230218 "Cinderella's Not A Fellaw": Politics of Gender and Race in Hip Hop (S) (WiSe 2017/2018)

In this seminar, we will engage in Hip Hop, one of the most popular and disputed forms of US American music and art. Emerging in the New York neighborhood of the Bronx in the late 1970s during the Reagan administration to protest social cuts, Hip Hop started as a subcultural and strongly politicized practice in form of block parties including DJing, MCing, Breakdance, and Graffiti. With its increasing commercialization, Hip Hop has developped into numerous forms, so-called "gangsta rap" being one of the most marketable and disputed ones. Simultaneously, Hip Hop has moved to many places, often maintaining its function as a protest form, e.g. most recently in Cuba or Senegal. The seminar explores the genealogy of Hip Hop and its different strands from its early Bronx days on. We will focus particularly on the gendered images produced in Hip Hop and on the female, feminist and queer protagonists in the genre as well as its racialized politics and the problematics of cultural appropriation. Further, major theoretical approaches to Hip Hop will be addressed. Against this backdrop, we will discuss a number of exemplary artists selected by the students which they present in group presentations.

Bibliography

Bradley, Adam, and DouBois, Andrew. The Anthology of Rap. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2010.
Pough, Gwendolyn D, Mark Anthony Neal, and Joan Morgan. Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip- Hop Feminism Anthology. Mira Loma, Calif.: Parker Publishing, LLC, 2007.
Rose, Tricia. The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk about When We Talk about Hip Hop - and Why It Matters. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2008.