scholarly journals Philosophical-aesthetic foundations of African-American hip-hop music

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-62
Author(s):  
Tatiana Leonidovna Pyrova
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Research Assessment ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Hip Hop Music ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Impact

This article is dedicated to the philosophical-aesthetic foundations of African-American hip-hop music of the late XX century. Developed by the African philosopher Leopold Senghor, the author of the theory of negritude, concept of Negro-African aesthetics laid the foundations for the formation of philosophical-political comprehension and development of the principles of African-American culture in the second half of the XX century in works of the founders of “Black Arts” movement. This research examines the main theses of the aesthetic theory of L. Senghor; traces his impact upon cultural-political movement “Black Art”; reveals which position of his aesthetic theory and cultural-political movement “Black Arts” affected hip-hop music. The author refers to the concept of “vibe” for understanding the influence of Negro-African aesthetics upon the development of hip-hop music. The impact of aesthetic theory of Leopold Senghor upon the theoretical positions of cultural-political movement “Black Arts” is demonstrated. The author also compares the characteristics of the Negro-African aesthetics and the concepts used to describe hip-hop music, and determines correlation between them. The conclusion is made that the research assessment of hip-hop music and comparative analysis of African-American hip-hop with the examples of global hip-hop should pay attention to the philosophical-aesthetic foundations of African-American hip-hop and their relation to Negro-African aesthetics, which differs fundamentally from the European aesthetic tradition.

The Impact of Social Movements on the Development of African American Museums

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Fleming
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Black People ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
Black Museums ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The effort to preserve African American history is firmly grounded in the struggle for freedom and equality. Black people understood the relationship between heritage and the freedom struggle. Such struggles in the pre and post Civil War eras spurred the preservation of African and African American culture first in libraries and archives and later museums. The civil rights, Black Power, Black Arts and Black Studies movements helped advance social and political change, which in turn spurred the development of Black museums as formal institutions for preserving African American culture.

scholarly journals Jay-Z and O.J.: Sport and the Performance of Race in Hip-Hop Music

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 192-206
Author(s):  
Kellen Jamil Northcutt ◽  
Kayla Henderson ◽  
Kaylee Chicoski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Hip Hop Music ◽  
Jay Z ◽  
The Impact

The purpose of this study was to understand the symbolic messaging in hip-hop music as it relates to the lived experiences and realities of Black Americans in the United States. The study examined the song and music video titled “The Story of O.J.,” by hip-hop artist Jay-Z to gain a better understanding of how Jay-Z interpreted the impact of Black Americans’ lived experiences in the United States on their identity and ability to progress economically and socially, regardless of social standing, within subcultures such as sport. Employing a content analysis method, data were collected and analyzed using critical race theory. The results of the analysis of lyrical and video data identified three major themes: (a) battle with Blackness, (b) economic enslavement and financial freedom, and (c) systematic subjugation.

Hip Hop Music and (Reading) the Narrative Soundtracks of New Black Realist Cinema

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Millea
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Spike Lee ◽  
Independent Cinema ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Hip Hop Music

Hip hop is noise. It is a composite binding of contemporary, postmodern technologies and orally based ideologies that disrupts the normative and traditional characteristics of mainstream media and culture in order to create a space for subcultural revolt and resistance. Nowhere is this more fascinating than in the soundtracks of New Black Realism, African American independent cinema of the 1990s. Drawing on case studies from some of the earliest work of Spike Lee, as the foremost proponent of the genre, this chapter reads the sound and music of these narrative films through fundamental characteristics in hip hop as a postliterate orality, arguing that such an approach allows us to explore the rebellious possibilities of the music as, not just on, the cinematic soundtrack.

Beyond the White Negro

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Chabot Davis
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
College Classrooms ◽  
The Past ◽  
American Novels ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Self Examination

Critics often characterize white consumption of African American culture as a form of theft that echoes the fantasies of 1950s-era bohemians, or “White Negroes,” who romanticized black culture as anarchic and sexually potent. This book claims such a view fails to describe the varied politics of racial crossover in the past fifteen years. The book analyzes how white engagement with African American novels, film narratives, and hip-hop can help form anti-racist attitudes that may catalyze social change and racial justice. Though acknowledging past failures to establish cross-racial empathy, the book focuses on examples that show avenues for future progress and change. Its study of ethnographic data from book clubs and college classrooms shows how engagement with African American culture and pedagogical support can lead to the kinds of white self-examination that make empathy possible. The result is a book that challenges the trend of focusing on society's failures in achieving cross-racial empathy and instead explores possible avenues for change.

scholarly journals Song Form and the Mainstreaming of Hip-Hop Music

2021 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 93-135
Author(s):  
Ben Duinker
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
21St Century ◽  
North American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Musical Practice ◽  
Performance Culture ◽  
Hip Hop Music ◽  
Musical Genres

Song form in North American hip-hop music has evolved along the genre’s journey from its origins as a live musical practice, through its commercial ascent in the 1980s and 1990s, to its dominance of mainstream popular music in the 21st century. This paper explores the nature and evolution of song form in hip-hop music and uses them as a musical lens to view the gradual and ongoing mainstreaming of this genre. With the help of a corpus of 160 hip-hop songs released since 1979, I describe and unpack section types common to hip-hop music­—verses, hooks, and instrumentals—illustrating how these sections combine in different formal paradigms, such as strophic and verse-hook. I evaluate the extent to which formal structures in hip-hop music can be understood as products of the genre’s live performance culture; one with roots in African American oral vernacular traditions such as toasting. Finally, I discuss how form in hip-hop music has increasingly foregrounded the hook (chorus): the emergence of the verse-hook song form, an increase in sung hooks (often by singers outside the hip-hop genre), the earlier arrival of hook sections in songs, and the greater share of a song’s duration occupied by hooks. Viewing hip-hop music’s evolution through this increasing importance of the hook provides a clear representation of the genre’s roots outside of, and assimilation into, mainstream popular music; one of many Black musical genres to have traversed this path (George, 1988).

scholarly journals Call-and-Response: An Ancient Linguistic Device Surfaces in Usher's "Love in This Club"

Elements ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Keegan
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
American Culture ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
Call And Response ◽  
Salient Features

The call-and-response, originating from African tribal rituals, has become part of the foundation of modern African-American culture. This article explores the significance of call-and-response in Usher's "Love in This Club" and relates salient features of the music to the club culture that underlies it. "Club hip-hop" emerges as firmly rooted in the use of call-and-response. The rituals of the club are likewise mirrored in the style of the music, which at times can bear the importance of sacred ceremony.

Rap, Islam and Jihadi Cool: The attractions of the Western jihadi subculture

2021 ◽  
pp. 174165902110255
Author(s):  
Sune Qvotrup Jensen ◽  
Jeppe Fuglsang Larsen ◽  
Sveinung Sandberg
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Hip Hop Music ◽  
Hybrid Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

Recent scholarship has explored the potential of subcultural theory for understanding the convergence of Western street and jihadi subcultures. The role of jihadi rap in this radical hybrid culture, however, is yet uncharted. We argue that subcultural analysis allows an understanding of the aesthetic fascination of jihadism, sometimes referred to as jihadi cool, and that jihadi rap should be seen as an integrated part of this cultural amalgam. To better understand the role of hip-hop in the hybrid street-jihadi culture, this paper offers a historical analysis of the relationship between hip-hop and Islam and detailed insight into the more contemporary, and marginal, phenomena of jihadi rap. We track the continuities and discontinuities from the presence of Black Islam in early hip hop to recent convergences between hip hop and jihadism. Our analysis draws on Lévi-Strauss concepts of bricolage and floating signifiers. Subcultures and hip-hop music are seen as bricolages that draw on a multitude of cultural references with their own particular history. In these cultural bricolages, Islam often acts as a floating signifier, with different and often ambiguous meanings. We argue and demonstrate that Islam has a long history of being part of hip-hop rebellion and attraction and that this, channelled through jihadi rap, can contribute to jihadi cool and the contemporary pull of Western jihadi subcultures.

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