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Hip-Hop culture’s explosive arrival on the art scene of New York
in the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx in the 1970s began to
influence all aspects of musical theater from singing to scenic
design. Hip-Hop in Musical Theatre takes an intersectional
standpoint to explore Hip-Hop’s influence on musical theater
practice and aesthetics by giving the reader a comprehensive map of
musical theater productions that have been impacted by Hip-Hop
music and culture. Offering insightful briefs on musical theater
productions that contain aesthetic, musical and embodied references
to the global phenomenon of Hip-hop culture, this volume takes the
reader through a virtual tour of Hip-Hop’s influence on American
musical theater. From early traces of hip-hop’s rap scene in the
1970s that appeared in musicals such as Micki Grant’s Tony Award
nominated Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope (1971) and Broadway
smash hits such as The Wiz (1974) to international juggernauts such
as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton (2015), this introductory book
decodes the sights and sounds of Hip-Hop culture within the
socio-cultural context in which the musicals are produced.
Published in the Topics in Musical Theatre series this volume
presents fact-filled and insightful summaries of musicals that give
the reader a snapshot of the musical and narrative content while
highlighting which aspect of the music and culture of Hip-Hop
informs acting, dancing, singing, design, and music in the selected
musical while offering insightful analysis on the ways that hip-hop
styles and politics have changed the shape of musical theater
practice.
Black Matters: Lewis Morrow Plays is a play anthology that maps the
impact of emotional, social, cultural, and economic forces that
shape the quality of African American life in the 21st century.
Focusing on the narratives of Black men and women carrying the
hopes and dreams of a generation, Morrow writes stories of dreams
deferred, lives incarcerated, and families broken by circumstance
who strive to beat the stereotypes of Blackness. Bending time to
create hyperreal poetic engagements with anti-Blackness and
systemic racism, Morrow questions who has the audacity of hope
while living within circumstances that anticipate premature death.
Morrow's poignant characters speak truth to power directly from
their hearts as they present as unapologetically Black in a world
that is indifferent to, and fatigued by, claims of racism and
inequality. Baybra's Tulips: Baybra, a recently rereleased convict,
returns home to live with sister Tallulah and her husband Charles
under the pretence of rehabilitation but with the objective to
avenge his sister's spousal abuse by his brother-in-law that
resulted in the loss of her child. Begetters: Explores generational
inheritance of trauma focusing on husband and wife, Spicer and
Norma, in the twilight years of their marriage, and their descent
into darkness and therapy after the loss of a family member
Mother/son: A dark dramedy about a white mother who is in denial
about her racist perspective and her cocaine addiction. Forced to
get clean, she comes to live with her Black son (mixed race) who is
reluctant to invest in her latest efforts to get clean in the
converging pandemics of BLM and Covid.
The diva – a central figure in the landscape of contemporary
popular culture: gossip-generating, scandal-courting,
paparazzi-stalked. And yet the diva is at the epicentre of creative
endeavours that resonate with contemporary feminist ideas, kick
back against diminished social expectations, boldly call-out casual
sexism and industry misogyny and, in terms of hip-hop, explores
intersectional oppressions and unapologetically celebrates
non-white cultural heritages. Diva beats and grooves echo across
culture and politics in the West: from the borough to the White
House, from arena concerts to nightclubs, from social media to
social activism, from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter. Diva: Feminism
and Fierceness from Pop to Hip-Hop addresses the diva phenomenon
and its origins: its identity politics and LGBTQ+ components; its
creativity and interventions in areas of popular culture (music,
and beyond); its saints and sinners and controversies old and new;
and its oppositions to, and recuperations by, the establishment;
and its shifts from third to fourth waves of feminism. This
co-edited collection brings together an international array of
writers – from new voices to established names. The collection
scopes the rise to power of the diva (looking to Mariah Carey,
Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, Grace Jones, and Aaliyah), then
turns to contemporary diva figures and their work (with Beyoncé,
Amuro Namie, Janelle Monáe, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Shakira,
Jennifer Lopez, and Nicki Minaj), and concludes by considering the
presence of the diva in wider cultures, in terms of gallery
curation, theatre productions, and stand-up comedy.
Black Matters: Lewis Morrow Plays is a play anthology that maps the
impact of emotional, social, cultural, and economic forces that
shape the quality of African American life in the 21st century.
Focusing on the narratives of Black men and women carrying the
hopes and dreams of a generation, Morrow writes stories of dreams
deferred, lives incarcerated, and families broken by circumstance
who strive to beat the stereotypes of Blackness. Bending time to
create hyperreal poetic engagements with anti-Blackness and
systemic racism, Morrow questions who has the audacity of hope
while living within circumstances that anticipate premature death.
Morrow's poignant characters speak truth to power directly from
their hearts as they present as unapologetically Black in a world
that is indifferent to, and fatigued by, claims of racism and
inequality. Baybra's Tulips: Baybra, a recently rereleased convict,
returns home to live with sister Tallulah and her husband Charles
under the pretence of rehabilitation but with the objective to
avenge his sister's spousal abuse by his brother-in-law that
resulted in the loss of her child. Begetters: Explores generational
inheritance of trauma focusing on husband and wife, Spicer and
Norma, in the twilight years of their marriage, and their descent
into darkness and therapy after the loss of a family member
Mother/son: A dark dramedy about a white mother who is in denial
about her racist perspective and her cocaine addiction. Forced to
get clean, she comes to live with her Black son (mixed race) who is
reluctant to invest in her latest efforts to get clean in the
converging pandemics of BLM and Covid.
Sampling and Remixing Blackness is a timely and accessible book
that examines the social ramifications of cultural borrowing and
personal adaptation of Hip-hop culture by non-Black and non-African
American Black artists in theater and performance. In a cultural
moment where Hip-hop theater hits such as Hamilton offer glimpses
of Black popular culture to non-Black people through musical
soundtracks, GIFs, popular Hip-hop music, language, clothing,
singing styles and embodied performance, people around the world
are adopting a Blackness that is at once connected to African
American culture--and assumed and shed by artists and consumers as
they please. As Black people around the world live a racial
identity that is not shed, in a cultural moment of social unrest
against anti-blackness, this book asks how such engagements with
Hip-hop in performance can be both dangerous and a space for
finding cultural allies. Featuring the work of some of the
visionaries of Hip-hop theater including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sarah
Jones and Danny Hoch, this book explores the work of groundbreaking
Hip-hop theater and performance artists who have engaged Hip-hop's
Blackness through popular performance. The book challenges how we
understand the performance of race, Hip-hop and Blackness in the
age of Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. In a cultural moment where
racial identity is performed through Hip-hop culture's resistance
to the status quo and complicity in maintaining it, Hodges Persley
asks us to consider who has the right to claim Hip-hop's blackness
when blackness itself is a complicated mixtape that offers both
consent and resistance to transgressive and inspiring acts of
performance.
Sampling and Remixing Blackness is a timely and accessible book
that examines the social ramifications of cultural borrowing and
personal adaptation of Hip-hop culture by non-Black and non-African
American Black artists in theater and performance. In a cultural
moment where Hip-hop theater hits such as Hamilton offer glimpses
of Black popular culture to non-Black people through musical
soundtracks, GIFs, popular Hip-hop music, language, clothing,
singing styles and embodied performance, people around the world
are adopting a Blackness that is at once connected to African
American culture--and assumed and shed by artists and consumers as
they please. As Black people around the world live a racial
identity that is not shed, in a cultural moment of social unrest
against anti-blackness, this book asks how such engagements with
Hip-hop in performance can be both dangerous and a space for
finding cultural allies. Featuring the work of some of the
visionaries of Hip-hop theater including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sarah
Jones and Danny Hoch, this book explores the work of groundbreaking
Hip-hop theater and performance artists who have engaged Hip-hop's
Blackness through popular performance. The book challenges how we
understand the performance of race, Hip-hop and Blackness in the
age of Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. In a cultural moment where
racial identity is performed through Hip-hop culture's resistance
to the status quo and complicity in maintaining it, Hodges Persley
asks us to consider who has the right to claim Hip-hop's blackness
when blackness itself is a complicated mixtape that offers both
consent and resistance to transgressive and inspiring acts of
performance.
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