Annotated Bibliography: G. Colombo, R. Lisle By Joan Morgan

In this article, the speaker must be an expert in politics, ethnicity and the music industry. There is a linkage between the above fields hence the speaker must have had a superlative background on these issues. The audience targeted by this literature were seemingly music enthusiasts to be educated on understanding what Hip-Hop entails and hoped to achieve this as it was established. The subject was Hip-Hop as a music genre that was largely developed by African American men to express their plight on injustice and oppression. The principal issue was how Hip-Hop has been used as a form of resistance and need for deliverance of the African Americans.

Masculinity in the Hip-Hop culture has been redefined repetitively as the genre grows in popularity. Created in the late 70’s, Hip-Hop was started as an outlet for residents of urban communities to express them and have fun through the music. As Hip-Hop grew into the 80’s and 90’ the genre also evolved as the artist began to voice what was going on in their day to day lives and in their communities; Hip -hop became a form of storytelling. Being that a lot of Hip-Hop artist had street, and gang related backgrounds, their music would reflect their past lives that were violent and controversial. Despite their brave and unapologetic storytelling, the era of ‘gangster rap’ set the standard of what it meant to be masculine in the

Molefi Asante is the author of It’s Bigger than Hip-Hop: The Rise of the Post Hip-Hop Generation. In this article, Asante predicts that the post-hip-hop generation will embrace social justice issues including women’s rights, gay’s rights, and the anti-war movement. To challenge these stereotypes, Asante speaks to the personification of the African-American ghetto and the need to stop glorifying black suffering. For Asante, the post-hip-hop generation no longer expects hip-hop to mobilize disenfranchised youth. Asante states, “The post-hip-hop generation shouldn’t wait for mainstream musicians to say what needs to be said…No movement is about beats and rhythms…. it must be bigger than hip-hop.” Because hip-hop is controlled by corporations, Asante says hip-hop will never be the focus of political change. Asante argues that “old white men” have dictated hip-hop, and by extension the actions of black youth, since 1991. “Allowing white executives, not from the hip-hop culture, to control and dictate the culture is tragic because the music, and ultimately the culture, as we can see today, has not only lost its edge, but its sense of rebellion and black movement- the very principles upon which it was founded.” Asante calls for the rise of “artivism,” a new social movement that uses art to improve community police relations, failing schools and the criminal justice system. Asante encourages the post-hip-hop generation to unite with Latino/Immigration Rights and Black Civil Rights

Colombo, Gary, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. Print.

Hip Hop has been a thread of music that is deeply rooted in the struggle within the black communities of America. It acted as a window for people outside of the black community to acknowledge and experience, to an extent, what endeavors those communities encounter. Although Hip Hop’s central purpose is to denote the subjugation that was implemented on the black community, Hip Hop began as a mere offshoot of 1970’s jazz, funk, and soul.

“I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there 's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that 's really important to us, and music is all we 've really got” – Missy Elliot. Hip-Hop is a cultural movement and popular genre of music that emerged during the early 1970 's by working class Black youths in New York City. The cultural movement has rapidly expanded across different countries and ethnicities over the years, becoming one of the few markers that define a generation. Hip-Hop can be seen as “the fundamental matrix of self-expression for this whole generation” (Katz & Smith, 1993). Through music, itself, artists can express their feelings towards different events or social changes that they’ve see or have experienced in their lives. According to Frith (1986), this perspective towards writing music is similar to Mooney’s argument that popular song lyrics is a reflection of what’s missing or needed at their time, giving us a trace of America’s ‘mood’ throughout history. In return, music artists captivate the minds of people among various backgrounds who use these relatable music lyrics as a source of empowerment or as an expression of their own thoughts. While some music artists create music to uplift their audience by giving them a sense of freedom, other artists create music that separates their audience by dehumanizing one group and giving power to the other.

The title of this piece informs the reader about what the content will hold and suggests that the author feels strongly about the injustice of black women in the hip-hop scene. Jennifer Mclune, the author, is an activist, librarian, and writer that resides in Washington, D.C. This particular piece appeared in Z Magazine Online, which is an independently founded magazine whose mission is to publish articles that go in depth when critiquing the social structures of society and pride themselves on being a predominant activist webpage. With these factors combined, it is clear that the author is qualified to have written such an essay. After reading the information presented about the

She uses this song to satirize racism. Moreover, the black hip hop group Public Enemy emphasizes that all people are the same in their song. They want to show white people are not superior and black people are not inferior. They encourage people to fight the power and against

The melancholy feel of this ballad was a perfect tone for the story being told. It made the listener feel somewhat concerned with the conditions of poor Black women, even if they never have before. The background singers in this song make the delivery of the poem/song much more passionate. The song in its entirety is trying to convey a message to, not only Black youth, but all young teenagers to take precautions to prevent careless acts and also to take responsibility for the acts they may commit. As 2pac starts out with “I hear Brenda’s got a baby but Brenda’s barely got a brain, a damn shame the girl can hardly spell her name… ” (2pac) he immediately jumps into the middle of the story without telling how she got pregnant from the beginning,

This is an inspirational song for an average teenage girl, but as I pointed out there were some contradictions to the lyrics and the meaning. They may want to see themselves as beautiful in every way possible, but the world is a puzzle and there is a piece that is gone because of what has become socially acceptable.

With things, such as explicit lyrics and depiction of women, drugs, and violence an assumption can be made that gangster rap represents a masculinity that rappers portray themselves as in their songs. Dating back to its origins, African Americans had always been the face of gangster rap, with such names like Tupac, Biggie, Jay-Z, DMX, and much more, as covers of rap magazines. Gangster rap had always been seen as what people interpret it to be and that is a raw rhythmic and explicit version of poetry in motion, but gangster rap depicts more than what people interpret it to be. Gangster rap depicts the image of how a strong African American male should look like, a bold, angry, rebellious, and fierce man. Strong African American males are subjective to gangster rap, mainly because of how gangster rap portrays masculinity. In “Brotherly Love: Homosociality and Black Masculinity in Gangsta Rap Muscic” Oware argues that although gangster rap music portrays the masculinity of African American males through the use of hyper masculinity, misogyny, and violence in lyrics, gangster rap music also provides a way for rappers to express themselves to commemorate their fellow friends through lyrics that depict family/friend relationships, success by association, and have a tribute for lost friends.

Women have always played a major role in the hip hop culture. This can be seen when watching music videos, or listening to female rappers. Women are simply involved in everything. However, that does not necessarily mean that they have the best relationship with hip hop. The purpose of this paper is to examine women within the hip hop culture. More specifically, this paper is going to examine the unique relationship women have with hip hop. To achieve a better understanding of the unique relationship, one has to examine all aspects that might affect this relationship. Therefore, this paper will discuss topics such as sexual abuse and feminism. This paper will then examine other issues related to women in hip hop that deserve to be further

The lyrics in this song expresses the things that some African Americans don't even realize, for example she states that, Black rage is founded on blocking the truth, Murder and crime. However, currently there has been focus on abuse and killing of unarmed blacks by police thanks to the U.S. news. In addition Lauren Hill supports her claim by mentioning instances of freedom denial where she says Black rage is found in dreaming and draining, threatening you freedom, to stop you

The 1980’s consisted of several historical events and societal changes that have been relived though the lyrics of many young hip-hop artists. Of the numerous genres of songs, hip-hop has been labeled as of the most relatable genres. During this 1980’s, many of the songs that were written by male hip-hop artist tend to focus on the relationship aspect of male and female interactions. This finding is similar to what was stated in Frith’s article (1986) that most successful pop songs were about being “happy in love” and “frustrated in love” as well as having a sex interest (p. 78). Instead of using derogatory terms to describe women, men felt the need to use more delicate and gentle terms. Through their music, artists portrayed women as individuals who provide love, support, happiness and fulfillment to a man’s life. Furthermore, male artists portrayed themselves as men who weren’t afraid to express their emotions, admit their dependency on women, and their willingness to do what it takes to keep a woman. There were no signs of hypermasculinity or dominance in the first few songs

Shabazz introduces the article by discussing its main topics and focus. Shabazz explains that there are power asymmetries in Hip Hop. There is an uneven gender geography due to the way Rap formed within the Hip Hop culture. The author makes it known that Rap is separated from Hip Hop due to Hip Hop being a culture and rap being a section of it that is the most visible. The spatial politics of Hip Hop placed men in the forefront while women were excluded and marginalized. According to Shabazz, Hip Hop shows the effects of unequal gender access. Predominant masculinity also influenced Hip Hop and pushed women out of the creative narrative. Shabazz explains the techniques he uses in the paper which includes his past work published in 2009. He uses a historical and cultural studies approach. He uses the two to focus on black male’s geographic exclusion from society and the cultural-spatial effects of that exclusion.