Hip-Hop/Rap

A special issue of Studies in Musical Theatre offering a range of new critical perspectives on Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, including:

“Is It Like a Beat Without a Melody?”: Rap and Revolution in Hamilton | Jeffrey
Severs

Rise Up: Nuyorican Resistance and Transcultural Aesthetics in Hamilton | Gabriel
Mayora

Hamilton’s Women | Stacy Wolf

Blackout on Broadway: Affiliation and Audience in In the Heights and Hamilton |
Elena Machado Sáez

Staging a Revolution: The Cultural Tipping Points of John Gay and Lin-Manual
Miranda | Tiffany Yecke Brooks

Miranda’s Les Miz | Jeffrey Magee

Hamilton Meets Hip-Hop Pedagogy | Alison Dobrick

“Hey Yo, I’m Just Like My Country”: Teaching Miranda’s Hamilton as an
American Chronicle | Timothy J. Viator

Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Metamyth of a Nation’s Founding | Helen M. Whall

“What If This Bullet Is My Legacy?”: The Guns of Hamilton | Meredith Conti

Hamilton and Class | Matthew Clinton Sekellick

A Conversation Rewound: Queer and Racialized Temporalities in Hamilton |
Shereen Inayatulla and Andie Silva

Hip-hop in South Africa has been on a
roller coaster ride since its emergence as
a protest tool among non-white youths
against apartheid in the early 1980s.
Although the collapse of apartheid in
the early 1990s opened up an era of
commercialisation which ultimately
suppressed its “protest” feature, it has again
resurfaced reflecting the social hills of the
post-apartheid era, such as class struggles
and imbalances, corruption, HIV, violence,
racism and poverty.

“Old Town Road” holds the record for the most weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Lil Nas X, the artist behind it, gained popularity in a matter of months. He came out as gay on Twitter on June 30, 2019 and has addressed his sexuality several times since. He has appeared at public events dressed in outlandish clothes, and his outfits at the 2020 Grammy Awards ceremony attracted both admiration and criticism. Among the latter, the rant by rapper Pastor Troy about Nas X sporting loud pink garments as something that undermines Black masculinity reveals the persistent inconsistencies in the ways this masculinity is defined.

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate, if possible, whether there is any relation between rap and African-American music. That is to say, if rap directly comes from the music that the first slaves to arrive in North American soil brought with them. For this, characteristics of African music will be first reviewed. After that, a study will be done about the ways that this kind of music lived with the one that predominated at that time among the inhabitants of the emerging United States of America – the majority of them being whites –, as it was deeply bound to religion. Following that, there will be a discussion about whether the latter had any influence on the music of slaves in order for this to survive. With the passing of time, a blend between African and American cultures derived in what we know as African-American culture. As a consequence, new musical styles were set up, till the most current – rap –, which originated as a music to express social protest and wishes to change, to freedom for the black population. However, today rap is fairly linked to an almost obsessive quest for money and success, having freedom and revolution ideals been nearly erased from its lyrics.

During the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye West famously interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for "Best Female Video." A year later both performers returned to the VMAs with songs that responded directly to the original incident. In the meantime, the U.S. media and record-buying public had come to interpret the original incident using the stock scripts and characters of what Linda Williams has called “U.S. racial melodrama,” the fact of which both performers seemed aware. In this way, the Swift-West “incident” had come to reflect and mimic larger racial tensions, especially between black men and white women, as they had specifically come to be understood and portrayed during the Obama presidency, which many commentators have hastily and incorrectly identified as a symptom of “post-racialism.” This essay discusses how Kanye West and Taylor Swift reflect on and revise the tropes of racial melodrama, in the latter case to reinforce what Charles Mills calls "the epistemology of ignorance" when it comes to racism in America, and in the former case to challenge it.

This paper explores the importance of Kendrick Lamar in the entertainment industry, in hip-hop and in American History. The essence of this paper explores his celebrity black body in relation to history, identity and his contribution to rich black historical archives on the black experience. At large, this paper examines his performance in his DNA music video, to see how his lived body, equipped with its historical DNA, informs our modern perception of the black body.

This paper, written from a feminist perspective, seeks to understand the oppressed black body in popular culture to see how public figures like Kendrick Lamar are reclaiming their history. By creating a rich archive of soulful music and meaningful videos, Kendrick is mainstreaming the black reality in a time where the African-American body is at a political crossroads.

Kendrick Lamar is writing history with his embodied performances and his profound written reflections and ensuring that future generations have a reference point in understanding, participating with and learning from their collective history.

À l’aune des 30 ans du « rap Galsen », l’article explore les tensions entre générations de rappeurs à travers le prisme de l’ostentation matérielle. Cette exploration permet de restituer les processus de différenciation à l’œuvre dans l’affirmation d’un rap "local" au Sénégal et de revisiter les frontières opérées avec ce qui serait de l’ordre du "global". Je montrerai ainsi que les pratiques d’ostentation matérielle dans le rap au Sénégal s’inscrivent dans des transformations du genre musical rap à l’échelle mondiale. Plutôt que de chercher à « imiter les Américains », ces artistes de la « nouvelle génération » se positionnent d’abord à l’intérieur d’une scène musicale. Cette analyse plaide ainsi pour une approche relationnelle entre "local" et "global" au sein des scènes musicales.

In this article, I examine how the dominant paradigm of development led to the Bronx being in a state of ruin, the development of hip-hop culture as a self-empowerment tool, and how that tool is used to direct change in blighted urban areas around the US through rap at all levels—from street corners to the Broadway stage. I use a combination of theories from development communication, ethnomusicology and popular culture to perform my analysis and conclude that hip-hop culture empowers individuals and communities to make change in their neighbourhoods. I also conclude that Lin-Manuel Miranda, coming from that culture, has gone on to bring this empowerment and directed change to Broadway to make fundamental changes there that have an impact that reach far from the hallowed halls of the Great White Way.

This essay looks to the work of iconic rap artist Tupac Shakur to illuminate the role of Black rage as a common denominator between rap’s most conscious and gangsta iterations. Specifically, by theorizing Black rage as the founding affective impulse of the hip-hop nation, critics can identify common affective threads across the genre and spy emancipatory potential in hip-hop’s most jarring excesses, as surely as its more lucidly political iterations. I argue that theorizing Black rage through the lens of affect avoids many of the essentialist entanglements associated with earlier scholarship on the concept. The essay also challenges communication scholars to emphasize the emancipatory potential that underlies affective investments through the sociohistorical contextualization thereof.

Na canção Gaudí da cantora de rap portuguesa Capicua, é possível sentir o mal-estar na civilização do mundo pós-moderno e líquido em que vivemos. Tudo se desfaz e desmorona. A solução está longe de ser aquela apresentada pelo capitalismo e consumismo no qual vivemos e do qual não conseguimos fugir. Estamos afundados numa bolha de marketing digital consumidos por ela e por suas exigências de mercado.

Na última sexta-feira, dia 3 de julho, aconteceu o lançamento de um jornal feito por apenadas do presídio feminino Talavera Bruce, situado no Complexo Penitenciário de Bangu. Estive participando de parte da produção, que entre outras coisas contou com as participações externas do rapeador Weelf, grupo Tribo Negra (mais uma incrível iniciativa do grupo cultural Afro Reggae) e das grafiteiras do TPM Crew – Ira, Prima Donna e Suel – estas levaram muito mais que cores ao pátio usado para atividades esportivas e banhos de sol. Para aqueles que não sabem, presídio é presídio em qualquer lugar, andar pelas galerias e conversar com as apenadas é ter a possibilidade de medir o grau de vontade que algumas têm para mudar de vida. As conversas foram tantas que confesso que não sei se tenho a capacidade ou mesmo o direito de reproduzi-las integralmente, ouvir aquelas mulheres negras, brancas, mestiças, estrangeiras. Não importa, todas ali se encontravam na mesma condição cumprindo pena por crimes cometidos. Certamente existem inocentes no meio, porém me chamou atenção o fato de não ouvir historinhas tristes sobre como o sistema é mau e que ali ninguém cometeu nenhum delito. O leitor já deve estar cansado de saber que no dia-a-dia ninguém comete nenhum ilícito; às vezes parece que alguns presídios masculinos são uma grande confraternização de cordeiros, pois ninguém ali é culpado. Lá no T.B (Talavera Bruce) observei que várias reconheceram e reconhecem seus erros, ou melhor as razões que as fizeram incorrer em ilícitos, e não almejam no futuro uma vida igual. Isso me traz a impressão de que, às vezes, em algumas situações, se não encontram solução pelo menos seguirão um caminho melhor. A criação do jornal Só Isso! é um ótimo exemplo da vontade e da capacidade de vencer os mais diferentes obstáculos que comumente impedem ou tentam impedir a reinserção daqueles, ou melhor, daquelas, que acertam suas contas com a sociedade. Penso que essa iniciativa é um grande exemplo, pois com somente um computador usado e a correria de algumas presas foi possível realizar esta grande iniciativa. Considero esse um ótimo exemplo para os adeptos do Hip Hop; imaginem se essa vontade fosse transmissível? Quantos jornais, zines e afins apareceriam para ampliar os horizontes da "nossa cultura". E é isso quando se tem vontade, automaticamente se tem ajuda, seja esta divina ou terrena. Enfim, as coisas acontecem, pois tudo conspira para o melhor resultado e acredito que dar voz a quem precisa ser ouvido é infinitamente melhor que falar por esses. Perceber o efeito que uma alegria momentânea trazida pelo som poderoso da Tribo Negra faz ao " engolir " a tensão de uma vida no cárcere e fazendo aflorar o que melhor existe em um ser humano, fazendo com que alguns olhares até então apagados brilhassem como nunca. E fica provado mais uma vez o poder da integração a partir da música e da dança. Essa sexta-feira foi realmente única e marcará um novo divisor de águas nas relações entre autoridades, apenadas e o restante da sociedade que mostra a cara de fato e tenta minimizar de alguma maneira a situação caótica em que vivemos. De nada adianta ficar no silêncio, incentivando os erros ou se omitindo; a participação se faz necessária de múltiplas formas. Parabéns: Sabrina Hagel, Lila Mirtha, Marileine Cançanção, Lotta Hägström pela iniciativa do jornal.

Drawing from close to four years of ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and video recordings, this paper analyzes how inner-city men sustain playful street corner rap " battles " in South Central Los An-geles. Although participants know that the battle is supposed to be a playful way of resolving perceived dis-respect in group rap " ciphers, " some become " more than play. " Indeed, ritual insults have the power to provoke feelings of rage, which can propel individuals into violence. To sustain the playful meanings of battles, participants who offend their opponent use different nonverbal cues to signal, " I was just playing, " while the offended party responds with cues signaling, " I do not have any hard feelings. " When these moves do not work, onlookers step in between participants, tell jokes, and use other gestures to defuse escalating tensions. The techniques outlined in this article elaborate Erving Goffman's (1974) theories of " keys " and " limits, " showing how embodied and emotional cues are used to sustain the shared presumption that " this is play. "

Peut-on user d'instruments de musique? Participer à un concert? Chanter librement ce que l'on ressent? Ou faut-il se limiter à ce que l’on doit scander et qui semble conforme à la morale islamique? D’emblée, le fait musical des musulmans d’Europe s’envisage dans le paradoxe. Akhenaton, Cat Stevens alias Yusuf Islam, James Deano, Kery James, Diam’s, Sami Yusuf, Médine, The Poetic Pilgrimage, Maher Zaïn, Soprano et tant d’autres sont des artistes musulmans européens qui, depuis une vingtaine d’années, mobilisent dans leurs productions une certaine affirmation d’appartenance à l’islam. Quelques-uns font même de la musique un outil du religieux, voire développent un champ musical au travers de la dimension islamique.
Dans le chef des artistes, de vraies négociations s’opèrent, des tiraillements de choix se manifestent, des questions fusent. C’est toute l’ambition de cet ouvrage que de faire découvrir l’ambivalence des discours religieux de ces acteurs, au travers de pratiques musicales en expansion. L’observation et l’analyse des pratiques sociales quotidiennes des musulmans sont ici privilégiées afin de mettre en lumière les lentes mutations culturelles et cultuelles qui s’articulent dans l’intimité des musulmans européens. Une distinction s’opère progressivement entre l’identité musulmane objectivement héritée d’un univers culturel où elle était greffée et cette même identité subjectivement appropriée en tant qu’«être musulman européen». Plus subtilement encore, au coeur de cette identité musulmane s’opère une véritable réinvention entre une référence identitaire à une culture ou à une civilisation et une référence identitaire au fait religieux. Le champ artistique est donc un terrain idéal pour saisir la réalité de l’islam européen dans sa pleine diversité. Auteur : Farid El Asri.

В статье рассматриваются специфические признаки популярного сегодня жанра рэп-баттла, соединяющего, по мнению автора, признаки письменной и устной культуры. Автор полемизирует с теми, кто видит в рэп-баттлах продолжение традиции поэтических дуэлей и рассматривает этот жанр как легитимизацию речевой агрессии в обществе тотальной агрессии. Вместе с тем характеристика этого жанра не исчерпывается только этим аспектом – по некоторым другим параметрам его можно соотнести с отмечаемой философами новой эпохой в культуре – метамодернизмом.

The article focuses on the specific features of a Rap battle – the genre which has gained a wide popularity nowadays. The author assumes that this genre combines both the features of the written and oral communication as well as controverts those who consider rapbattles something similar to or part of the art of the poetic duels and thus insists that this genre is the legitimization of the speech violence in the society of total violence. Nevertheless the aspect mentioned above is not the only typical feature of the latter – taking other ones into account it becomes possible to refer the genre of rapbattles to the new epoch of the culture – metamodernism.

Although much has been written regarding Internet theory, there is still work to be done exploring the nature of lived experience online to assess the validity of such theoretical discussion. This ethnographic research explores the relationship between online and offline experience, the process of online community creation, and tensions between self-promotion and community endeavour, focusing on a group of Hip-Hop musicians on the website Soundcloud. 

Being disembodied from those day-to-day activities that have long created community cohesion and powered the process of enculturation means that online community formation differs from its offline counterpart. Websites such as Soundcloud provide an important locus for musicians to create knowledge-exchange networks, collaborate on musical ventures, and by the sharing of compositions involve themselves in collective musical exploration. However, a key question is whether such connections lead to the creation of social bonds. This research sought to evaluate the extent of communal processes on Soundcloud through ethnographic research and extended discussions with twenty users, aiming to discover whether their actions are driven commercially by the desire for promotion or by shared, communal goals.

The findings reveal a surprising depth of community and local identity online, with users regular meeting offline to compose and organizing concerts to create live performance opportunities. Musicians are also coming together to create independent labels to help promote their music as collectives, and developing music deeply rooted in local sounds. This combination of high levels of online communication, and an ongoing process of organization and performance offline initiates a move from connections to the formation of social bonds and the building of offline friendships and communities based around Soundcloud as an online hub.

While previous digital ethnomusicology has focused on online experience, this preliminary research illustrates the importance of an integrative approach that considers both the online and the offline worlds.

Dramaturgy of Form examines verse in twenty-first-century theatre practice across different languages, cultures, and media. Through interdisciplinary engagement, Kasia Lech offers a new method for verse analysis in the performance context.
The book traces the dramaturgical operation of verse in new writings, musicals, devised performances, multilingual dramas, Hip Hop theatre, films, digital projects, and gig theatre, as well as translations and adaptations of classics and new theatre forms created by Irish, Spanish, Nigerian, Polish, American, Canadian, Australian, British, Russian, and multinational artists. Their verse dramaturgies explore timely issues such as global identities, agency and precarity, global and local politics, and generational and class stories. The development of dramaturgy is discussed with the focus turning to the new stylized approach to theatre, whose arrival Hans-Thies Lehmann foretold in his Postdramatic Theatre, documenting a turning point for contemporary Western theatre.
Serving theatre-makers, scholars, and students working with classical and contemporary verse and poetry in performance contexts; practitioners and academics of aural and oral dramaturgies; voice and verse-speaking coaches; and actors seeking the creative opportunities that verse offers, Dramaturgy of Form reveals verse as a tool for innovation and transformation that is at the forefront of contemporary practices and experiences.
https://www.routledge.com/Dramaturgy-of-Form-Performing-Verse-in-Contemporary-Theatre/Lech/p/book/9780367201937

Hip-hop has long been considered political: as Chuck D. famously observed "rap music is the CNN of the ghetto". Moving beyond clearly political themes, slogans, and acts of alterity at the heart of Hip-Hop, this essay employs the work of the rap-artist Eminem to draw out and identify a further way in which those of us engaged in political analysis might productively conceive of the genre as being political. Drawing upon the European and American existentialist traditions, this essay suggests that the artist's irony, hyperbole, and theatricality are constituents of a political worldview that recognizes both the need for self-creation and the pressure, social, political, and artistic, that make this quest for self-creation both an endless struggle and an opportunity for a vivified care of the self. The aim here is not to seek to valorise the rap genre by suggesting that it might offer insight into the political, but rather to point to the ways in which the cultural analysis of politics, and the political analysis of culture, might move beyond the rote by paying attention to the ethical, political, artistic, and philosophical nuances of the object of study.

The Iraq War’s enduring conflict has proven resilient in its on-and-off relationship with the US and international forces occupying.  Streamlining a more sustainable counterinsurgency plan remains a critical link to securing stability designed to promote Iraqi nation-rebuilding efforts.  While the smart power approach to foreign policy has yet to realize its potential full effect, recruitment of younger generations into recurrent violence via Islamist co-optation persists with threat to bleed across the region.  Military, diplomatic and politically weighed strategies struggle to contain the violence by advancing innovative methods to counter and disengage while supporting Iraqi democracy, not altogether unlike US operations in Afghanistan.  COIN directive requires in-depth analysis of the socialization of teenage youth as they undertake transnational violence into adulthood.  Nation building through better concerted and inclusive effort of relief, intelligence, military and policymaking drive is the key to tapping the potential of next generation Iraqis as immediate and future leaders.  Youth at risk raised with a history of violence will otherwise require constant intervention.  Policy transition moving towards internal stability and an exit strategy has the resources to launch effective social programming for political infrastructure and business strategy to guide better negotiation in resource and conflict management.  Media’s role in promoting proactive social networks promises to be a game-changer for ground game where youth are enabled to access it.  International support and inter-alia networking then remain to be fully realized if Iraq and the US are to emerge from the war in two pieces.

Abstract: From DJ Premier's beat productions in the early'90s to Kanye West's live performance at the 2010 Video Music Awards, the Akai MPC has long been considered standard sampling technology in any hip-hop production studio. Expanding upon the ...

How do poverty, youth and crime relate to the concept of being 'cool'? Jonathan Ilan presents a unique, theoretically informed overview of street culture in various parts of the world – its origins, functions, manifestations and appeal – examining both its bearing on criminal lifestyles and on the cultivation of 'cool.'

Drawing on contemporary research and original examples to evidence new ways of thinking about street culture - from the favelas of Brazil to housing projects in the USA - the text locates street culture within its particular social, cultural and economic contexts. Covering diverse subjects from brutal violence to contemporary fashion it explores the ways in which street culture is intertwined with processes of social exclusion and inclusion.

An in-depth and even-handed guide to understanding the practices, styles and struggles associated with a particular section of the socio-economically disadvantaged, this text stands as an invaluable resource for students and academics across a range of disciplines, including youth studies, urban studies, criminology, sociology, cultural studies and geography.

Iglesias Botrán, Ana María. 2014. "El rap francés como historia urbana: un objeto de estudio multidisciplinar". En Cuarenta años de trova urbana. Acercamientos textuales al rap. Ed. Laura Filardo Llamas y Enrique Cámara Arenas. Ediciones Universidad de Valladolid. pg.83-102.

Las canciones cuentan lo que pasa en la sociedad, y el rap, aún siendo un género musical con sus características propias y marcados rasgos distintivos, no es una excepción. Francia es el segundo país productor de rap del mundo y este dato constituye per se una cualidad que lo diferencia del resto de manifestaciones de este mismo género. Las razones de su enorme éxito se sitúan lejos del azar y se encuentran en cuestiones inmersas en la historia de Francia del siglo XX. Su complejidad es notable de modo que para poder entender el fenómeno rap en Francia es necesario acudir a fuentes sociológicas, legislativas, históricas, culturales, musicales, urbanísticas y lingüísticas. Todos estos ingredientes se amasan a lo largo de la historia para preparar un plato único y distinto que degustan miles de personas a través de los discos, la radio, los conciertos, las fiestas, y todo aquello que rodea al rap y engloba a la cultura hip-hop. En este capítulo trataremos de dar respuesta a todas las cuestiones relacionadas con los orígenes del rap en Francia. Para ello, nos sumergiremos en la trayectoria que los inmigrantes durante el siglo XX en el seno de la ciudad y sus obstáculos en el camino de la integración, sin olvidar temas transversales siempre presentes como son la marginación, el racismo y la discriminación. Veremos las razones por las que el rap y la cultura hip-hop en general ejercen un efecto balsámico muy positivo en los jóvenes creando una nueva cultura al mismo tiempo que canalizan sus frustraciones y anhelos. Para terminar, observaremos el rap desde un punto de vista ideológico para mostrar cómo sus textos constituyen un instrumento de transmisión de ideas.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, rap music became the soundtrack of Americanization. Along with breakdance, graffiti, and deejaying, rap inspired young people all over the world to create and practice their own versions of this popular culture. In my essay, I examine how hiphop pervaded the Iron Curtain. More specifically, I analyze the conditions under which hiphop culture became known and accepted in the GDR. Focusing on the interaction between representatives of the Socialist regime and young hiphop practitioners, I scrutinize their cultural transfers of hiphop and the different meanings both sides attributed to its practice. I flesh out the discrepancy between the hegemonic discourse on popular culture, which tried to recode hiphop into a desirable Socialist practice, and the youth cultural practice of hiphop, which deviated from this discourse. Paradoxically, young breakdancers, rappers, DJs, and graffiti artists hardly had to fear any consequences stemming from their practice. With my paper, I contribute to historical research on youth culture, the GDR's final years, and Americanization as one of the driving forces behind its disintegration.

Este trabalho se propõe a analisar a retórica do rap de Fortaleza no contexto da filosofia de Paulo Freire da “pedagogia do oprimido” para elucidar a relação do rapper com as comunidades. Partindo de uma pesquisa etnográfica realizada com vários rappers moradores dos bairros periféricos de Fortaleza e incorporando uma análise das letras e da articulação entre política e estética nos raps, examina-se como os rappers constituem uma pedagogia alternativa para suas comunidades: um discurso realizado pelo oprimido, para o oprimido e com o oprimido. Para essa compreensão, avalia-se como as performances de hip-hop podem criar espaços de união e aprendizado dialético entre cantor e público. No ato performativo de pronunciar o mundo, o rapper o transforma, virando orador e educador para o público e mostrando a capacidade da cultura de hip-hop de mudar a vida das pessoas, oferecer alternativas à violência, criar comunidades e redes contra-hegemônicas e desconstruir as assimetrias de poder centro-periferia, tanto na geopolítica quanto na geografia urbana.

Objectives: This study seeks to determine the prevalence of violence in a popular hip-hop entertainment
magazine, a previously overlooked medium. Methods: We performed a content analysis on a random sample of 48 issues of The Source Magazine and coded magazine covers, and feature articles about celebrities and accompanying photographs for the presence of violent content. Results: 35% of covers contained at least one violent category in text or graphics. Nearly 80% of feature articles contained at least one violent category in the text and approximately 30% of feature articles were accompanied by at least one violent graphic. Conclusion: Findings suggest that The Source Magazine and possibly other hip-hop entertainment venues are a potential source of mediated modeling for violent behaviors.