And it's been a lot about reclaiming and about getting back to the roots.

Harjit: Right, because it's so "in" to like hip-hop these days.

Hạ: Yeah. And similarly, I feel like sometimes it's "in" or cool to seem "ghetto" and things like that and use slang and all of that. But there's also a weird shame to it, too, when you're actually from it . . .

Harjit: A hundred percent.

Hạ: . . . and you're someone who doesn't have the privilege or the identities that give you the privilege to turn it off when you want to.

It's something that I always had to balance with, and that's why having these conversations with people like you and also being able to be exposed to conversations about these things has really helped me grow into myself.

And with all of that, I hope our listeners, as they're listening to this, really interrogate about, "When I like something, am I liking it on the original terms? Am I liking it more on the terms of a more white supremacist lens?" and to really go back to their roots and to really unpack a lot of that, because I think then you're able to really appreciate things for its great depths.

Harjit: Yeah, definitely. I'm so happy I had this conversation with you. And just talking about the west side, talking about hip-hop as a culture, us finding our own agency, I think that's where I started to learn about my agency. It makes me so happy that we were able to do this episode.

And our original Bundler, Bushra, we used to talk a lot about the west side as well. And I miss her on "Bundle of Hers."

I just wish that this is something that becomes kind of more prevalent of a conversation in the way that we view people from the west side, the way we view hip-hop, and the power that it has.

So with that, thank you so much for listening to "Bundle of Hers." I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Please visit us at bundleofhers.com and listen to us on any platform.

You can also find us on Instagram @bundleofhers, and leave any comments you have about this episode, any thoughts. We'd love to know what you're thinking and how you feel about hip-hop. Maybe share some of your favorite songs and we can share that on our Stories. I think that's it.

Hạ: Farewell.

Harjit: Farewell, people. Please listen to your favorite hip-hop song.