Prep

• Murray S. Davis, ‘That’s Interesting! Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1971). What makes an interesting claim about the world interesting?
• Video: 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.

In Class

1. Attendance
2. Q&A: How can we come up with a thesis, and what is the mark of a good one?
3. Small Group Exercise: Formulate Your Story Maps Research Question Exercise
4. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Tricia Rose, ‘Never Trust a Big Butt and a Smile’, in Forman and Neal (2004)
• Audio: ‘Saweetie, City Girls, and the Female Rapper Renaissance’, Popcast (29 November 2020)

Prep

• Adam Bradley, ‘The Artists Dismantling the Barriers Between Rap and Poetry’, The New York Times Style Magazine (4 March 2021). Hip-hop MCs embracing poetry, hip-hop generation poets influenced by hip-hop. Plus the Third Way of spoken-word poetry, or poetry as live performance. And the role of women of colour in creating all this synergy.
• 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)
• Homework: What’s your favourite hip-hop verse of all time? Identify one technique from ‘Rapping Deconstructed’ (e.g., crossing the bar line, motifs, daisy-chaining, etc.) or Bradley (2021; e.g., assonance, consonance, epistrophe) used in this verse.  (Note: Using one of the verses discussed in the videoessay is cheating, obviously.) Post a link to the song, along with a brief explanation as to how this technique is illustrated in the verse you’ve selected, in the #discography channel on our Slack webspace before our next class. 

In Class

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)
• Video: 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.

Prep

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

For Next Time

• Adam Bradley, ‘The Artists Dismantling the Barriers Between Rap and Poetry’, The New York Times Style Magazine (4 March 2021)
• Audio: Adam Bradley, ‘American Poets on the Hip-Hop Songs That Most Inspire Them’, New York Times (4 March 2021). 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)
• Homework: What’s your favourite hip-hop verse of all time? Identify one technique from ‘Rapping Deconstructed’ (e.g., crossing the bar line, motifs, daisy-chaining, etc.) or Bradley (2021; e.g., assonance, consonance, epistrophe) used in this verse.  (Note: Using one of the verses discussed in the videoessay is cheating, obviously.)

Prep

We didn’t have time for small group huddles on Monday, so we’ll push the assignments for Wednesday back to next week and huddle up most of Wednesday.

In Class

1. Attendance
2. Small Group Huddles
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) 

Prep

• Review Andrew Nosnitsky, ‘Classic Material’, Pitchfork (19 November 2012)
• Recommended Viewing: Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, m.A.A.d. Classic (21 October 2017). This week’s piece delves into the overrated concept that time is a factor when judging a classic. For a dissenting view on hip-hop classicism…

In Class

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) 

Prep

• Jennifer Lynn Stoever, ‘Crate Digging Begins at Home: Black and Latinx Women Collecting and Selecting Records in the 1960s and 1970s Bronx’, in Justin D. Burton and Jason Lee Oakes, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Hip-Hop Music (2018)
• Andrew Nosnitsky, ‘Classic Material’, Pitchfork (19 November 2012)
• Audio: Nas, Illmatic (1993)

In Class

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) 

Prep

• Jennifer Lynn Stoever, ‘Crate Digging Begins at Home: Black and Latinx Women Collecting and Selecting Records in the 1960s and 1970s Bronx’, in Justin D. Burton and Jason Lee Oakes, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Hip-Hop Music (2018)
• Video: Afrika Bambaataa | Crate Diggers | Fuse (13 August 2014) [Note: I only thought to add this Monday morning, so please do watch this after class if you don’t get a chance to do it before class!]
• Audio: Your ‘Home Soundscape’, The Brian Lehrer Show (5 October 2022). Kathryn Jezer-Morton, writer of The Cut’s Brooding newsletter, joins to discuss her latest newsletter about music in the home and how it can be used to expand a sense of belonging, and takes listener calls on what they play in their homes.

In Class

1. Attendance
2. Q&A: Is hip-hop really a something made out of nothing?
3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Andrew Nosnitsky, ‘Classic Material’, Pitchfork (19 November 2012)
• Audio: Nas, Illmatic (1993)

At the end of class today, I promised that we would push Wednesday’s previously scheduled agenda back in order to reserve class time to work on our group projects. I would, however, like you to prep this brief Op-Ed by Shamus Khan, as it will be very relevant to our discussion next week of Stoever’s essay, ‘Crate Digging Begins at Home’.

Prep

• Shamus Khan, ‘The New Elitists’, New York Times (7 July 2012)

In Class

1. Review: Class Participation Self-Evaluation Essay
2. Founding Fathers (Slight Return): The Roots of Rapping 
3. Small Group Huddles/Attendance
4. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Jennifer Lynn Stoever, ‘Crate Digging Begins at Home: Black and Latinx Women Collecting and Selecting Records in the 1960s and 1970s Bronx’, in Justin D. Burton and Jason Lee Oakes, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Hip-Hop Music (2018)
• Audio: Your ‘Home Soundscape’, The Brian Lehrer Show (5 October 2022). Kathryn Jezer-Morton, writer of The Cut’s Brooding newsletter, joins to discuss her latest newsletter about music in the home and how it can be used to expand a sense of belonging, and takes listener calls on what they play in their homes.

Prep

• Nelson George, ‘Hip-Hop’s Founding Fathers Speak the Truth’, in Forman and Neal (2012); also available in Forman and Neal (2004)
• Video: Founding Fathers: The Untold Story of Hip-Hop (Ron Lawrence and Hassan Pore, 2009)

In Class

1. Attendance
2. Q&A: Did hip-hop really begin in the Bronx?
3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Shamus Khan, ‘The New Elitists’, New York Times (7 July 2012)
• Jennifer Lynn Stoever, ‘Crate Digging Begins at Home: Black and Latinx Women Collecting and Selecting Records in the 1960s and 1970s Bronx’, in Justin D. Burton and Jason Lee Oakes, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Hip-Hop Music (2018) 
• Audio: Your ‘Home Soundscape’, The Brian Lehrer Show (5 October 2022). Kathryn Jezer-Morton, writer of The Cut’s Brooding newsletter, joins to discuss her latest newsletter about music in the home and how it can be used to expand a sense of belonging, and takes listener calls on what they play in their homes.

Prep

• Nelson George, ‘Hip-Hop’s Founding Fathers Speak the Truth’, in Forman and Neal (2012); also available in Forman and Neal (2004)
• Video: Wild Style (Charlie Ahearn, 1982), cont’d

In Class

1. Attendance
2. Screening: Wild Style (Charlie Ahearn, 1982), cont’d
3. Reading Notes for Next Time

For Next Time

• Shamus Khan, ‘The New Elitists’, New York Times (7 July 2012)
• Jennifer Lynn Stoever, ‘Crate Digging Begins at Home: Black and Latinx Women Collecting and Selecting Records in the 1960s and 1970s Bronx’, in Justin D. Burton and Jason Lee Oakes, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Hip-Hop Music (2018) 
• Audio: Your ‘Home Soundscape’, The Brian Lehrer Show (5 October 2022). Kathryn Jezer-Morton, writer of The Cut’s Brooding newsletter, joins to discuss her latest newsletter about music in the home and how it can be used to expand a sense of belonging, and takes listener calls on what they play in their homes.
• Video: Founding Fathers: The Untold Story of Hip-Hop (Ron Lawrence and Hassan Pore, 2009)