See You at the Crossroads: Hip Hop Scholarship at the Intersections Dialectical Harmony, Ethics, Aesthetics, and Panoply of Voices offers several essential contributions to the field of Hip Hop studies. It presents several snapshots of innovative work within (and at the intersections between) several intellectual fields of study. The collection of essays reveal the dialectical harmony and solidarity with which Hip Hop scholars, activists, and artists collectively mobilize, stand together, and collaboratively sustain in hopes of realizing social justice and actualizing global liberation. Several leading scholars in Hip Hop studies also provide insight to the aesthetic, the affordances, the ethics, and panoply of voices in Hip Hop culture. Finally, through empirical research, direct artistic engagement and critical pedagogical praxis, the contributors demonstrate how Hip Hop Based Education (HHBE) catalyzes civic engagement and democratic participation in schools through the use of democratic aesthetic tools to galvanize social change.
Using the latest research, real-world examples, and a new theory of healthy development, this book explains Hip Hop culture's ongoing role in helping Black youths to live long, healthy, and productive lives. In The Healing Power of Hip Hop, Raphael Travis Jr. offers a passionate look into existing tensions aligned with Hip Hop and demonstrates the beneficial quality it can have empowering its audience. His unique perspective takes Hip Hop out of the negative light and shows readers how Hip Hop has benefited the Black community. Organized to first examine the social and historical framing of Hip Hop culture and Black experiences in the United States, the remainder of the book is dedicated to elaborating on consistent themes of excellence and well-being in Hip Hop, and examining evidence of new ambassadors of Hip Hop culture across professional disciplines. The author uses research-informed language and structures to help the reader fully understand how Hip Hop creates more pathways to health and learning for youth and communities.
Many hiphoppas labour to sustain Hiphop Kulture in their communities far from the big stages, world tours, and hit singles enjoyed by a shockingly few American hiphoppas. The creative labour of these few mega stars is calculated in billions of dollars. But for most hiphoppas, their creative labour may never get expressed in economic terms. Instead it is expressed in social capital, the production of collective and individual subjectivities, the bonds of love that build and hold communities together, and the healing of broken hearts, broken homes, and broken neighborhoods in broken cities. Hiphop Kulture is NOT a music genre, it is MUCH more, and exploring how the sharing of aesthetic resources builds community, and how situated learning plays a necessary role in cultural sustainability draws out questions that may lead to a model of community located cultural education, and a starting point for a critical pedagogy of music. “I ain’t going to front, academics talking about hiphop scares me and often pisses me off. I’m protective about this culture like it’s my own baby because it’s meant so much to me and my close friends. In my less angry moments I do appreciate the fact that this culture still has so much to give to the rest of the world and that the next level is what we give back. Well, we need allies in this complex world to move things forward. As I’ve gotten to know Michael I consider him such an Ally and that his intent is firmly squared in empowering cats in the front lines. I also really dig the fact that he is committed to helping document the histories of those who laid the groundwork in the Edmonton scene. This is the respectful place to start. I look forward to bearing witness to Grass roots Hiphop reclaiming its voice and being at the forefront with academics supporting their community efforts.” – Stephen “Buddha” Leafloor, Founder of the Canadian Floor Masters, Founder of Blueprintforlife.ca, Ashoka Fellow, Social Worker and an aging bboy! “Dr. Michael B. MacDonald’s research into Hip Hop’s pedagogical ingenuity have not only led us to the grassroots of Hip Hop’s rich and vibrant global culture, but to the very Ethos of Hiphop. With bold examination, this exciting research stands at the forefront of contemporary post colonial Hiphop literature.” – Andre Hamilton aka Dre Pharoh, Executive Director Cipher5 Hiphop Academy, Temple of HipHop Canada
This book investigates the discursive and performative strategies employed by Australian Indigenous rappers to make sense of the world and establish a position of authority over their identity and place in society. Focusing on the aesthetics, the language, and the performativity of Hip Hop, this book pays attention to the life stance, the philosophy, and the spiritual beliefs of Australian Indigenous Hip Hop artists as ‘glocal’ producers and consumers. With Hip Hop as its main point of analysis, the author investigates, interrogates, and challenges categories and preconceived ideas about the critical notions of authenticity, ‘Indigenous’ and dominant values, spiritual practices, and political activism. Maintaining the emphasis on the importance of adopting decolonizing research strategies, the author utilises qualitative and ethnographic methods of data collection, such as semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, participant observation, and fieldwork notes. Collaborators and participants shed light on some of the dynamics underlying their musical decisions and their view within discussions on representations of ‘Indigenous identity and politics’. Looking at the Indigenous rappers’ local and global aspirations, this study shows that, by counteracting hegemonic narratives through their unique stories, Indigenous rappers have utilised Hip Hop as an expressive means to empower themselves and their audiences, entertain, and revive their Elders’ culture in ways that are contextual to the society they live in.
This long-awaited volume is the first edited collection to focus entirely on Hip Hop in Australia. Bringing together both scholarly and practitioner perspectives, across 11 chapters, contributors explore the diversity of identities, communities, practices, and expressions that make-up Hip Hop in Australia, including Emceeing/ music production, Graffiti and Breaking. The theoretical and methodological frameworks used include ethnographic and autoethnographic research and writing, discourse analysis, Indigenous methodologies, textual analysis and archival research. Some authors present their contributions in academic chapters, while others use creative formats. The book showcases how Hip Hop is understood and lived across numerous settings in Australia, making important contributions to global Hip Hop studies and scholarship in related fields such as popular music, youth culture and First Nations Studies. It will prove essential reading for students, academics, and practitioners interested in Hip Hop, social justice, popular culture, music and dance in Australia.
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.
'What is the real hip hop?' 'To whom does hip hop belong?' 'For what constructive purposes can hip hop be put to use?' These are three key questions posed by hip hop activists in Hip Hop Versus Rap, which explores the politics of cultural authenticity, ownership, and uplift in London’s post-hip hop scene. The book is an ethnographic study of the identity, role, formation, and practices of the organic intellectuals that populate and propagate this ‘conscious’ hip hop milieu. Turner provides an insightful examination of the work of artists and practitioners who use hip hop ‘off-street’ in the spheres of youth work, education, and theatre to raise consciousness and to develop artistic and personal skills. Hip Hop Versus Rap seeks to portray how cultural activism, which styles itself grassroots and mature, is framed around a discursive opposition between what is authentic and ethical in hip hop culture and what is counterfeit and corrupt. Turner identifies that this play of difference, framed as an ethical schism, also presents hip hop’s organic intellectuals with a narrative that enables them to align their insurgent values with those of policy and to thereby receive institutional support. This enlightening volume will be of interest to post-graduates and scholars interested in hip hop studies; youth work; critical pedagogy; young people and crime/justice; the politics of race/racism; the politics of youth/education; urban governance; social movement studies; street culture studies; and vernacular studies.
Christians and Christianity have been central to Hip Hop since its inception. This book explores the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop and the multiple outcomes of this intersection. It lays out the ways in which Christians and Hip Hop overlap and diverge. The intersection of Christians and Hip Hop brings together African diasporic cultures, lives, memories and worldviews. Moving beyond the focus on rappers and so-called "Christian Hip Hop," each chapter explores three major themes of the book: identifying Hip Hop, irreconcilable Christianity, and boundaries.There is a self-identified Christian Hip Hop (CHH) community that has received some scholarly attention. At the same time, scholars have analyzed Christianity and Hip Hop without focusing on the self-identified community. This book brings these various conversations together and show, through these three themes, the complexities of the intersection of Christians and Hip Hop. Hip Hop is more than rap music, it is an African diasporic phenomenon. These three themes elucidate the many characteristics of the intersection between Christians and Hip Hop and our reasoning for going beyond "Christian Hip Hop." This collection is a multi-faceted view of how religious belief plays a role in Hip Hoppas' lives and community. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religion and Hip Hop, Hip Hop, African Diasporas, Religion and the Arts, Religion and Race and Black Theology as well as Religious Studies more generally.
Made in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of twentieth-century popular music of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The volume consists of chapters by leading scholars of Australian and Aotearoan/New Zealand music, and covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Each chapter provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance to Australian or Aotearoan/New Zealand popular music. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music in these countries, followed by chapters that are organized into thematic sections: Place-Making and Music-Making; Rethinking the Musical Event; Musical Transformations: Decline and Renewal; and Global Sounds, Local Identity.
Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe is the first collection to discuss the ways in which popular music has been used cinematically, from musicals to music videos to documentary film, in Eastern Europe from 1945 to the present day. It argues that during the period of state socialism, moving image was an important tool of promoting music in the respective countries and creating popular cinema. Yet despite this importance, filmmakers who specialized in musicals lacked the social prestige of leading 'auteurs' and received little critical attention. The resulting scholarly prejudice towards pop culture created a severe shortage of critical studies of the genre. With the fall of state socialism - and with it, the need for economically viable film and media industries - brought about an unprecedented upsurge of films utilizing popular music, and a greater recognition of popular cinema as a legitimate object of study. Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe fills the gap and demonstrates why the popular music-cinema interface needs to be theorized with respect to the political, ideological, and social forces invested in popular culture.
