Prep
- William Jelani Cobb, ‘Asphalt Chronicles: Hip Hop and the Storytelling Tradition’, in Cobb, To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic (NYU Press, 2007)
- Audio: Choose one song from among the ones discussed in the Ghostface ‘Brackets’ video below and listen to it carefully (it could be a song you’ve never heard before or one you’re already familiar with). How does it illustrate (or otherwise connect to) an idea in the assigned reading by William Jelani Cobb? Post a brief paragraph in our #discography channel on Discord the night before class and be as specific as possible (which, naturally, also entails citing ‘chapter and verse’ in the assigned reading).
- Video: ‘Ghostface Killah Crowns Best Storytelling Rap Song | Complex Brackets’, Complex (20 October 2021)
In Class
- Attendance
- Q&A: Are today’s rappers simply modern-day griots?
- Reading Notes for Next Time
- Adam Bradley, ‘Storytelling’, in Book of Rhymes (Basic Books, 2009)
- Audio: TBD
- Video: TBD
