Nuthin' But a "G" Thang

Nuthin' But a Author: Eithne Quinn
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231124082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In the late 1980s, gansta rap music emerged in urban America, giving voice to, & making money for, a social group widely believed to be in crisis: young, poor, black men. Quinn probes the origins of the genre, & follows its development, focusing on artists such as Ice Cube & Tupac Shakur.

Nuthin' But a "G" Thang

Nuthin' But a Author: Eithne Quinn
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231124082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In the late 1980s, gansta rap music emerged in urban America, giving voice to, & making money for, a social group widely believed to be in crisis: young, poor, black men. Quinn probes the origins of the genre, & follows its development, focusing on artists such as Ice Cube & Tupac Shakur.

Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English

Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English PDF Author: Sonja L. Lanehart
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9781588110466
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This volume, based on presentations at a 1998 state of the art conference at the University of Georgia, critically examines African American English (AAE) socially, culturally, historically, and educationally. It explores the relationship between AAE and other varieties of English (namely Southern White Vernaculars, Gullah, and Caribbean English creoles), language use in the African American community (e.g., Hip Hop, women's language, and directness), and application of our knowledge about AAE to issues in education (e.g., improving overall academic success). To its credit (since most books avoid the issue), the volume also seeks to define the term 'AAE' and challenge researchers to address the complexity of defining a language and its speakers. The volume collectively tries to help readers better understand language use in the African American community and how that understanding benefits all who value language variation and the knowledge such study brings to our society.

The Truth Behind Hip Hop

The Truth Behind Hip Hop PDF Author:
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 1613797729
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description


Take This Hammer

Take This Hammer PDF Author: Paul Rekret
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1913380157
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
A study of contemporary music in light of transformations to work and social life. The emergence of the popular music industry in the early twentieth century not only drove a wedge between music production and consumption, it also underscored a wider separation of labor from leisure and of the workplace from the domestic sphere. These were changes characteristic of an industrial society where pleasure was to be sought outside of work, but these categories have grown increasingly porous today. As the working day extends into the home or becomes indistinguishable from leisure time, so the role and meaning of music in everyday life changes too. In arguing that the experience of popular music is partly conditioned by its segregation from work and its restriction to the time and space of leisure—the evening, the weekend, the dancehall—Take This Hammer shows how changes to work as it grows increasingly precarious, part-time, and temporary in recent decades, are related to transformations in popular music. Connecting contemporary changes in work and the economy to tendencies in popular music, Take This Hammer shows how song-form has both reflected developments in contemporary capitalism while also intimating a horizon beyond it. From online streaming and the extension of the working day to gentrification, unemployment and the emergence of trap rap, from ecological crisis and field recording to automation and trends in dance music, by exploring the intersections of work and song in the current era, not only do we gain a new understanding of contemporary musical culture, we also see how music might gesture towards a horizon beyond the alienating experience of work in capitalism itself.

Original Gangstas

Original Gangstas PDF Author: Ben Westhoff
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0316344869
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
"Raw, authoritative, and unflinching ... An elaborately detailed, darkly surprising, definitive history of the LA gangsta rap era." -- Kirkus, starred review A monumental, revealing narrative history about the legendary group of artists at the forefront of West Coast hip-hop: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur. Amid rising gang violence, the crack epidemic, and police brutality, a group of unlikely voices cut through the chaos of late 1980s Los Angeles: N.W.A. Led by a drug dealer, a glammed-up producer, and a high school kid, N.W.A gave voice to disenfranchised African Americans across the country. And they quickly redefined pop culture across the world. Their names remain as popular as ever -- Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, and Ice Cube. Dre soon joined forces with Suge Knight to create the combustible Death Row Records, which in turn transformed Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur into superstars. Ben Westhoff explores how this group of artists shifted the balance of hip-hop from New York to Los Angeles. He shows how N.W.A.'s shocking success lead to rivalries between members, record labels, and eventually a war between East Coast and West Coast factions. In the process, hip-hop burst into mainstream America at a time of immense social change, and became the most dominant musical movement of the last thirty years. At gangsta rap's peak, two of its biggest names -- Tupac and Biggie Smalls -- were murdered, leaving the surviving artists to forge peace before the genre annihilated itself. Featuring extensive investigative reporting, interviews with the principal players, and dozens of never-before-told stories, Original Gangstas is a groundbreaking addition to the history of popular music.

Dr. Dre

Dr. Dre PDF Author: John Borgmeyer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313081700
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
It is almost impossible to listen to a current hip-hop song that does not bear Dr. Dre's influence. With innovations in style that started with the hip-hop group N.W.A., and, later, as a solo rapper and producer, Dre's influence and lasting impact on hip-hop music and culture is undeniable. He pioneered a new style of music that in the early 1990s would come to be known as gangsta rap, and his proteges - Snoop and Eminem - are both considered some of the top rappers to emerge since rap was born on the streets of New York three decades ago. This biography traces Dre's rise to fame, a story that parallels the rise of hip-hop as one of the most dominant cultural forces in America. Dre came of age at the time when hip-hop culture (rapping, breakdancing, Deejaying, and Graffiti art) began an underground trend in urban America. Chapters take the reader from Dre's childhood in Los Angeles through his friendships, early influences, and the birth of his music career. Also discussed is the tragic tale of Death Row Records, which culminates in the high-profile murders of rap artists Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. and serves as a lesson on what can go wrong when people in the rap business believe their own gangsta hype. Dre's ability to survive in the rough-and-tumble rap industry is a testament to the power of artistic vision and the payoff of sheer persistence.

Sounding Race in Rap Songs

Sounding Race in Rap Songs PDF Author: Loren Kajikawa
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520283988
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
As one of the most influential and popular genres of the last three decades, rap has cultivated a mainstream audience and become a multimillion-dollar industry by promoting highly visible and often controversial representations of blackness. Sounding Race in Rap Songs argues that rap music allows us not only to see but also to hear how mass-mediated culture engenders new understandings of race. The book traces the changing sounds of race across some of the best-known rap songs of the past thirty-five years, combining song-level analysis with historical contextualization to show how these representations of identity depend on specific artistic decisions, such as those related to how producers make beats. Each chapter explores the process behind the production of hit songs by musicians including Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, The Sugarhill Gang, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, N.W.A., Dr. Dre, and Eminem. This series of case studies highlights stylistic differences in sound, lyrics, and imagery, with musical examples and illustrations that help answer the core question: can we hear race in rap songs? Integrating theory from interdisciplinary areas, this book will resonate with students and scholars of popular music, race relations, urban culture, ethnomusicology, sound studies, and beyond.

The Mark of Criminality

The Mark of Criminality PDF Author: Bryan J. McCann
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817319484
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Illustrates the ways that the “war on crime” became conjoined—aesthetically, politically, and rhetorically—with the emergence of gangsta rap as a lucrative and deeply controversial subgenre of hip-hop In The Mark of Criminality: Rhetoric, Race, and Gangsta Rap in the War-on-Crime Era, Bryan J. McCann argues that gangsta rap should be viewed as more than a damaging reinforcement of an era’s worst racial stereotypes. Rather, he positions the works of key gangsta rap artists, as well as the controversies their work produced, squarely within the law-and-order politics and popular culture of the 1980s and 1990s to reveal a profoundly complex period in American history when the meanings of crime and criminality were incredibly unstable. At the center of this era—when politicians sought to prove their “tough-on-crime” credentials—was the mark of criminality, a set of discourses that labeled members of predominantly poor, urban, and minority communities as threats to the social order. Through their use of the mark of criminality, public figures implemented extremely harsh penal polices that have helped make the United States the world’s leading jailer of its adult population. At the same time when politicians like Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton and television shows such as COPS and America’s Most Wanted perpetuated images of gang and drug-filled ghettos, gangsta rap burst out of the hip-hop nation, emanating mainly from the predominantly black neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles. Groups like NWA and solo artists (including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur) became millionaires by marketing the very discourses political and cultural leaders used to justify their war on crime. For these artists, the mark of criminality was a source of power, credibility, and revenue. By understanding gangsta rap as a potent, if deeply imperfect, enactment of the mark of criminality, we can better understand how crime is always a site of struggle over meaning. Furthermore, by underscoring the nimble rhetorical character of criminality, we can learn lessons that may inform efforts to challenge our nation’s failed policies of mass incarceration.

Rhymin' and Stealin'

Rhymin' and Stealin' PDF Author: Justin A Williams
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472118927
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
The first book-length study of one of the most essential elements of hip-hop: musical borrowing

The Rap Year Book

The Rap Year Book PDF Author: Shea Serrano
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1613128193
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 639

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Book Description
A New York Times–bestselling, in-depth exploration of the most pivotal moments in rap music from 1979 to 2014. Here’s what The Rap Year Book does: It takes readers from 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap became recognized as part of the cultural and musical landscape, and comes right up to the present, with Shea Serrano hilariously discussing, debating, and deconstructing the most important rap song year by year. Serrano also examines the most important moments that surround the history and culture of rap music—from artists’ backgrounds to issues of race, the rise of hip-hop, and the struggles among its major players—both personal and professional. Covering East Coast and West Coast, famous rapper feuds, chart toppers, and show stoppers, The Rap Year Book is an in-depth look at the most influential genre of music to come out of the last generation. Picked by Billboard as One of the 100 Greatest Music Books of All-Time Pitchfork Book Club’s first selection