Over winter break, the thesis took a slight turn. One day while foraging for diner, a friend brought up my thesis. He said that he liked where I was going with it, but felt that I was holding back. A lot of what I was talking about was black culture and how it has been stolen over a number of years. I agreed, but honestly didn't know how to address this without being clumsy. Around the same time, another friend of mine introduced me to this video:

After watching this I was sold. My thesis would be about hip-hop design. I came to the conclusion that i cannot talk about helping the youth with their identity problems while ignoring the disproportionate number of issues that youth of color face. This also could not be done, by saving punk, hip-hop, etc. from the big bad Corporation. Instead I wanted to save identity by placing markers of identity out there in the world. A person of Italian decent walks down the street of Chicago, they may see show rooms full of italian inspired furniture. When a person of Greek heritage walk down the street, they see many types of greek inspired architecture. When I walk down the street I see nothing which represents my heritage. Perhaps if Hip-hop grew into a larger culture, encompassing architecture, design, science, etc., this could change. I would like to produce things that represent an inclusive hip-hop culture.