Suggested Readings | hip-hop-conference

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Hip Hop Studies Readings

Hip Hop America Hip Hop America is the definitive account of the society-altering collision between black youth culture and the mass media.	Say Word Voices From Hip Hop Theater Say Word! Voices from Hip Hop Theater collects eight works by contemporary artists who confront today's compelling issues, ranging from racial profiling and police brutality to women's empowerment and from the commercial exploitation of Hip Hop to identity politics.	Don't Stop, Won't Stop In a post-civil rights era rapidly transformed by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop gave voiceless youths a chance to address these seismic changes, and became a job-making engine and the Esperanto of youth rebellion. Hip-hop crystallized a multiracial generation's worldview, and forever transformed politics and culture. But the epic story of how that happened has never been fully told....until now.
Hip Hop Wars In The Hip-Hop Wars, Rose explores the most crucial issues underlying the polarized claims on each side of the debate: Does hip-hop cause violence, or merely reflect a violent ghetto culture? Is hip-hop sexist, or are its detractors simply anti-sex? Does the portrayal of black culture in hip-hop undermine black advancement?	That's The Joint This newly expanded and revised second edition of That's the Joint! brings together the most important and up-to-date hip-hop scholarship in one comprehensive volume. Presented thematically, the selections address the history of hip-hop, identity politics of the "hip-hop nation," debates of "street authenticity," social movements and activism, aesthetics, technologies of production, hip-hop as a cultural industry, and much more. Further, this new edition also includes greater coverage of gender,	Pimps Up, Ho's Down Pimps Up, Ho’s Down pulls at the threads of the intricately knotted issues surrounding young black women and hip hop culture. Sharpley-Whiting questions the impacts of hip hop's increasing alliance with the sex industry, the rise of groupie culture in the hip hop world, the impact of hip hop's compulsory heterosexual culture on young black women, and the permeation of the hip hop ethos into young black women's conceptions of love and romance.
Hip Hop Literacies Hiphop Literacies is an exploration of the rhetorical, language and literacy practices of African Americans, with a focus on the Hiphop generation. Richardson analyses the lyrics and discourse of Hiphop, explodes myths and stereotypes about Black culture and language and shows how Hiphop language is a global ambassador of the English language and American culture. Richardson examines African American Hiphop in secondary oral contexts such as rap music, song lyrics, electronic and digital media,	Home Girl Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminist Anthology seeks to complicate understandings of Hip-Hop as a male space by including and identifying the women who were always involved with the culture. The anthology explores Hip-Hop as a worldview, as an epistemology grounded in the experiences of communities of color under advanced capitalism, as a cultural site for rearticulating identity and sexual politics. With critical essays, cultural critiques, interviews, personal narratives, fiction, poet	When ChickenHeads Come Home to Roost Morgan offers a feminism committed to "keeping it real"--where "truth is no longer black and white but subtle, intriguing shades of gray."
Hip Hop Revolution In this groundbreaking book, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar celebrates hip-hop and confronts the cult of authenticity that defines its essential character-that dictates how performers walk, talk, and express themselves artistically and also influences the consumer market.	Hip Hop Generation The Hip Hop Generation is an eloquent testament for black youth culture at the turn of the century. The only in-depth study of the first generation to grow up in post-segregation America, it combines culture and politics into a pivotal work in American studies. Offers a sobering look at this generation's disproportionate social and political troubles, and celebrates the activism and politics that may herald the beginning of a new phase of African-American empowerment.	Hip Hop Matters Hip Hop Matters focuses on fierce and far-reaching battles being waged in politics, pop culture, and academe to assert control over the movement. At stake, Watkins argues, is the impact hip hop has on the lives of the young people who live and breathe the culture. He presents incisive analysis of the corporate takeover of hip hop and the rampant misogyny that undermines the movement's progressive claims.
New Black Man Author Mark Anthony Neal argues that the definition of a “Strong Black Man” be redefined. While acknowledging due respect to the virtues of traditional black male leaders and heroes, Neal discusses many of the shortcomings of these individuals, as well as the message they send to the community at large. His primary concern is that the advances of these movements are discounted due to the messages of misogyny, homophobia, and lack of fathers playing roles other than providers for their families.	White Boy Shuffle Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people."	Know What I Mean Know What I Mean addresses salient issues within hip hop: the creative expression of degraded youth that has garnered them global exposure; the vexed gender relations that have made rap music a lightning rod for pundits; the commercial explosion that has made an art form a victim of its success; the political elements that have been submerged in the most popular form of hip hop; and the intellectual engagement with some of hip hop’s most influential figures.
Check It While I Wreck It In this provocative study, Gwendolyn D. Pough explores the complex relationship between black women, hip-hop, and feminism. Examining a wide range of genres, including rap music, novels, spoken word poetry, hip-hop cinema, and hip-hop soul music, she traces the rhetoric of black women "bringing wreck.

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