• 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)