At once the most lucrative, popular, and culturally oppositional
musical force in the United States, hip hop demands the kind of
interpretation Imani Perry provides here: criticism engaged with
this vibrant musical form on its own terms. A scholar and a fan,
Perry considers the art, politics, and culture of hip hop through
an analysis of song lyrics, the words of the prophets of the hood.
Recognizing prevailing characterizations of hip hop as a
transnational musical form, Perry advances a powerful argument that
hip hop is first and foremost black American music. At the same
time, she contends that many studies have shortchanged the
aesthetic value of rap by attributing its form and content
primarily to socioeconomic factors. Her innovative analysis revels
in the artistry of hip hop, revealing it as an art of innovation,
not deprivation.Perry offers detailed readings of the lyrics of
many hip hop artists, including Ice Cube, Public Enemy, De La Soul,
krs-One, OutKast, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Tupac Shakur, Lil' Kim,
Biggie Smalls, Nas, Method Man, and Lauryn Hill. She focuses on the
cultural foundations of the music and on the form and narrative
features of the songs-the call and response, the reliance on the
break, the use of metaphor, and the recurring figures of the
trickster and the outlaw. Perry also provides complex
considerations of hip hop's association with crime, violence, and
misogyny. She shows that while its message may be disconcerting,
rap often expresses brilliant insights about existence in a society
mired in difficult racial and gender politics. Hip hop, she
suggests, airs a much wider, more troubling range of black
experience than was projected during the civil rights era. It
provides a unique public space where the sacred and the profane
impulses within African American culture unite.
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