Rap and Hip Hop: Music and Culture

Catalog description

This course is recommended for non-music majors and music minors.  Rap and Hip Hop Music and Culture traces the ideological, social, historical, and cultural influences of a musical genre that first came to prominence in the mid-1970s in one of New York's toughest neighborhoods, the South Bronx. This course describes how the arts of DJing, MCing, breakin' [b-boying], and graffiti developed as a way for this community's struggle to find its own voice. Addressed will be rap's early successes on the pop charts; its spread to mainstream culture; the growth of "gangsta rap" and mainstream society's reaction to it; and the commercial success of rap music from the '90s through today. Throughout, this course will highlight key performers, producers, and voices in the rap and hip hop movements, using their stories to illuminate the underlying issues of racism, poverty, prejudice, and artistic freedom that are part of rap and hip hop's ongoing legacy.