everything.study
21T.1004

Hip Hop

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2007

This class explores the political and aesthetic foundations of hip hop. Students trace the musical, corporeal, visual, spoken word, and literary manifestations of hip hop over its 30 year presence in the American cultural imagery. Students also investigate specific black cultural practices that have given rise to its various idioms. Students create material culture related to each thematic section of the course. Scheduled work in performance studio helps students understand how hip hop is created and assessed.

Readings

  • Watkins, S. Craig. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement . Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780807009864.
    Required
  • Forman, Murray, and Mark Anthony Neal, eds. That’s the Joint!: the Hip-Hop Studies Reader . New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. ISBN: 9780415969192.
    Required
  • Baker, Houston, Jr. Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy . Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780226035215.
    Recommended
  • Dyson, Michael Eric. Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip Hop . New York, NY: Perseus Books Group, 2007. ISBN: 9780465017164.
    Recommended
  • Eshun, Kodwo. More Brilliant Than The Sun . London, UK: Quartet Books Limited, 1999. ISBN: 9780704380257.
    Recommended
  • Forman, Murray. The ‘Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop . Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780819563972.
    Recommended
  • Fricke, Jim, and Charlie Ahearn. Yes, Yes Y’All: Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade . New York, NY: Da Capo Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780306812248.
    Recommended
  • George, Nelson. Hip Hop America . New York, NY: Penguin, 2005. ISBN: 9780143035152.
    Recommended
  • Keyes, Cheryl. Rap Music and Street Consciousness . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780252072017.
    Recommended
  • Perkins, William Eric, ed. Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture . Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995. ISBN: 9781566393621.
    Recommended
  • Potter, Russell. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism . New York, NY: SUNY Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780791426265.
    Recommended
  • Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America . Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780819562753.
    Recommended
  • Rose, Tricia, and Andrew Ross, eds. Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture . New York: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 9780415909082.
    Recommended
  • Watkins. Prologue, Introduction, Chapter One, Nine, Epilogue (pp. 1-55; 229-259).
    Recommended
  • Hall, Stuart. “What is this ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” In Black Popular Culture . Edited by Gina Dent. Seattle, WA: Bay Press, 1992, pp. 21-33. ISBN: 9780941920230.
    Recommended
  • Krims, Adam. “Music Analysis and Rap Music.” In Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 17-45. ISBN: 9780521632683.
    Listed reading
  • The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy (Israel, 2002) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Everybody Dance Now (documentary for PBS series Dance In America/Great Performances , 1991) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Rhyme and Reason (Peter Spirer, 1997) ↗
    Listed reading
  • DeFrantz, Thomas. “The Black Beat Made Visible: Body Power in Hip Hop Dance.” In Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory . Edited by Andre Lepecki. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004, pp. 64-81. ISBN: 9780819566126.
    Listed reading
  • Gilroy, Paul. “Exer(or)cising Power; Black Bodies in the Black Public Sphere.” In Dance In The City . Edited by Helen Thomas. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997, pp. 21-34. ISBN: 9780312174545.
    Listed reading
  • Unit 3 (2 sessions) · Graffiti, fashion, and visual culture · Style Wars (Tony Silver and Harry Chalfant, 1983) in class ↗
    Listed reading
  • Austin, Joe. “Taking The Trains: The Formation and Structure of ‘Writing Culture’ in the Early 1970s” and “The Walls and the World: Writing Culture, 1982-1990.” Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 38-74, and 227-267. ISBN: 9780231111430.
    Listed reading
  • Wimsatt, William Upski. “Suckers Don’t Last a Minute: Good Rhyme, Bad Theory” and “Hip-Hop is Supposed to Eliminate Itself.” In Bomb the Suburbs . New York, NY: Soft Skull Press, 1995, pp. 145-155. ISBN: 9780964385504.
    Listed reading
  • Specter, Michael. “I Am Fashion: Puff Daddy Packages His World.” The New Yorker . September 9, 2002, pp. 116-127. ( PDF - 5.2 MB ) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Ferrell, Jeff, and Eugene Stewart-Huidobro. Chapters 2 and 4 in Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality . Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9781555532765.
    Listed reading
  • Romanowski, Patti, and Susan Flinker. “Graffiti.” In Fresh: Hip Hop Don’t Stop . Edited by Nelson George. New York, NY: Random House, 1985, pp. 29-54. ISBN: 9780394544878.
    Listed reading
  • Flinker, Susan. “Fashion.” In Fresh: Hip Hop Don’t Stop . pp. 55-78.
    Listed reading
  • Unit 4 (3 sessions) · Sex and sexuality · Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (Byron Hurt, 2005) ↗
    Listed reading
  • DeFrantz, Thomas. “Hip Hop Sexualities.” In Handbook of the New Sexuality Studies . Edited by Steven Seidman, Chet Meeks, and Nancy Fischer. New York, NY: Routledge Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780415386487.
    Listed reading
  • Rose, Tricia. “One Queen, One Tribe, One Destiny.” In Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap . Edited by Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers. New York, NY: Cooper Square Press, 1999, pp. 312-317. ISBN: 9780815410188.
    Listed reading
  • Lil’ Kim. Hard Core . Big Beat / WEA, 1996.
    Listed reading
  • Ndegeocello, Meshell. Cookie . Maverick, 2002.
    Listed reading
  • Unit 5 (2 sessions) · Anarchy and activism · Rhyme and Reason (Peter Spirer, 1997) in class ↗
    Listed reading
  • Watkins. Chapters 5, 6, and 7, pp. 143-205.
    Listed reading
  • McPherson, Lionel K. “Halfway Revolution: From That Gangsta Hobbes to Radical Liberals.” In Hip Hop & Philosophy . Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2005, pp. 173-182. ISBN: 9780812695892.
    Listed reading
  • Chuck D with Yusef Jah. “Prelude to Public Enemy” and “Gangs.” In Fight the Power . New York, NY: Delacorte Press, 1997. pp. 57-94, and 241-262. ISBN: 9780385318730.
    Listed reading
  • Rose. Chapter 4, pp. 99-145.
    Listed reading
  • Lipsitz, George. “The Hip Hop Hearings: Censorship, Social Memory, and Intergenerational Tensions Among African Americans.” In Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth Century America . Edited by Joe Austin and Michael Nevin Willard. New York, NY: NYU Press, 1998, pp. 395-411. ISBN: 9780814706466.
    Listed reading
  • The Coup. Steal This Album . Dogday Records, 1998.
    Listed reading
  • Dead Prez. Let’s Get Free . Relativity, 2000.
    Listed reading
  • Nobody Knows My Name (Rachel Raimist, 1999) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (Kevin Fitzgerald, 2000) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Watkins. Chapter 8, pp. 207-227.
    Listed reading
  • Collins, Patricia Hill. “Is the Personal Still Political? The Women’s Movement, Feminism, and Black Women in the Hip-Hop Generation.” In From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism . Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006. pp. 161-197. ISBN: 9781592130924.
    Listed reading
  • Pough, Gwendolyn D. “My Cipher Keeps Movin’ Like a Rollin’ Stone: Black Women’s Expressive Cultures and Black Feminist Legacies.” In Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere . Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 2004, pp. 41-74. ISBN: 9781555536077.
    Listed reading
  • Rose. Chapter 5, pp. 146-182.
    Listed reading
  • Ro, Ronin. Gangsta: Merchandising the Rhymes of Violence . New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780312143442.
    Listed reading
  • Boyd, Todd. “A Small Introduction to the ‘G’ Funk era: Gangsta Rap and Black Masculinity in Contemporary Los Angeles.” In Am I Black Enough For You? Popular Culture from the ‘Hood and Beyond . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997, pp. 60-81. ISBN: 9780253211057.
    Listed reading
  • Hill, Lauryn. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill . Sony, 1998.
    Listed reading
  • Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die . Bad Boy, 1994.
    Listed reading
  • Thompson, Stephen Lester. “Knowwhatumsayin’? How Hip-Hop Lyrics Mean.” In Hip Hop & Philosophy . Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2005. pp. 119-132. ISBN: 9780812695892.
    Listed reading
  • Miyakawa, Felicia M. “Introduction” and “History of and Theology of the Five Percent Nation.” In Five Percenter Rap: God Hop’s Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission . (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005, pp. 1-37. ISBN: 9780253217639.
    Listed reading
  • Unit 8 (2 sessions) · Globalization · Resistencia: Hip-Hop in Colombia (Tom Feiling, 2002) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Condry, Ian. “A History of Japanese Hip Hop: Street Dance, Club Scene, Pop Market.” In Global Noise: Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA . Edited by Tony Mitchell. Middlebury, VT: University Press of New England, 2002. pp. 222-247. ISBN: 9780819565020.
    Listed reading
  • Osumare, Halifu. “Beat Streets in the Global Hood.” In Power Moves: The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip Hop . Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, pp. 61-104. ISBN: 9781403976307.
    Listed reading
  • Unit 9 (2 sessions) · DJ’ing and musicality · Scratch (Doug Pray, 2001) ↗
    Listed reading
  • The Roots. The Roots Come Alive . MCA, 1999.
    Listed reading
  • West, Kanye. The College Dropout . Roc-a-Fella, 2004.
    Listed reading
  • Jails, Hospitals, Hip Hop (Mark Benjamin, Danny Hoch, 2002) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Black and White (2000) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Bulworth (1998) ↗
    Listed reading
  • 8 Mile (2002) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Ross, Andrew. “Hip, and the Long Front of Color.” In No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture . New York, NY: Routledge, 1989, pp. 65-101. ISBN: 9780415900379.
    Listed reading
  • Taylor, Paul C. “Does Hip Hop Belong to Me? The Philosophy of Race and Culture.” In Hip Hop & Philosophy . Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2005, pp. 79-91. ISBN: 9780812695892.
    Listed reading
  • Watkins. Chapter 3, pp. 83-110.
    Listed reading
  • Hoare, Ian. “Mighty, Mighty Spade and Whitey: Black Lyrics and Soul’s Interaction with White Culture.” In The Soul Book . Edited by Ian Hoare, et al. New York, NY: Dell Publishing, 1976, pp. 117-168. ISBN: 9780440580140.
    Listed reading
  • Eminem. The Slim Shady LP . Interscope, 1999.
    Listed reading
  • Beastie Boys. To The Five Boroughs . Capitol, 2004.
    Listed reading
  • Gym Class Heroes. The Papercut Chronicles . Fueled by Ramen, 2005.
    Listed reading
  • Usher, Carlton A. “Underground Hip Hop Culture” In A Rhyme is a Terrible Thing To Waste . Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2005. ISBN: 9781592213184.
    Listed reading
  • Aesop Rock. None Shall Pass . Def Jux, 2007.
    Listed reading
  • Eyedea and Abilities. E&A . Epitaph, 2004.
    Listed reading
Sources