160062 VO Hip Hop: Aesthetics, Culture, Politics (2018W)

The term Hip Hop does not just describe music, but a whole culture including art, dance, fashion, literature, identity and politics. Although this is a music-focused course, it aims to situate the music—and other aesthetic components—within a larger Hip Hop culture, and to understand how the music then articulates and informs this culture’s political, racial, economic, and social concerns. Through readings taken from academic sources, the popular press, and interviews with artists; audio and video recordings, films and television series; and lectures and class discussion, we will explore and critically examine the history and current state of Hip Hop culture.

The course divides into four core areas.

Roots—We will trace the roots of Hip Hop in the New York ghetto in the 1970s (including the historical precedents and earlier styles that inspired it) and see how it spread throughout the US and then the world to create a global ‘Hip Hop nation’. Most of the major acts and genres will be covered.

Aesthetics—We will be primarily concerned with understanding how Hip Hop’s main tenets—MCing, DJing, B-boying/B-girling, graffiti, knowing—translate into meaningful practice. We will be particularly concerned with how sampling techniques are fused with rhythmical, poetic language in order to express Hip Hop’s social and political messages. We will see how Hip Hop’s remix culture has come to dominate the aesthetics of the 21st century.

Culture—The course examines the impact of Hip Hop not just on black culture and identity, but also on Latino/a and Asian cultures in the US and other cultures worldwide. We will see how through cross-cultural hybridization—including interracial, cross-class, cross-ethnic, and multi-lingual integration—Hip Hop has managed to generate a shared global language. We will also see that this optimistic vision is tempered by concerns about authenticity and commercialism.

Politics— Does Hip Hop manage to mount a genuine expression of black youth discontent, or does it represent little more than a successful marketing campaign? How does the representation of women, sexuality, violence and money in rap music mesh with any supposed emancipatory potential it might have? Through questions such as these we will think critically about the place of Hip Hop in wider society and its status as an oppositional culture.