New York Puerto Ricans have been an integral part of hip hop culture since the very beginning: from 1970s pioneers like Rock Steady Crew's Jo-Jo, to recent rap mega-stars Big Punisher and Angie Martinez. Yet, Puerto Rican participation and contributions to hip hop is frequently downplayed, if not completely ignored. When their presence has been acknowledged, it is usually misinterpreted as a defection from Puerto Rican culture and identity into the African American camp. But, Rivera argues, nothing could be further from the truth. Through hip hop, Puerto Ricans have simply stretched the boundaries of Puerto Ricanness and latinidad.

This insightful biography looks at the turbulent lives, groundbreaking music and lyrics, and powerful brand of hip hop's infamous Wu-Tang Clan. The Wu-Tang Clan and RZA: A Trip through Hip Hop's 36 Chambers chronicles the rise of the Wu-Tang Clan from an underground supergroup to a globally recognized musical conglomerate. Enhanced by the author's one-on-one interviews with group members, the book covers the entire Wu-Tang Clan catalog of studio albums, as well as albums that were produced or heavily influenced by producer/rapper RZA. Wu-Tang Clan's albums are analyzed and discussed in terms of their artistry as well as in terms of their critical, cultural, and commercial impact. By delving into the motivation behind the creation of pivotal songs and albums and mining their dense metaphor and wordplay, the book provides an understanding of what made a team of nine friends and relatives from Staten Island with a love of Kung Fu movies into not just a music group, but a powerful cultural movement. A chronology of important events and milestones pertaining to the Wu-Tang Clan Photographs of the group and its individual members A glossary of slang words and colloquial jargon used in Wu-Tang Clan's lyrics

The Word Rhythm Dictionary: A Resource for Writers, Rappers, Poets, and Lyricists is a new kind of dictionary-one that reflects the use of "rhythm rhymes" by rappers, poets, and songwriters of today. This is an eminently practical reference work for all wordsmiths looking to add musicality to their writing. Users of this dictionary can alphabetically look up words in the General Index to find collections of words that have the same rhythm as the original word and are readily useable in ways that are familiar to us in everything from vers libre poetry to the lyrics and music of Bob Dylan and hip hop groups. Professional writers and students have long used traditional rhyming dictionaries for inspiration by perusing lists of rhyming words; they may ask themselves, "I need a word that rhymes with blue," and are led to shoe, flu, or you. These rhyming words evoke through juxtaposition new images, thoughts, and actions that inspire creative directions and pleasing twists as verses and stanzas unfold. For the first time ever, this dictionary now allows writers and poets to ask the same question, but of word rhythm- "I need a word with the same rhythm as butterfly. . . . " Today's lyricists and poets know that there is so much more to the flow of their creations than just matching vowels. The Word Rhythm Dictionary organizes words by additional properties: phonetic similarity (alliteration and literary consonance), the number of syllables in words, and syllable stress patterns. Never has it been easier to locate words that feature similar sounds, matching meters, and rhythmic grooves, from traditional rhymes like "clashing" and "splashing," to near rhymes like "rollover" and "bulldozer," "unrefuted undisputed" to pure metrical matches, like "biology" and "photography." Additional appendixes allow readers to search according to poetic metrical feet and musical rhythm through a visual index of notated rhythms, allowing musicians and lyricists to track down words that match preexisting motives and melodies. This book could become the new fun addiction (or... addiction affliction...constriction conviction...conniption prescription...subscription conscription) for writers, musicians, lyricists, rappers, poets, and wordsmiths alike. Oh, and it's a lot of fun just to browse!

This book explores the two major reasons for hip-hop culture's proliferation throughout the world: 1) the global centrality of African American popular culture and the transnational pop culture industry of record companies and entertainment conglomerates; and 2) "connective marginalities" that are extant social inequalities forming the foundation for an "underground" network of hip-hop communities. Both of these levels of hip-hop's global circulation are based in the youth culture's Africanist aesthetic, which is an extension of previous black artistic expressions such as verbal word play, polyrhythmic dance improvisations, radical juxtapositions of musical structures, and the folkloric trickster figure. Additionally, the text explores computer technology and the internet in this age of information that also serves hip-hop culture's globalization.

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\: *{behavior: url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name: "Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow: yes; mso-style-parent: "; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";}

From youth violence, to the impact of high stakes educational testing, to editorial hand wringing over the moral failures of hip-hop culture, young people of color are often portrayed as gang affiliated, "troubled," and ultimately, dangerous. The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back examines how youth activism has emerged to address the persistent inequalities that affect urban youth of color. Andreana Clay provides a detailed account of the strategies that youth activists use to frame their social justice agendas and organize in their local communities.

Based on two years of fieldwork with youth affiliated with two non-profit organizations in Oakland, California, The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back shows how youth integrate the history of social movement activism of the 1960s, popular culture strategies like hip-hop and spoken word, as well as their experiences in the contemporary urban landscape, to mobilize their peers. Ultimately, Clay's comparison of the two youth organizations and their participants expands our understandings of youth culture, social movements, popular culture, and race and ethnic relations.

'It's a hip-hop bible' Ghostface Killah, Wutang Clan In Hip Hop Raised Me. (R) , DJ Semtex examines the crucial role of hip-hop in society today, and reflects on the huge influence it has had on his own life, and the lives of many others, filling in the gaps of education that school left behind, providing inspiration and purpose to generation after generation of disaffected youths. Taking a thematic approach and featuring seminal interviews he has conducted with key hip-hop artists, Semtex traces the characteristics and influence of hip-hop from its origins in the early 1970s with DJ Kool Herc's Block parties in the South Bronx, through its breakthrough to the mainstream and advent of gangsta rap in the late 1980s, with artists such as Run DMC, Public Enemy and Ice T, to the impact of contemporary artists and the global industry that is hip-hop today. Hip-hop artists have gone from hustlers to successful entrepreneurs and businessmen. Hip-hop has come of age.

Arising from the street corners and underground clubs, Rebel Music: Resistance through Hip Hop and Punk, challenges standardized schooling and argues for equity, peace, and justice. Rebel Music is an important, one-of-a-kind book that takes readers through fun, radical, educational chapters examining Hip Hop and Punk songs, with each section addressing a particular social issue. Rebel Music values the experiences found in both movements as cultural capital that is de-valued in the current oppressive, standard, test-driven, rule-bound, and corporate schooling experience, making youth "just another brick in the wall." This collection is a "rebel yell" to administrators, teachers, parents, police, politicians, and counsellors who demonize Hip Hop and Punk to listen up and respect youth culture. Finally, Rebel Music is a celebration of radical voices and an organizing tool for those who use music to challenge oppression.

Drawing on the culture's history before and after the birth of rap music, this book argues that the values attributed to Hip Hop by 'postmodern' scholars stand in stark contrast with those that not only implicitly guided its aesthetic elements, but are explicitly voiced by Hip Hop's pioneers and rap music's most consequential artists. It argues that the structural evacuation of the voices of its founders and organic intellectuals in the postmodern theorization of Hip Hop has foreclosed the culture's ethical values and political goals from scholarly view, undermining its unity and progress. Through a historically informed critique of the hegemonic theoretical framework in Hip Hop Studies, and a re-centering of the culture's fundamental proscription against 'biting,' this book articulates and defends the aesthetic and ethical values of Hip Hop against their concealment and subversion by an academic discourse that merely 'samples' the culture for its own reactionary ends.

Born To Kwaito considers the meaning of kwaito music now. ‘Now’ not only as in ‘after 1994’ or the Truth Commission but as a place in the psyche of black people in post-apartheid South Africa.

This collection of essays tackles the changing meaning of the genre after its decline and its ever-contested relevance. Through rigorous historical analysis as well as threads of narrative journalism Born To Kwaito interrogates issues of artistic autonomy, the politics of language in the music, and whether the music is part of a strand within the larger feminist movement in South Africa. Candid and insightful interviews from the genre’s foremost innovators and torchbearers, such as Mandla Spikiri, Arthur Mafokate, Robbie Malinga and Lance Stehr, provide unique historical context to kwaito music’s greatest highs, most captivating hits and most devastating lows. Born To Kwaito offers up a history of the genre from below by having conversations not only with musicians but with fans, engineers, photographers and filmmakers who bore witness to a revolution.

Living in a place between criticism and biography, Born To Kwaito merges academic theories and rigorous journalism to offer a new understanding into how the genre influenced other art forms such as fashion, TV and film. The book also reflects on how some of the music’s best hits have found new life through the mouths of local hip-hop’s current kingmakers and opened kwaito up to a new generation.

The book does not pretend to be an exhaustive history of the genre but rather a present-active analysis of that history as it settles and finds its meaning.

People Magazine"Shady Bizzness was disturbing and intense! It was like a good scary movie!" MSNBC"It was brilliantly written!" Book DescriptionThis story is based on the factual ills of "white rapper" and Hip-Hop phenomenon, "Eminem." "Shady Bizzness" tell about real life events of his public and private lifestyle. The book details the good times, hardships, drug abuse, domestic violence, scandals, sex, near-death experiences, murder, oppression of employees and bitter betrayl. "Shady Bizzness" is everything a parent despises, thugs love, groupies lust over, and wives hate!

Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi is one of the first book-length studies of Malawian hip hop. It studies the language and content of contemporary Malawian hip hop as a window onto the country's youth culture as Malawian young people negotiate what scholar Alcinda Honwana calls 'waithood,' or the condition, common among Malawian youth, of lacking opportunities to advance from a situation of dependence and being stuck in a state of relative childhood. The book argues that rap music made by Malawian youth music speaks of - and represents, through its very agency - their need to break out of this stagnant state. After situating Malawian hip hop with respect to both other musical genres in the country and to the nation's language in culture, Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi shows how Malawian youth use rap music to create a sense of community, which then becomes a foothold from which they can do activities that get them out of waithood and into the adult world, such as getting involved in the music industry, realizing electoral power, or participating in activism about issues such as violence against people with albinism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Hip hop has been a crucial tool for Malawian youth to build the skills, identity, and agency necessary to exercise their economic, cultural, and civic independence.

View the Table of Contents. Read Chapter 1.

aIn her book, Cheney tries to dispel the notion that all rap music is about sex, violence and bling. . . . The book is insightfulaparticularly to white Americans who don't get the appeal of Louis Farrakhan or to older African-Americans whose knowledge of black music stops at Smokey Robinson. After reading this book, both groups might at least be tempted to sample some Public Enemy music.a
--"The San Luis Obispo Tribune"

aA lively, unique, and often revisionist perspective on the sexual politics of hip-hop culture.a
--William L. Van Deburg, author of "New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965a1975"

"A study of rap singers of the 1980s and 90s that sets their political expression in the context of the racial and sexual politics of black nationalism since the early 19th century."
--"The Chronicle"

a[A] must read for anyone interested in the problems of gender and politics in rap music. Charise Cheney combines an historianas insight with an expansive knowledge of hip-hop culture to produce this remarkable study of the rise of artists influenced by black nationalismathe self-proclaimed araptivists.a Cheney dives head-on into the contentious debates regarding the articulations of masculinity and black nationalism in rap, and how these reflect black Americansa age-old desire for power and authority. A vital contribution."
--Jane Rhodes, author of "Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon"

aA provocative analysis that no one will be able to ignore. A compelling challenge to consider the ways that patriarchy has influenced the movement for blackself-determination.a--"Choice," Highly recommended

Brothers Gonna Work It Out considers the political expression of rap artists within the historical tradition of black nationalism. Interweaving songs and personal interviews with hip-hop artists and activists including Chuck D of Public Enemy, KRS-One, Rosa Clemente, manager of dead prez, and Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers, Cheney links late twentieth-century hip-hop nationalists with their nineteenth-century spiritual forebears.

Cheney examines Black nationalism as an ideology historically inspired by a crisis of masculinity. Challenging simplistic notions of hip-hop culture as simply sexist or misogynistic, she pays particular attention to Black nationalists' historicizing of slavery and their visualization of male empowerment through violent resistance. She charts the recent rejection of Christianity in the lyrics of rap nationalist music due to the perception that it is too conciliatory, and the increasing popularity of Black Muslim rap artists.

Cheney situates rap nationalism in the 1980s and 90s within a long tradition of Black nationalist political thought which extends beyond its more obvious influences in the mid-to-late twentieth century like the Nation of Islam or the Black Power Movement, and demonstrates its power as a voice for disenfranchised and disillusioned youth all over the world.

How has Hanguk (South Korean) hip hop developed over the last two decades as a musical, cultural, and artistic entity? How is hip hop understood within historical, sociocultural, and economic matrices of Korean society? How is hip hop represented in Korean media and popular culture? This book utilizes ethnographic methods, including fieldwork research and life timeline interviews with fifty-three influential hip hop artists, in order to answer these questions. It explores the nuanced meaning of hip hop in South Korea, outlining the local, global, and (trans)national flows of musical and cultural exchanges. Throughout the chapters, Korean hip hop is examined through the notion of buran-personal and societal anxiety or uncertainty-and how it manifests in the dimensions of space and place, economy, cultural production, and gender. Ultimately, buran serves as a metaphoric state for Hanguk hip hop in that it continuously evolves within the conditions of Korean society.

Hip-hop as survivor testimony? Rhymes as critical text? Drawing on her own experiences as a lifelong hip-hop head and philosophy professor, Lissa Skitolsky reveals the existential power of hip-hop to affect our sensibility and understanding of race and anti-black racism. Hip-Hop as Philosophical Text and Testimony: Can I Get a Witness? examines how the exclusion of hip-hop from academic discourse around knowledge, racism, white supremacy, genocide, white nationalism, and trauma reflects the very neoliberal sensibility that hip-hop exposes and opposes. At this critical moment in history, in the midst of a long overdue global reckoning with systemic anti-black racism, Skitolsky shows how it is more important than ever for white people to realize that our failure to see this system-and take hip-hop seriously-has been essential to its reproduction. In this book, she illustrates the unique power of underground hip-hop to interrupt our neoliberal and post-racial sensibility of current events.

From Biggie to Pac, Lil' Kim to Lauryn Hill, Hip-Hop Legends Alphabet features an A-Z of the OG MCs, DJs, and lyrical masterminds behind the freshest flows and dopest beats in music history. Written and illustrated to introduce hip-hop greats to a new generation of fans.

This is the definitive biography of rap supergroup and cultural icons, Wu-Tang Clan (WTC). Heralded as one of the most influential groups in modern music-hip hop or otherwise-WTC created a rap dynasty on the strength of seven gold and platinum albums that launched the careers of such famous rappers as RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and more. During the '90s, they ushered in a hip-hop renaissance, rescuing rap from the corporate suites and bringing it back to the gritty streets where it started. In the process they changed the way business was conducted in an industry known for exploiting artists. Creatively, Wu-Tang pushed the boundaries of the artform dedicating themselves to lyrical mastery and sonic innovation, and one would be hard pressed to find a group who's had a bigger impact on the evolution of hip hop. S.H. Fernando Jr., a veteran music journalist who spent a significant amount of time with The Clan during their heyday of the '90s, has written extensively about the group for such publications as Rolling Stone, Vibe, and The Source. Over the years he has built up a formidable Wu-Tang archive that includes pages of unpublished interviews, videos of the group in action in the studio, and several notepads of accumulated memories and observations. Using such exclusive access as well as the wealth of open-source material, Fernando reconstructs the genesis and evolution of the group, delving into their unique ideology and range of influences, and detailing exactly how they changed the game and established a legacy that continues to this day. The book provides a startling portrait of overcoming adversity through self-empowerment and brotherhood, giving us unparalleled insights into what makes these nine young men from the ghetto tick. While celebrating the myriad accomplishments of The Clan, the book doesn't shy away from controversy-we're also privy to stories from their childhoods in the crack-infested hallways of Staten Island housing projects, stints in Rikers for gun possession, and million-dollar contracts that led to recklessness and drug overdoses (including Ol' Dirty Bastard's untimely death). More than simply a history of a single group, this book tells the story of a musical and cultural shift that started on the streets of Shaolin (Staten Island) and quickly spread around the world. Biographies on such an influential outfit are surprisingly few, mostly focused on a single member of the group's story. This book weaves together interviews from all the Clan members, as well as their friends, family and collaborators to create a compelling narrative and the most three-dimensional portrait of Wu-Tang to date. It also puts The Clan within a social, cultural, and historical perspective to fully appreciate their impact and understand how they have become the cultural icons they are today. Unique in its breadth, scope, and access, From The Streets of Shaolin is a must-have for fans of WTC and music bios in general.

Why do rap MCs present their studio recorded lyrics as "live and direct"? Why do they so insistently define abilities or actions, theirs or someone else's, against a pre-existing signifier? This book examines the compositional practice of rap lyricists and offers compelling answers to these questions. Through a 40 year-span analysis of the music, it argues that whether through the privileging of chanted call-and-response phrases or through rhetorical strategies meant to assist in getting one's listening audience open, the focus of the first rap MCs on community building and successful performer-audience cooperation has remained prevalent on rap records with lyrics and production techniques encouraging the listener to become physically and emotionally involved in recorded performances. Relating rap's rhetorical strategy of posing inferences through intertextuality to early call-and-response routines and crowd-controlling techniques, this study emphasizes how the dynamic and collective elements from the stage performances and battles of the formative years of rap have remained relevant in the creative process behind this music. It contends that the customary use of identifiable references and similes by rap lyricists works as a fluid interchange designed to keep the listener involved in the performance. Like call-and-response in live performances, it involves a dynamic form of communication and places MCs in a position where they activate the shared knowledge of their audience, making sure that they "know what they mean," thus transforming their mediated lyrics into a collective and engaging performance.

The Organic Globalizer is a collection of critical essays which takes the position that hip-hop holds political significance through an understanding of its ability to at once raise cultural awareness, expand civil society's focus on social and economic justice through institution building, and engage in political activism and participation. Collectively, the essays assert hip hop's importance as an "organic globalizer:" no matter its pervasiveness or reach around the world, hip-hop ultimately remains a grassroots phenomenon that is born of the community from which it permeates. Hip hop, then, holds promise through three separate but related avenues: (1) through cultural awareness and identification/recognition of voices of marginalized communities through music and art; (2) through social creation and the institutionalization of independent alternative institutions and non-profit organizations in civil society geared toward social and economic justice; and (3) through political activism and participation in which demands are articulated and made on the state. With editorial bridges between chapters and an emphasis on interdisciplinary and diverse perspectives, The Organic Globalizer is the natural scholarly evolution in the conversation about hip-hop and politics.

Grime music has been central to British youth culture since the beginning of the 21st century. Performed by MCs and DJs, it is an Afrodiasporic form that developed on street corners, on pirate radio and at raves. Level Up: Live Performance and Creative Process in Grime Music offers the first long-form ethnographic study of grime practice; it questions how and why artists do what they do; and it asks what this can tell us about creative process and improvisation more widely. Based on research conducted from 2015 to 2020 in London's grime scene-facilitated by the author's long-standing role as a DJ and broadcaster-this book explores the form's emergence before taking a magnifying glass to the contemporary scene and its performance protocol, exploring the practice of key artists and their crews living and working in the city. The resultant model of creative interaction provides a comprehensive mapping of collective social learning in London's informal cityscape, offering new ways to conceptualise improvisatory practice within ensembles.

This book fills the gap in existing literature by exploring other forms of political discourses in non-Western rap music. Theoretically, it challenges and explores resistance, arguing towards the need for different epistemological frameworks in which to look at narratives of cultural resistance in the Arabic-speaking world. Empirically, it provides an in-depth look at the politics of rap culture in Morocco. Rap Beyond Resistance bridges the humanities and social sciences in order to de-Westernize cultural studies, presenting the political narratives of the Moroccan rap scene beyond secular liberal meanings of resistance. By exploring what is political, this book brings light to a vibrant and varied rap scene diverse in its political discourses-with an emphasis on patriotism and postcolonial national identity-and uncovers different ways in which young artists are being political beyond 'radical lyrics'.

This volume recognizes the need for culturally responsive forms of school counseling and draws on the author's first-hand experiences of working with students in urban schools in the United States to illustrate how hip-hop culture can be effectively integrated into school counseling to benefit and support students. Detailing the theoretical development, practical implementation and empirical evaluation of a holistic approach to school counseling dubbed "Hip-Hop and Spoken Word Therapy" (HHSWT), this volume documents the experiences of the school counsellor and students throughout a HHSWT pilot program in an urban high school. Chapters detail the socio-cultural roots of hip-hop and explain how hip-hop inspired practices such as writing lyrics, producing mix tapes and using traditional hip-hop cyphers can offer an effective means of transcending White, western approaches to counseling. The volume foregrounds the needs of racially diverse, marginalized youth, whilst also addressing the role and positioning of the school counselor in using HHSWT. Offering deep insights into the practical and conceptual challenges and benefits of this inspiring approach, this book will be a useful resource for practitioners and scholars working at the intersections of culturally responsive and relevant forms of school counseling, spoken word therapy and hip-hop studies.