MDMA (ecstasy/molly) use among African Americans: The perceived influence of hip-hop/rap music

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khary K. Rigg ◽  
Anthony T. Estreet
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music

scholarly journals Whiteness [In]Visible

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Keller
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
American Art ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Public Image ◽  
African American Art ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Art Form

This essay examines Eminem's uneasy relationship with race. He has capitalized on a traditionally African-American art form while emphasizing and simultaneously effacing his own racial heritage. Indeed, one must see Eminem as both black and white in order for his public image to be fully coherent. His speech, gestures, friends, colleagues, economic fortunes, and artistic influences are all Hip Hop clichés while his hair and flesh are stark white. He complains about the difficulty of making it as a Rapper because he is white, and thus invokes the traditional complaint of white labor competing with African-Americans in the workforce, and at the same time admits that his whiteness made him an unprecedented success in the Rap music industry. The essay applies the theories of racial construction to Eminem's lyrics as well as to the film 8 Mile, in which the rapper is impeded in his struggle for success by bias within the African-American Hip Hop apparatus. Thus Eminem is cast in the traditional narrative of the underdog who overcomes doubt and discrimination in order to achieve dazzling success, yet ironically this scenario is played out against a power structure that is the tradition target rather than the perpetrator of discrimination.

Flow

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Ohriner
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
South Bronx ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Voice Flow ◽  
Computational Music Analysis

Originating in dance parties in the South Bronx in the late 1970s, hip hop and rap music have become a dominant style of popular music in the United States and a force for activism all over the world. So, too, has scholarship on this music grown, yet much of this scholarship, employing methods drawn from sociology and literature, leaves unaddressed the expressive musical choices made by hip-hop artists. This book addresses flow, the rhythm of the rapping voice. Flow presents theoretical and analytical challenges not encountered elsewhere. It is rhythmic as other music is rhythmic. But it is also rhythmic as speech and poetry are rhythmic. Key concepts related to rhythm, such as meter, periodicity, patterning, and accent, are treated independently in scholarship of music, poetry, and speech. This book reconciles those approaches, theorizing flow by integrating the methods of computational music analysis and humanistic close reading. Through the analysis of large collections of verses, it addresses questions in the theories of rhythm, meter, and groove in the unique ecology of rap music. Specifically, the work of Eminem clarifies how flow relates to text, the work of Black Thought clarifies how flow relates to other instrumental streams, and the work of Talib Kweli clarifies how flow relates to rap’s persistent meter. Although the focus throughout is rap music, the methods introduced are appropriate for other genres mix voices and more rigid metric frameworks and further extends the valuable work on hip hop from other perspectives in recent years.

Barrio Music, Spirituality, and Social Justice in Latino Hip-Hop

2018 ◽  
pp. 235-261
Author(s):  
Alejandro Nava
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Latino Youth ◽  
Social Concerns

This essay explores the spiritual and social concerns of US Latino and Latin American hip-hop. Beginning with a description of hip-hop’s influence on the author’s educational journey, the essay considers some of the key influences of Latino music on US rap music, as well as the growing dominance of hip-hop among Latino youth throughout the Americas. Besides documenting the influences of US rap on Latino music, it charts the distinct idioms, styles, and philosophies of Latino hip-hop, emphasizing the unique contributions of this subgenre to the broader culture of hip-hop.

IMAGINING A BETTER WORLD:

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 353-385
Author(s):  
Lakeyta M. Bonnette-Bailey ◽  
Ray Block ◽  
Harwood K. McClerking
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Youth Culture ◽  
Black Youth ◽  
Black Music ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Negative Messages ◽  
Mass Level

AbstractDespite a recent increase in research on its sociopolitical implications, many questions regarding rap music’s influence on mass-level participation remain unanswered. We consider the possibility that “imagining a better world” (measured here as the degree to which young African Americans are critical of the music’s negative messages) can correlate with a desire to “build a better world” (operationalized as an individual’s level of political participation). Evidence from the Black Youth Project (BYP)’s Youth Culture Survey (Cohen 2005) demonstrates that rap critique exerts a conditional impact on non-voting forms of activism. Rap critique enhances heavy consumers’ civic engagement, but this relationship does not occur among Blacks who consume the music infrequently. By demonstrating rap’s politicizing power and contradicting certain criticisms of Hip Hop culture, our research celebrates the possibilities of Black youth and Black music.

“Something You Can Look Back On”: Teacher Candidates, Rap Music, and P-12 Social Studies

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 1224-1250
Author(s):  
Tracey Kumar
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
Lesson Plans ◽  
Traditional Classroom ◽  
Look Back

Although several studies highlight the integration of hip-hop-based education (HHBE) into teacher education workshops and coursework, little is known about the use of HHBE by the teachers and teacher candidates who take part in these learning experiences. Toward such a contribution, this study examines how teacher candidates proposed to integrate rap into lesson plans designed for middle and high school social studies classes in an urban intensive setting. The findings indicate that the teacher candidates’ proposed uses of rap not only privilege their own preferences and experiences but also position rap as subordinate to traditional classroom-based texts.

Mortality in American Hip-Hop and Rap Recording Artists, 1987–2014

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 211-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl J Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
African American Men ◽  
Unintentional Injury ◽  
Distinct Group ◽  
Premature Mortality ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Music Recording ◽  
Media Reports

BACKGROUND: The deaths of American hip-hop and rap recording artists often receive considerable media attention. However, these artists’ deaths have not been examined as a distinct group like the deaths of rock, classical, jazz, and pop music artists. This is a seminal epidemiological analysis on the deaths of an understudied group, American hip-hop and rap music recording artists. METHODS: Media reports were analyzed of the deaths of American hip-hop and rap music recording artists that occurred from January 1, 1987 to December 31, 2014. The decedents’ age, sex, race, cause of death, stage names, and city and state of death were recorded for analysis. RESULTS: The most commonly reported cause of death was homicide. The 280 deaths were categorized as homicide (55%), unintentional injury (13%), cardiovascular (7%), undetermined/undisclosed (7%), cancer (6%), other (5%), suicide (4%), and infectious disease (3%). The mean reported age at death was 30 yrs (range 15–75) and the median was 29 yrs; 97% were male and 92% were black. All but one of the homicides were committed with firearms. CONCLUSIONS: Homicide was the most commonly reported cause of death. Public health focus and guidance for hip-hop and rap recording artists should mirror that for African-American men and adolescent males ages 15–54 yrs, for whom the leading causes of death are homicide, unintentional injury, and heart disease. Given the preponderance of homicide deaths in this analysis, premature mortality reduction efforts should focus on violence prevention and conflict mitigation.

Rap/Hip-Hop

Music ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl L. Keyes
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Rap Music ◽  
Latino Youth ◽  
Secondary Markets ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Urban Street ◽  
Trade Magazines ◽  
Black And Latino Youth ◽  
Written Sources

Rap evolved as a vernacular term used among African Americans to define a stylized way of speaking. Over the years, black radio disc jockeys, musicians, literary figures, and 1960s political figures incorporated rap into their performances or way of speaking to appeal to black audiences. By the early 1970s, rap continued its development in the urban streets among “rhymin’ emcees” (MCs) accompanied by pre-recorded music, provided by a disc jockey on two turntables. This concept became associated with a youth arts movement driven and populated by black and Latino youth in New York City called hip-hop. Comprised of four elements—breakdancing (b-boying/b-girling), graffiti (writing), disc jockeying (DJing), and emceeing (MCing)—hip-hop also distinguishes a distinct form of dress, gesture, and language that embodies an urban street consciousness. By the late 1970s, the rhymin’ MC/DJ combination attracted music entrepreneurs who recognized the commercial potential with the release of the recording “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang. Subsequently, music trade magazines such as Billboard contributed to popularizing the MC/DJ concept as rap music. Additionally, the production of hip-hop arts via the silver screen, advertising, and fashion industries further contributed to its rise to global prominence. Realizing its viability to a growing youth constituency, entrepreneurs placed significant value on certain elements of hip-hop believed to be more marketable to youth consumers in the popular music mainstream. For example, MCing and DJing became primary markets while breakdancing and graffiti served as hip-hop’s secondary markets. As such, rap music eventually eclipsed in popularity breakdancing and graffiti, thus solidifying this music category. Occasionally, critics and aficionados use rap music interchangeably with hip-hop. The sources herein will be used interchangeably as rap music/hip-hop along with their associates (breakdance and graffiti), and allied traditions. Similar to the burgeoning success of hip-hop culture in the mainstream popular culture, rap garnered the attention of academicians during the late 1980s, who perceived it as fertile ground for the study of popular youth culture. This is evident with a flurry of theses, articles, books, journalistic writings, and photo-essays leading to the establishment of hip-hop studies. Today, there are thousands of written sources on hip-hop. Rather than attempting to present all of these written sources, which would be beyond the scope of this bibliography, this article instead offers a survey of book sources and seminal journal articles that reflect the erudition, scholarly depth, and interdisciplinary scope of hip-hop studies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document