Young people in London have contributed to the production of a distinctively British rap culture. This book moves beyond accounts of Hip-Hop's marginality and shows, with an examination of the production, dissemination and use of rap in London, how this cultural form plays an important role in the everyday lives of young Londoners and the formation of identities. Through in-depth interviews with a range of leading and emerging rap artists, close analysis of rap music tracks, and over two years of ethnographic research of London's UK Hip-Hop and Grime scenes, the author examines how black and white urban youths use rap to come together to explore their creative abilities. By combining these methodological approaches in the development of a critical participant observation, the book reveals how the collaborative work of these urban youths produced these politically significant subcultures, through which they resist unfair and illegitimate policing practices and attempt to develop their economic autonomy in a city marred by immense social and economic inequalities.

In 2015 FOX's Empire became a worldwide phenomenon shattering records for a new primetime black television series with 15 million viewers weekly, dominating social media, and being hailed as the savior of mainstream television. With its unique depictions of the family, the music industry, feminism, masculinity, LGBTQ issues, race, mental illness, and the American Dream, Empire, a hip-hopera inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear and the 1980s soap opera Dynasty, is at the forefront of a renaissance in black popular culture. Its success sparked a revolution in new programming created by and starring African-Americans between 2015 and 2017. Nevertheless, Empire is the most polarizing television series in the black community. Is Empire shifting paradigms with its depiction of blackness or promoting destructive stereotypes? This critical study analyzes the multifaceted issues presented in Empire's first three seasons from an interdisciplinary perspective. It assesses Empire's role in the evolution of black images on television and other mediums of popular culture by examining past and present diverse bodies of literature and media, analytical data, and discussions on respectability. Finally, it evaluates Empire's influence on black empowerment in Hollywood and the potency of these images in American race relations today.

The New York Times bestselling memoir from the legendary Gucci Mane spares no detail in this "cautionary tale that ends in triumph" (GQ). For the first time Gucci Mane tells his extraordinary story in his own words. It is "as wild, unpredictable, and fascinating as the man himself" (Complex). The platinum-selling recording artist began writing his remarkable autobiography in a federal maximum security prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive-a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past. A critically acclaimed classic, The Autobiography of Gucci Mane "provides incredible insight into one of the most influential rappers of the last decade, detailing a volatile and fascinating life...By the end, every reader will have a greater understanding of Gucci Mane, the man and the musician" (Pitchfork).

Posthuman Rap listens for the ways contemporary rap maps an existence outside the traditional boundaries of what it means to be human. Contemporary humanity is shaped in neoliberal terms, where being human means being viable in a capitalist marketplace that favors whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, and fixed gender identities. But musicians from Nicki Minaj to Future to Rae Sremmurd deploy queerness and sonic blackness as they imagine different ways of being human. Building on the work of Sylvia Wynter, Alexander Weheliye, Lester Spence, LH Stallings, and a broad swath of queer and critical race theory, Posthuman Rap turns an ear especially toward hip hop that is often read as apolitical in order to hear its posthuman possibilities, its construction of a humanity that is blacker, queerer, more feminine than the norm.

She's at the Controls gives a socio-historical examination of the roles of women studio professionals in the UK music industry. At the heart of the book are interviews conducted over six years with 30 female studio practitioners at different stages of their careers and working in different genres of popular music including reggae, hip hop and pop. The edited interviews are followed by an in-depth exploration of the often unseen and unacknowledged gender rules of music industry practice (both personal and technical) that underpin popular music etiquette. A range of supporting material from academic works to technical publications and popular music journalism is used to expand and critique the discourse. She's at the Controls will appeal to everyone interested in new developments in the music industry, as it recalibrates itself in response to current challenges to its traditional gender stereotypes.

Luister na die braste, wat kruisbeen oppie trap sit. Behalwe entertainment, kry ’n taste wat Afrikaaps is! Aitsa, sy boots het stars .. Aitsa, hy’s soe die star ... Aitsa, gloe dis waar .. Hy’s John Wayne in Afrikaans! Sy kop in die wolke ... en sy voete stewig op die aarde. Dit is HemelBesem. In hierdie boek nooi die gewilde kletsrymer jou om saam te stap op sy lewenspad. Hy gesels reguit oor die dinge wat hom gevorm het, die sake wat hom na aan die hart le ... en hy doen dit in die taal van sy hart. Afrikaans. Oor sy Afrikaans se hy: “Afrikaans is ’n groot deel van wie ek is. Dis die taal waarin ek my in oomblikke van woede kras uitgedruk het. Dis die taal waarin ek goed gese het terwyl ek baklei het, waaroor ek agterna spyt was. Dis die taal waarin ek liefkosing uitgedruk en ontvang het ... As Ma geskel het, of jy bang was ... dis alles momente, en alle momente vorm my bestaan.” Daarom nooi hy met hierdie boek lesers om ’n ander Afrikaans te leer ken. Elke hoofstuk het Afrikaanse uitdrukkings uit sy grootword- en leefwereld as vertrekpunt, en dit is vervleg met sy bekende kletsrym-lirieke waarmee hy vlymskerp kommentaar lewer op maatskaplike kwessies en dinge wat hom na aan die hart le.

Detroit, Michigan, has long been recognized as a center of musical innovation and social change. Rebekah Farrugia and Kellie D. Hay draw on seven years of fieldwork to illuminate the important role that women have played in mobilizing a grassroots response to political and social pressures at the heart of Detroit's ongoing renewal and development project. Focusing on the Foundation, a women-centered hip hop collective, Women Rapping Revolution argues that the hip hop underground is a crucial site where Black women shape subjectivity and claim self-care as a principle of community organizing. Through interviews and sustained critical engagement with artists and activists, this study also articulates the substantial role of cultural production in social, racial, and economic justice efforts.

"Can I kick it?" "Yes you can!" -A Tribe Called Quest Situated squarely in the oral traditions of hip-hop and BreakBeat Poetry, Idris Goodwin's work bridges the divide between the reader and the poet. Combining the tongue-in-cheek and the irreverent with the melancholy and incisive, Goodwin's poetry samples and re-purposes pop-culture-from Back to the Future to Prince, Missy Elliot to Dominique Wilkins-in order to reflect and remix the stories we tell ourselves and each other in order to live.

Edited by two recognized scholars of African-American religion and culture, this reader, the first of its kind, provides the essential texts for an important and emerging field of study religion and hip hop. Until now, the discipline of religious studies lacked a consistent and coherent text that highlights the developing work at the intersections of hip hop, religion and theology. Moving beyond an institutional understanding of religion and offering a multidimensional assortment of essays, this new volume charts new ground by bringing together voices who, to this point, have been a disparate and scattered few. Comprehensively organized with the foundational and most influential works that continue to provide a base for current scholarship, "The Hip Hop and Religion Reader "frames the lively and expanding conversation on hip hop s influence on the academic study of religion."

Dr. Dre. Snoop Dogg. Ice Cube. Some of the biggest stars in hip hop made their careers in Los Angeles. And today there is a new generation of young, mostly black, men busting out rhymes and hoping to one day find themselves "blowin' up"--getting signed to a record label and becoming famous. Many of these aspiring rappers get their start in Leimart Park, home to the legendary hip hop open-mic workshop Project Blowed. In Blowin' Up, Jooyoung Lee takes us deep inside Project Blowed and the surrounding music industry, offering an unparalleled look at hip hop in the making. While most books on rap are written from the perspective of listeners and the market, Blowin' Up looks specifically at the creative side of rappers. As Lee shows, learning how to rap involves a great deal of discipline, and it takes practice to acquire the necessary skills to put on a good show. Along with Lee--who is himself a pop-locker--we watch as the rappers at Project Blowed learn the basics, from how to hold a microphone to how to control their breath amid all those words. And we meet rappers like E. Crimsin, Nocando, VerBS, and Flawliss as they freestyle and battle with each other. For the men at Project Blowed, hip hop offers a creative alternative to the gang lifestyle, substituting verbal competition for physical violence, and provides an outlet for setting goals and working toward them. Engagingly descriptive and chock-full of entertaining personalities and real-life vignettes, Blowin' Up not only delivers a behind-the-scenes view of the underground world of hip hop, but also makes a strong case for supporting the creative aspirations of young, urban, black men, who are often growing up in the shadow of gang violence and dead-end jobs.

In 1997 the rap group Racionais MCs (the 'Rational' MCs) recorded the album Sobrevivendo no Inferno (Surviving in Hell), subsequently changing the hip-hop scene in Sao Paulo and firmly establishing itself as the point of reference for youth across Brazil. In an era when rappers needed to defend the very idea that their work was indeed music and a time when neighborhoods such as Capao Redondo, from where Racionais frontman Mano Brown hailed, often topped homicide statistics, Sobrevivendo empowered as it provoked. As one journalist noted, "the underworld of Sao Paulo's working-class suburbs is dominated by cheap thrills and provides little space for representation." Sobrevivendo changed all of that; a brutal but invigorating imagination was born. The lure of Sobrevivendo is the particular combination of word and sound that powerfully involves listeners, especially those millions of young Brazilians who live in the neighborhoods on the periphery of Brazil's megacities. This book celebrates the 25-year anniversary of Sobrevivendo by representing the album's power not only within the hip-hop community but also in other cultural domains such as cinema and literature. The author also provides his own narrative spins on the sentiment of Sobrevivendo, thus making the book a creative mix of cultural analysis and inspired testimony.

Breaking the global record for streams in a single day, nearly 10 million people around the world tuned in to hear Kendrick Lamar's sophomore album in the hours after its release. To Pimp a Butterfly was widely hailed as an instant classic, garnering laudatory album reviews, many awards, and even a canonized place in Harvard's W. E. B. Du Bois archive. Why did this strangely compelling record stimulate the emotions and imaginations of listeners? This book takes a deep dive into the sounds, images, and lyrics of To Pimp a Butterfly to suggest that Kendrick appeals to the psyche of a nation in crisis and embraces the development of a radical political conscience. Kendrick breathes fresh life into the Black musical protest tradition and cultivates a platform for loving resistance. Combining funk, jazz, and spoken word, To Pimp a Butterfly's expansive sonic and lyrical geography brings a high level of innovation to rap music. More importantly, Kendrick's introspective and philosophical songs compel us to believe in a future where, perhaps, we gon' be alright.

In his exciting new book, based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Maurice Magana considers how urban and migrant youth in Oaxaca embrace subcultures from hip-hop to punk and adopt creative organizing practices to create meaningful channels of participation in local social and political life. In the process, young people remake urban space and construct new identities in ways that directly challenge elite visions of their city and essentialist notions of what it means to be indigenous in the contemporary era. Cartographies of Youth Resistance is essential reading for students and scholars interested in youth politics and culture in Mexico, social movements, urban studies, and migration.

For more than two decades, le hip hop has shown France's "other" face: danced by minorities associated with immigration and the suburbs, it has channeled rage against racism and unequal opportunity and offered a movement vocabulary for the expression of the multicultural difference that challenges the universalist discourse of the Republic. French hip-hoppers subscribe to black U.S. culture to articulate their own difference but their mouv' developed differently, championed by a Socialist cultural policy as part of the patrimoine culturel, instituted as a pedagogy and supported as an art of the banlieue. In the multicultural mix of "Arabic" North African, African and Asian forms circulating with classical and contemporary dance performance in France, if hip hop is positioned as a civic discourse, and hip hop dancer as legitimate employment, it is because beyond this political recuperation, it is a figural language in which dancers express themselves differently, figure themselves as something or someone else. French hip hop develops into concert dance not through the familiar model of a culture industry, but within a Republic of Culture; it nuances an "Anglo-Saxon" model of identity politics with a "francophone" post-colonial identity poetics and grants its dancers the statut civil of artists, technicians who develop and transmit body-based knowledge. This book- the first in English to introduce readers to the French mouv' -analyzes the choreographic development of hip hop into la danse urbaine, touring on national and international stages, as hip hoppeurs move beyond the banlieue, figuring new forms within the mobility brought by new media and global migration.

This expansive collection sets the stage for the next generation of Hip Hop scholarship as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the movement's origins. Celebrating 50 years of Hip Hop cultural history, Freedom Moves travels across generations and beyond borders to understand Hip Hop's transformative power as one of the most important arts movements of our time. This book gathers critically acclaimed scholars, artists, activists, and youth organizers in a wide-ranging exploration of Hip Hop as a musical movement, a powerful catalyst for activism, and a culture that offers us new ways of thinking and doing freedom. Rooting Hip Hop in Black freedom culture, this state-of-the-art collection presents a globally diverse group of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, Arab, European, North African, and South Asian artists, activists, and thinkers. The "knowledges" cultivated by Hip Hop and spoken word communities represent emerging ways of being in the world. Freedom Moves examines how educators, artists, and activists use these knowledges to inform and expand how we understand our communities, our histories, and our futures.

It's all about the scratch in Groove Music, award-winning music historian Mark Katz's groundbreaking book about the figure that defined hip-hop: the DJ. Today hip-hop is a global phenomenon, and the sight and sound of DJs mixing and scratching is familiar in every corner of the world. But hip-hop was born in the streets of New York in the 1970s when a handful of teenagers started experimenting with spinning vinyl records on turntables in new ways. Although rapping has become the face of hip-hop, for nearly 40 years the DJ has proven the backbone of the culture. In Groove Music, Katz (an amateur DJ himself) delves into the fascinating world of the DJ, tracing the art of the turntable from its humble beginnings in the Bronx in the 1970s to its meteoric rise to global phenomenon today. Based on extensive interviews with practicing DJs, historical research, and his own personal experience, Katz presents a history of hip-hop from the point of view of the people who invented the genre. Here, DJs step up to discuss a wide range of topics, including the transformation of the turntable from a playback device to an instrument in its own right, the highly charged competitive DJ battles, the game-changing introduction of digital technology, and the complex politics of race and gender in the DJ scene. Exhaustively researched and written with all the verve and energy of hip-hop itself, Groove Music will delight experienced or aspiring DJs, hip-hop fans, and all students or scholars of popular music and culture.

Germany in the Loud Twentieth Century seeks to understand recent German history and contemporary German culture through its sounds and musics, noises and silences, using the means and modes of the emerging field of Sound Studies. German soundscapes present a particularly fertile field for investigation and understanding, Feiereisen and Hill argue, due to such unique factors in Germany's history as its early and especially cacophonous industrialization, the sheer loudness of its wars, and the possibilities of shared noises in its division and reunification. Organized largely but not strictly chronologically, chapters use the unique contours of the German aural experience to examine how these soundscapes - the sonic environments, the ever-present arrays of noises with which everyone lives - ultimately reveal the possibility of "national" sounds. Together the chapters consider the acoustic national identity of Germany, or the cultural significance of sounds and silence, since the development and rise of sound-recording and sound-disseminating technologies in the early 1900s Chapters draw examples from a remarkably broad range of contexts and historical periods, from the noisy urban spaces at the turn of the twentieth century to battlefields and concert halls to radio and television broadcasting to the hip hop soundscapes of today. As a whole, the book makes a compelling case for the scholarly utility of listening to them. An online "Bonus Track" of teaching materials offers instructors practical tips for classroom use.

As one of the most influential and popular genres of the last three decades, rap has cultivated a mainstream audience and become a multimillion-dollar industry by promoting highly visible and often controversial representations of blackness. Sounding Race in Rap Songs argues that rap music allows us not only to see but also to hear how mass-mediated culture engenders new understandings of race. The book traces the changing sounds of race across some of the best-known rap songs of the past thirty-five years, combining song-level analysis with historical contextualization to show how these representations of identity depend on specific artistic decisions, such as those related to how producers make beats. Each chapter explores the process behind the production of hit songs by musicians including Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, The Sugarhill Gang, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, N.W.A., Dr. Dre, and Eminem. This series of case studies highlights stylistic differences in sound, lyrics, and imagery, with musical examples and illustrations that help answer the core question: can we hear race in rap songs? Integrating theory from interdisciplinary areas, this book will resonate with students and scholars of popular music, race relations, urban culture, ethnomusicology, sound studies, and beyond.

At its most intimate, music heals our emotional wounds and inspires us; at its most public, it unites people across cultural boundaries. But can it rebuild a city? Renowned music writer John Swenson asks that question with New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans, a story about America's most colorful and troubled city and its indominable will to survive. Under sea level, repeatedly harangued by fires, crime, and most devastatingly, by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has the potential to one day become a "New Atlantis," a lost metropolis under the waves. But this threat has failed to prevent its stalwart musicians and artists from living within its limits, singing its praises and attracting the economic growth needed for its recovery. New Atlantis records how the city's jazz, Cajun, R&B, Bourbon Street, second line, brass band, rock and hip hop musicians are reconfiguring the city's unique artistic culture, building on its historic content while reflecting contemporary life in New Orleans. New Atlantis is a city's tale made up of citizen's tales. It's the story of Davis Rogan, a songwriter, bandleader and schoolteacher who has become an integral part of David Simon's new HBO series Treme (as compelling a story about New Orleans as The Wire was about Baltimore). It's the story of trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, who lost his father in the storm and has since become an important political and musical force shaping the future of New Orleans. It's the story of Bo Dollis Jr., chief of the Wild Magnolias Mardi Gras Indians, as he tries to fill the shoes of his ailing father Bo Dollis, one of the most charismatic figures in Mardi Gras Indian history. It is also the author's own story; each musician profiled will be contextualized by Swenson's three-decades-long coverage of the New Orleans music scene.

In recent decades, poetry slams and the spoken word artists who compete in them have sparked a resurgent fascination with the world of poetry. However, there is little critical dialogue that fully engages with the cultural complexities present in slam and spoken word poetry communities, as well as their ramifications. In Killing Poetry, renowned slam poet, Javon Johnson unpacks some of the complicated issues that comprise performance poetry spaces. He argues that the truly radical potential in slam and spoken word communities lies not just in proving literary worth, speaking back to power, or even in altering power structures, but instead in imagining and working towards altogether different social relationships. His illuminating ethnography provides a critical history of the slam, contextualizes contemporary black poets in larger black literary traditions, and does away with the notion that poetry slams are inherently radically democratic and utopic. Killing Poetry-at times autobiographical, poetic, and journalistic-analyzes the masculine posturing in the Southern California community in particular, the sexual assault in the national community, and the ways in which related social media inadvertently replicate many of the same white supremacist, patriarchal, and mainstream logics so many spoken word poets seem to be working against. Throughout, Johnson examines the promises and problems within slam and spoken word, while illustrating how community is made and remade in hopes of eventually creating the radical spaces so many of these poets strive to achieve.

This title explores a key hip hop album marking the cross over point where the streets and the charts collided. Contradiction the simultaneous existence of two competing realities and larger than life persona are at the core of "Nas' Illmatic". Yet Nas' identity - as an inner-city youth, a child of hip hop and a Black American - predicts those philosophical quandaries as much as it does its brazen ambition. The artistic impact of Illmatic was massive. The record finds its place in the greatest transition in hip hop up to that point. Along with the Wu Tang Clan's debut from the previous year, Illmatic put New York back on the map after a long period of West coast, G-funk dominance. Nas also mapped out the laid-back lyrical style that would usher in the modern era of hip hop. "33 1/3" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.

Trip-hop described some of the 1990s' best music, and it was one of the decade's most revealing bad ideas. The music itself was an intoxication of beats, bass, and voice. It emerged amid the social tensions of the late 1980s, and as part of hip-hop's rise to global dominance. It carried the innovations of Jamaican soundsystem culture, the sweet refuge of Lovers Rock, the bliss of club jazz dancefloors and post-rave chill-out rooms. It went mainstream with Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, DJ Shadow, Kruder & Dorfmeister, and Bjoerk; and with record labels like Ninja Tune and Mo' Wax. To the artists' despair, the music was tagged with a silly label and packaged as music for the boutique and the lounge; made respectable with awards and acclaim. But the music at its best still sounds experimental and dramatic; and its influence lingers through artists like FKA twigs, Sevdaliza, James Blake, Billie Eilish, and Lana Del Rey. This short book is a guide to 'trip-hop' in its context of the weird 1990s: nostalgia and consumerism; pre-millenium angst and lo-fi technology; casual exoticism amid accelerating globalization and gentrification. This book presents a survey of the music and its leading artists, packed with recommended listening, essential tracks, great remixes, and under-recognized albums.