Hip Hop Music and Cultures

This course will explore both the history of the emergence of Hip Hop and the heated debates that surround it: aesthetics, censorship, sexism, violence, musical theft, originality, authenticity, the politics of cross-racial exchanges, urban black nihilism, and corporate influences on culture. These debates will be framed by our consideration of urban black life, African-American cultural formations, gender, representation, technology, commodification, pleasure and politics. Enrollment limited to 200.