Norton said she appreciated the opportunity to debate with older members of the community about the influences of hip hop music and culture on her and her peers.
“It’s not very often that people our age actually have a say in stuff,” Norton said. “[People] think that we are too immature to understand what’s going on in our world.”
At the end of the event, current BMF President Brandon M. Terry ’05 said he thinks voters “largely neglect” local and state politics.
“What I hope people took away from the event is that there needs to be a redefinition of minority, youth and urban politics that combines a more sophisticated policy agenda with a bipartisan bargaining approach,” he said.
Ashong, the HHYPER founder, described this summer’s NHHPC as an alternative to the Republican and the Democratic National Conventions.
According to the NHHPC website, the goals of the convention will be to adopt and endorse a political agenda geared toward the needs of the country's young people.
“We’ll see if the hip hop generation can prove to the rest of the nation how this country should be run,” Ashong said.
—Staff writer Andrew C. Esensten can be reached at esenst@fas.harvard.edu.1>