• Tricia Rose, ‘Never Trust a Big Butt and a Smile’, in Forman and Neal (2004), pp. 291-306
• Audio: ‘Saweetie, City Girls, and the Female Rapper Renaissance’, Popcast (29 November 2020)
• Video: ‘Why Women Are Running Hip Hop Now’, Signified B Sides (26 February 2024)

In Class

1. Attendance
2. Q&A: What do feminists hear when they listen to hip-hop?
3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Mychal Denzel Smith, ‘Confessions of a Conscious Rap Fan’, Pitchfork (28 June 2022)
• Audio: ‘Kendrick Lamar’s Anxiety Era’, Popcast (24 May 2022)
• Video: ‘Do the Knowledge’, Hip-Hop Evolution S2E3 (2018)

• Paul Gilroy, ‘It’s a Family Affair’ (password-protected PDF), in Neal and Forman (2012)
• Audio: ‘Allah B of the Nation of Gods and Earths’, The Cipher Show 151 (18 April 2016). Peace! We trace the history of the Nation of Gods and Earths – and its influence on hip-hop – with one of its earliest members.
• Video: An Overview of Afrocentricity with Dr Molefi Kete Asante, AfricentricTV (4 July 2021)

In Class

1. Attendance
2. Q&A: If hip-hop is protest music, why did so many conscious rappers support the patriarchy?
3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Tricia Rose, ‘Never Trust a Big Butt and a Smile’, in Forman and Neal (2004), pp. 291-306
• Audio: ‘Saweetie, City Girls, and the Female Rapper Renaissance’, Popcast (29 November 2020)
• Video: ‘Why Women Are Running Hip Hop Now’, Signified B Sides (26 February 2024)

Today we’re going to spend the whole period talking about the Story Maps Proposal Outline assignment. We’ll also make some time to huddle up in our small groups. 

In Class

1. 1. Attendance
   2. Review: Story Maps Proposal Outline
   3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Paul Gilroy, ‘It’s a Family Affair’ (password-protected PDF), in Neal and Forman (2012)
• Audio: ‘Allah B of the Nation of Gods and Earths’, The Cipher Show 151 (18 April 2016). Peace! We trace the history of the Nation of Gods and Earths – and its influence on hip-hop – with one of its earliest members.
• Video: An Overview of Afrocentricity with Dr Molefi Kete Asante, AfricentricTV (4 July 2021)

• Kembrew McLeod, ‘Authenticity Within Hip-Hop and Other Cultures Threatened With Assimilation’ (password-protected PDF), in Forman and Neal (2012)
• Video: Adam Neely, ‘Why Are There So Few Cover Rap Songs?’ (22 September 2022)

In Class

1. 1. Attendance
   2. Q&A: What do we mean when we talk about ‘authenticity’ in hip-hop?
   3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Paul Gilroy, ‘It’s a Family Affair’ (password-protected PDF), in Neal and Forman (2012)
• Audio: ‘Allah B of the Nation of Gods and Earths’, The Cipher Show 151 (18 April 2016). Peace! We trace the history of the Nation of Gods and Earths – and its influence on hip-hop – with one of its earliest members.
• Video: An Overview of Afrocentricity with Dr Molefi Kete Asante, AfricentricTV (4 July 2021)

• • Murray S. Davis, ‘That’s Interesting! Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1971)
  • Audio: Drake, ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’ (2024)
  • Video: ‘Why I Love Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle”‘  (12 October 2024). An example of a clearly stated, interesting thesis—and one that’s fun to debate!

  We barely dipped our toes into Monday’s assignments, so we’ll finish that discussion on Wednesday. 

  In Class

  1. 1. Attendance
     2. Q&A: How can we come up with a thesis, and what is the mark of a good one?
     3. Reading Notes for Next Time

   

• For Next Time

  • Kembrew McLeod, ‘Authenticity Within Hip-Hop and Other Cultures Threatened With Assimilation’ (password-protected PDF), in Forman and Neal (2012)
  • Audio: TBD
  • Video: Adam Neely, ‘Why Are There So Few Cover Rap Songs?’ (22 September 2022)

• Murray S. Davis, ‘That’s Interesting! Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1971)
• Audio: Drake, ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’ (2024)
• Video: ‘Why I Love Drake’s “Taylor Made Freestyle”‘  (12 October 2024). An example of a clearly stated, interesting thesis—and one that’s fun to debate!

The Davis article is great in that it’s almost a primer on 19th- and 20th-century social theory, but it’s a lot for anyone who isn’t already familiar with the classics of the modern social sciences. Focus on Part II, ‘The Index of the Interesting’ (pp. 313-326).

In Class

1. 1. Attendance
   2. Q&A: How can we come up with a thesis, and what is the mark of a good one?
   3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Kembrew McLeod, ‘Authenticity Within Hip-Hop and Other Cultures Threatened With Assimilation’ (password-protected PDF), in Forman and Neal (2012)
• Audio: TBD
• Video: Adam Neely, ‘Why Are There So Few Cover Rap Songs?’ (22 September 2022)

• Adam Bradley, ‘Rhyme’, Ch. 2 in Book of Rhymes (2009)
• Audio: Adam Bradley, ‘American Poets on the Hip-Hop Songs That Most Inspire Them’, New York Times (4 March 2021). To complement T’s recent feature on how the barrier between rap and poetry is becoming increasingly porous thanks to a new generation of practitioners in both art forms, we asked a number of poets mentioned in the piece about the hip-hop songs they return to again and again. (These excerpts from interviews with various poets shouldn’t be read apart from the embedded Spotify playlist, ‘A Playlist from the Poets’.)
• Video: ‘Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time’, Vox (19 May 2016)
• Due BEFORE Class: What’s your favourite rap song? Identify all the techniques from ‘Rapping Deconstructed’ (e.g., crossing the bar line, motifs, daisy-chaining, etc.) or Bradley, ‘Rhyme’ (e.g., assonance, consonance, epistrophe) that occur in this song.  (Note: Using one of the verses discussed in the videoessay is cheating, obviously.) Post a link to the song (YouTube or Whosampled, ideally), along with a brief explanation as to how one of these techniques is illustrated in the verse you’ve selected (define the technique and cite the page[s] where it’s discussed in the reading), in the #discography channel on our Discord server before our next class.

In Class

1. 1. Attendance
   2. Q&A: What can the study of poetics teach us about rap lyricism?
   3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Murray S. Davis, ‘That’s Interesting! Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1971)
• Audio: TBD
• Re-View: Robert Glasper: “Jazz is the mother of hip-hop” | JAZZ NIGHT IN AMERICA (19 April 2017). An example of a clearly stated, interesting thesis—and one that’s EXTREMELY debatable.

• H. Samy Alim, ‘“Bring It to the Cypher”: Hip-Hop Nation Language’, in Forman and Neal (2012)
• Audio: Chief Rocker Busy Bee Starski vs. Kool Moe Dee of The Treacherous Three (Harlem World, 1981)
• Video: The Art of Diss: The History of Battle Rap (2023)

We spent much of the class huddled up in group work. So we still need to discuss the assigned texts from last Wednesday.

In Class

1. 1. Attendance
   2. Q&A: What can the study of linguistics teach us about the language of hip-hop?
   3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Adam Bradley, ‘Rhyme’, Ch. 2 in Book of Rhymes (2009)
• Audio: Adam Bradley, ‘American Poets on the Hip-Hop Songs That Most Inspire Them’, New York Times (4 March 2021). To complement T’s recent feature on how the barrier between rap and poetry is becoming increasingly porous thanks to a new generation of practitioners in both art forms, we asked a number of poets mentioned in the piece about the hip-hop songs they return to again and again. (These excerpts from interviews with various poets shouldn’t be read apart from the embedded Spotify playlist, ‘A Playlist from the Poets’.)
• Video: ‘Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time’, Vox (19 May 2016)

• H. Samy Alim, ‘“Bring It to the Cypher”: Hip-Hop Nation Language’, in Forman and Neal (2012)
• Audio: Chief Rocker Busy Bee Starski vs. Kool Moe Dee of The Treacherous Three (Harlem World, 1981)
• Video: The Art of Diss: The History of Battle Rap (2023)

In Class

1. 1. Attendance
   2. Q&A: What can the study of linguistics teach us about the language of hip-hop?
   3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Adam Bradley, ‘Rhyme’, Ch. 2 in Book of Rhymes (2009)
• Audio: Adam Bradley, ‘American Poets on the Hip-Hop Songs That Most Inspire Them’, New York Times (4 March 2021). To complement T’s recent feature on how the barrier between rap and poetry is becoming increasingly porous thanks to a new generation of practitioners in both art forms, we asked a number of poets mentioned in the piece about the hip-hop songs they return to again and again. (These excerpts from interviews with various poets shouldn’t be read apart from the embedded Spotify playlist, ‘A Playlist from the Poets’.) 
• Video: ‘Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time’, Vox (19 May 2016)

• Andrew Nosnitsky, ‘Classic Material’, Pitchfork (19 November 2012)
• Audio: This should go without saying, but you need to listen to Nas’s Illmatic (1993) album if you don’t already know it. Even if you do know it, you should revisit it.
• Video: Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, m.A.A.d. Classic (21 October 2017).

In Class

1. 1. Attendance
   2. Q&A: What defines a hip-hop classic?
   3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• H. Samy Alim, ‘“Bring It to the Cypher”: Hip-Hop Nation Language’, in Forman and Neal (2012)
• Audio: Chief Rocker Busy Bee Starski vs. Kool Moe Dee of The Treacherous Three (Harlem World, 1981)
• Video: The Art of Diss: The History of Battle Rap (2023)