”I Speak Hip Hop”: An Informative Interview about Generation Hip Hop and the Universal Hip Hop Museum

”I Speak Hip Hop” is an interview of members of Generation Hip Hop and the Universal Hip Hop Museum. This primary source highlights two Hip Hop organizations with chapters around the world. Tasha Iglesias and Travis Harris posits that Hip Hop scholars have not fully uncovered Hip Hop\u27s history around the world. As such, in addition to being a primary source, I Speak Hip Hop reveals the need for more scholarly attention on the dynamic expansion of Hip Hop cultures

If I Ruled the World: Putting Hip Hop on the Atlas

“If I Ruled the World: Putting Hip Hop on the Atlas” contends for a third wave of Global Hip Hop Studies that builds on the work of the first two waves, identifies Hip Hop as an African diasporic phenomenon, and aligns with Hip Hop where there are no boundaries between Hip Hop inside and outside of the United States. Joanna Daguirane Da Sylva adds to the cipha with her examination of Didier Awadi. Da Sylva\u27s excellent work reveals the ways in which Hip Hoppa Didier Awadi elevates Pan-Africanism and uses Hip Hop as a tool to decolonize the minds of African peoples. The interview by Tasha Iglesias and myself of members of Generation Hip Hop and the Universal Hip Hop Museum provides a primary source and highlights two Hip Hop organizations with chapters around the world. Mich Yonah Nyawalo’s Negotiating French Muslim Identities through Hip Hop details Hip Hop artists Médine and Diam’s, who are both French and Muslim, and whose self-identification can be understood as political strategies in response to the French Republic’s marginalization of Muslims. In “Configurations of Space and Identity in Hip Hop: Performing ’Global South’,” Igor Johannsen adds to this special issue an examination of the spatiality of the Global South and how Hip Hoppas in the Global South oppose global hegemony. The final essay, “‘I Got the Mics On, My People Speak’: On the Rise of Aboriginal Australian Hip Hop,” by Benjamin Kelly and Rhyan Clapham, provides a thorough analysis of Aboriginal Hip Hop and situates it within postcolonialism. Overall, the collection of these essays points to the multiple identities, political economies, cultures, and scholarly fields and disciplines that Hip Hop interacts with around the world

Traversing Racial Distance in Hip-hop Culture: The Ethics and Politics of Listening

Hip-hop is often studied as a ‘political’ culture. Listeners, however, often contest the attachment of a political nature to hip-hop. After the ‘dilution’ of “real” hip-hop by record labels seeking to package the sound for mainstream consumption, is it fair to say that hip-hop retains political relevance? To address this question I make two moves. In the first, I approach hip-hop from a perspective that moves beyond lyrics, seeking to understand what the music ‘does’ rather than what it represents. In the second, I take this approach to the study of race in hip-hop culture, examining how phenotypical variation affects the affordances and subject-positions available to a given body in hip-hop culture. In approaching hip-hop through the materiality of racial difference, I find that the “political” in hip-hop emerges in moments of creative and ethical experimentation in the face of alterity

Hip Hop Hermeneutics: How the Culture Influences Preachers

Hip Hop Hermeneutics essay lays out findings of current research into how Hip Hop culture has been formational for African American preachers, and how that culture informs their preaching. There is a generation of preachers leading congregations today that have grown up with Hip Hop. Hip Hop culture has left an indelible mark upon them; just as the church has. How does the cultural influence of Hip Hop affect their preaching? Hip Hop hermeneutics is the response put forth by this article. This article traces the practice and theology of early African American preachers, the work of James Cone in Black Liberation theology, and Womanist theologians to demonstrate how Black theology has always included the Black experience as part of its theological norm. The article then posits that the next generation of Black theology must take into account that Hip Hop is also part of that Black experience, before going on to delineate a Hip Hop hermeneutic. A Hip Hop hermeneutic is a particular way of reading scripture that embraces the honest and raw fullness of the Black experience

Hip Hop Culture in a Small Moroccan City

This paper explores Hip Hop culture by tracing its development from the global level through the Arab world to finally its manifestation in Morocco. Hip Hop culture is defined broadly as a wide range of artistic expressions-rap, graffiti, breakdancing, DJing, etc.-and also a mind-set or way of life. The focus on the Moroccan context starts at the national level, pointing out some of the key artists, issues Moroccan Hip Hop faces, and how this has been explored by scholars of Hip Hop. The paper focuses on an ethnographic exploration of Hip Hop culture in Ifrane, a small Moroccan city. An analytic approach suggested in Patti Lather\u27s 1991 book Getting Smart informs and expands the paper particularly by privileging the emancipatory power of Moroccan Hip Hop, creating a nuanced view of the impact of Hip Hop on the lives of youth in this small community. Finally, the paper employs a self-reflexive stance to critically view the author\u27s own position in the research project in order to name some of the challenges and contradictions of a white male American doing Hip Hop research in the Moroccan context

Refocusing and Redefining Hip Hop: An Analysis of Lecrae\u27s Contribution to Hip Hop

Hip Hop scholarship has overlooked and separated emcees who publicly identify themselves as Christians who exist to make God famous. This deficiency contributes to an inadequate understanding of Hip Hop and places Hip Hop in a dangerous position of alienating ostracized voices. This paper aims to draw attention to these shortcomings by analyzing Lecrae\u27s contribution to Hip Hop. Influenced by his worldview, Lecrae leads a socially conscious movement and helps to bridge the sacred and secular gap. Lecrae redirects Hip Hop back to its roots. I will examine Lecrae\u27s lyrics, websites, social media and interviews. Interviews of Lecrae will come from several mainstream Hip Hop websites and videos found on YouTube. The combination of all these areas of inquiry will present a holistic view of Lecrae. The goal of this paper is to provide one article about Christians in Hip Hop with the hopes of spurring more discussion around such a vast field of study

Resistance Values in Palestinian Hip-hop Music

This research aims to describe popular culture of Palestine Hip-Hop and the values of songs. This research has purposes 1) to describe popular culture in Palestine Hip-Hop, and 2) to find resistance value in hip-hop songs. This research used popular culture approach of Adorno that analyzes three songs of DAM group, they are Who is the Terrorist?, Ghareeb fi Biladi, and Olive Trees. This research shows that 1) Hip-Hop music is the source of resistance Palestine through music media, 2) three of Hip-Hop songs not only give entertainment, but also have resistance values that have influences in national and International mass. Hip-Hop music is one of Palestine voice for Palestine in particular and Middle East in a wider context, so it describes the emergency condition of the regions. Key Words: Hip-Hop music, resistance value, and Palestin

Interview: Hip Hop and Activism in Kenya

Buddha Blaze is a Kenyan-based Hip Hop activist who participated and presented at the Hiphop Symposium in Nairobi on April 17th, 2013. He is a well-respected writer, organizer and promoter of Hip Hop in Kenya and beyond and is the co-founder of WAPI, one of the biggest platforms for underground Hip Hop artists in Kenya. The following piece is an interview that a member of the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan organising team and guest editor of this anthology, Katja Kellerer, held with Buddha Blaze via email in September 2013. The set of questions addresses a wide range of issues. In addition to outlining his personal involvement in Hip Hop activism and specific projects, including the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan, the interview offers insights into Blaze’s views and perceptions of local Hip Hop scenes as well as global Hip Hop culture

Introduction - Enigma Embodied: The Curious Complexity of Kanye West

“There’s no way Hip Hop and religion work. No way!” “I just can’t see anything coming out of religion and Hip Hop. It’s like the two don’t even go together.” “Rap music is of the devil. To say there is any God in it is blasphemous!” These were direct quotes I received when I began my journey into the field of Religion and Hip Hop. I was met with firm opposition and the very notion of combining Hip Hop and religion left many angered, bewildered, confused, but definitely not speechless. It was a trifling time and the very thought of me pursuing a PhD that focused purely on the theological aspects of Tupac Amaru Shakur gave off blasphemous overtones to even the strongest “progressives” of that period. Well, times have changed. The study of Hip Hop in academic settings has grown exponentially

From A-Town to ATL: The Politics of Translation in Global Hip Hop Culture

This article examines the linguistic and cultural tensions in global Hip Hop culture through an analysis of the performance of Gsann, an emcee from the Tanzanian Hip Hop crew X Plastaz, at the 2009 Black Entertainment Television (BET) Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta. Gsann\u27s rhymes in Swahili, his emphasis on religion, and his global travels distinguished him from his African American colleagues in the cipha. At the same time, the decision by the BET producers to translate Gsann\u27s Swahili rhymes into English has to be seen within the longer history of cultural and linguistic politics in Tanzania and the United States. Thrown into the primetime spectacle of the BET Awards, Gsann\u27s African roots became quickly incorporated into American Hip Hop culture, dominated by African Americans. As this case study of an artist from Tanzania shows, Hip Hop\u27s global journey has brought together artists from around the world without eliding their cultural and linguistic differences