Hip hop

1. Hip-Hop Music and Culture

2. What is Hip-Hop?
• Hip-Hop is a phenomenological term viewed
by Black youth as an ideological way of life
centered on emotional catharsis

3. • Even though Rap was born in the ghetto, it addresses
issues a lot of kids across America (and the world) are
dealing with—anger, alienation, hypocrisy, sex and
drugs—all the basics
• Kids of all colors, all over the world, instinctively seek
to change the world. They usually have this desire
because they don’t want to buy into dominant values
of the mainstream.
• Rappers want to change the world to suit their vision
and to create a place for themselves in it. So kids can
find a way into Hip-Hop by staying true to their instinct
toward rebellion and change

4. Hip-Hop has changed the world
• Hip-Hop has taken something from the
ghetto and made it global. It has become
the creative touchstone for edgy,
progressive, and aggressive youth culture
around the world.

5. More on Hip-Hop
• Hip-Hop, in crude and innovative ways, frames
Black youth’s perspectives of social injustice in
local communities and in their personal lives
• Young Black America uses hip-hip as a cathartic
space in which to discuss personal issues as well
as larger social structural concerns
• Put simply, hip-hop offers a nontraditional way
for Black psychologists to understand the
psychology of Black youth, especially those from
urban environments.

6. Theoretical Framework: Hip-Hop As a
Site of Resiliency
• A site of resiliency theoretical analysis argues that a
“street life” context offers particular psychological and
physical spaces that operate in tandem to produce a
site of strength, community, and, ultimately, resilience
for street-life-oriented Black men
• Although this theory could assess various street-life-
oriented populations, it was explicitly conceived to
frame Black men in the streets, who are at the center
of various literatures concerning their relationship to
and effect on education, employment, drug policy, and
the criminal justice system

7. Site of Resiliency: cont.
• Hip-hop is conceptualized as a spectrum of behaviors
that typically manifest in the following five identities:
– MC or Rapper
– DJ or social organizer
– Dancer
– Street/Graffiti Artist
– Knowledge Bearer or Intellectual
• These identities were established by the hip-hop
community to give itself structural framing. They are
also the necessary lens through which to understand
the use of hip-hop by Black youth and adults

8. • The authors’ analysis of hip-hop in young Black
America focuses on a particular genre of hip-hop:
street-life-oriented hip-hop music and culture
• It is important to note that hip-hop is a culture
initially developed by and for street-life-oriented
Black men
• Although various populations engage in hip-hop,
much of the music and culture are still centered
on the experiences, stories, and overall values of
street-life-oriented black men

9. Historical Origins of Hip-Hop
• The spirit of hip-hop can be traced to the musical
expressions of the Griots of West Africa, who often
participated in the West African Bardic tradition
• Bards were though to hold the capacity to manifest the
spirit of nyama—the transference of positive and/or
negative energy through speech, music, and bodily
movement
• Bards partook in a system of poetry and folklore known
as the Animal Trickster Tales, which by way of slave
trade, made its way to the southern parts of the United
States

10. Historical Origins of Hip-Hop cont.
• After the Civil War, Blacks continued to share
tales or songs of oppression throughout the
juke joints, taverns, “hot suppers,” and
churches of the South
• Black migration during the 1800s moved this
spirit of expression to the northern states
• This feeling of expression along with Bad Men
Tales (stories of Black belonging primarily to
low-income families) developed into hip-hop

11. Social Structural Stage for the
Development of Hip-Hop
• Hip-hop culture was created in response to a
plethora of social structural issues that deeply
impacted the Black community in the late 1960s
and 1970s, some of which include the following:
– Vietnam war
– Inner-city race riots
– Rise and fall of the Black Power movement
– Severe economic recession
– Major cocaine and heroin epidemic
– Prevalence of gang activity
– Mass incarceration of Black men

12. Social Structural Stage for the
Development of Hip-Hop cont.
• Hip-hop scholars argue that the social structural
challenges of the 1970s specifically resulted in
the de-funding of vital art-based programs,
community centers, and a variety of other
community-based programs
• These programs had formally reduced Black
youth’s presence in the streets by offering them a
way to channel and discipline their energy
• The loss of these programs led to increasing
levels of drug use and interpersonal violence

13. Social Structural Stage for the
Development of Hip-Hop cont.
• Ultimately the DJ became prominent in the 1970s
• The hip-hop DJ became exceptionally popular for
“spinning” at block parties as well as social events
in local parks, where oftentimes they illegally
plugged their equipment into nearby lampposts
• The social structural tension of the 1970s
paradoxically provided the necessary bedrock for
hip-hop to emerge

14. Phases of Hip-Hop in the Black
Community
• Hip-hop has been demarcated into at least 4
waves or time periods:
– Disco Hip-Hop Era
– First Golden Era
– Second Golden Era
– Bling-Bling Era

15. Disco Hip-Hop Era
• Also termed “Old School”
• Represents the first period of hip-hop culture
• Mid 1970s to early to mid 1980s
• Emphasis during this period was a party of
social event, thus bringing rise to the DJ, break
dancer, and/or B (break)-boy and –girl

16. First Golden Era
• Second period of hip-hop culture
• Generally considered to span between 1983 and 1990
• In the early to mid-1980s, the music and the artist
made a distinct shift in image and sound
• The dominant image of hip-hop during this period
reflected to a greater extent the younger version of the
more serious, explicitly masculine, street dimension of
the black community
• This period consisted of artists such as Ice T, Public
Enemy, Run DMC, Salt-n-Pepa, Kid-n-Play, and MC
Hammer

17. Second Golden Era
• Third wave of hip-hop
• Spanned from the late 1980s to mid-1990s
• During this period, “gangsta,” “hardcore,” or
street-life-oriented hip-hop became the mainstay
• From this point on, the experiences of street-life-
oriented Black men dominate the discourse of
hip-hop music and culture
• The music ideally was expected to mimic and
capture the pain the Black artists had
experienced in their life

18. Bling-Bling Era
• Fourth and most recent era of hip-hop music
• Late 1990s to present
• During this period, music at large was viewed as a
gratuitous demonstration of materialistic,
misogynistic, and violent messages
• Black youth and young adults in larger numbers
had developed an interest in more ownership of
the music as well as entrepreneurial expansion in
the larger entertainment industry

19. Where Does Hip-Hop Live in the
Academy?
• It should be noted that hip-hop has no
particular academic home
• Hip-hop also is not located in any particular
academic discipline
• At a fundamental level, hip-hop requires an
academic home receptive of an
interdisciplinary approach and/or mixed
methodologies

20. Where Does Hip-Hop Live in the
Academy? cont.
• A variety of methods have been used to examine hip-
hop. Theoretical, philosophical, historical, and
polemical techniques have been the dominant
methods used for analysis
• Raw data typically are collected and analyzed using
three methods:
– Quantitative methods: specifically, randomized and
nonrandomized survey and archival techniques
– Qualitative methods: includes various types of narrative
and content analysis of lyrics
– Formal experimental designs: recently, more researchers
have decided to actually interview rappers and other
members of hip-hop culture

21. Is Hip-Hop Really Dead?
• Hip-hop has been pronounced dead since its birth
in the 1970s. This notion of hip-hop being dead has
most recently been given a face by rapper NaS’s
2006 album release, titled Hip-Hop Is Dead.
• This subsequent furor has been productive in
galvanizing artists to prove that hip-hop culture is
still important and relevant
• The three chief concerns raised that speak to the
death and not resiliency of hip-hop in general are:
– The increase in violent and misogynistic songs
– Hip-hop’s deep cooperation and collusion with
corporate America
– The overall declining sales of hip-hop music

22. Hip-Hop as a Site of Economic
Opportunity
• A number of people have countered the “death” thesis by
noting the entrepreneurial ingenuity demonstrated by
members of the hip-hop community as evidence of hip-
hop’s will to thrive in the face of overwhelming criticism.
• Street rappers come to hip-hop not only to express social
concerns in their lives and communities, but also to
establish notions of resiliency through acquiring economic
opportunity
• Jay-Z’s (Shawn Carter) hip-hop career is a great example of
how hip-hop is pursued as an economic site of resiliency by
street-life-oriented Black men
– An admitted former drug dealer, Carter has developed one of
the most successful business empires known to not only hip-
hop but also the entertainment industry at large