I Feel Conflicted: Hip Hop Yoga
Baby yogis. Here’s a little throwback to rooftop yoga with Jess Tara at W Hollywood.
Much to our dismay, cultural appropriation continues to be a trending topic, especially in the worlds of make-up and fashion. But, when we came across a hip hop yoga class, full of faces that didn’t mirror our own, we felt challenged to take an in-depth look at cultural appropriation in our own industry, fitness.
We’ve been open about our on-again, off-again relationship with yoga. It was a little rocky in the beginning, but now a necessary tool in recovery. Yoga boasts many benefits we love: increased flexibility and muscle strength, more energy, and a set time to unplug and focus on the one task in front of us. In fact, one of our goals this year is simply to do more yoga. If you ever downloaded a Fit with Finesse playlist, then it is no secret that we love hip hop and R&B. So naturally, we gravitate towards classes and instructors that give us a little beat and a lot of soul, yoga included. We get our OM on best to mix of Old Kanye, J. Cole, SZA, Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd.
In fact, the aforementioned Hip Hop Yoga class was probably our best experience to date. The room was full, everyone was in their own zone, and the playlist was filled with hard, old school rap: “Oochie Wally” by Nas, “She’s a Bitch” by Missy Elliott and even a little DMX. We loved it!
But here is the thing, we were also the only persons of color in the room, opening the door for internal conflict and a lot of conversation.
Music is the great connector, right?
We know that as a culture, we cannot restrict this shared experience of meeting on our mats, and flowing to a little Jay Z, just to our community and culture. We even acknowledge that we are borrowing the practice of yoga from another culture all together. Even in our conversation, as we debated back and forth, we talked about how we wished there was a great hip hop yoga class we could visit every week. We also can’t deny that we’ve move our hips to Zumba and have taken more than a few Bollywood dance classes.
But let’s be real, for a lot of women of color doing yoga, or any class for that matter, it can be a little awkward to hear certain lyrics in an environment that doesn’t look like you. We talked early on the blog about the lack of diversity in yoga and experiences. Since launching Fit with Finesse, we’ve been introduced to some amazing black yoga instructors. We know the gap of black instructors and access for the black community is still wide, but closing.
Namaste? No, NamasDrake!
Let’s Talk About It
This topic has been debated before. While some feel hip hop yoga is an example of cultural appropriation, others feel hip hop as a genre is now global and inclusive. At our core, we are not two people who believe in existing in silos, shutting ourselves off from different cultures and experiences, so should this be any different?
We would love to hear from you! What are your feelings? Do you feel yoga is a space for anything other than soft, mellow background noise? Is hip hop yoga cultural appropriation? Would you feel different and more accepting if the instructor were black? Or is it just a place to meet on a mat with persons who have the same taste in music? Sound off in the comments below, or on our IG page.
Love,
CaCera & Shawnie