Overview

Posthuman Rap listens for the ways contemporary rap maps an existence outside the traditional boundaries of what it means to be human. Contemporary humanity is shaped in neoliberal terms, where being human means being viable in a capitalist marketplace that favors whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, and fixed gender identities. But musicians from Nicki Minaj to Future to Rae Sremmurd deploy queerness and sonic blackness as they imagine different ways of being human. Building on the work of Sylvia Wynter, Alexander Weheliye, Lester Spence, LH Stallings, and a broad swath of queer and critical race theory, Posthuman Rap turns an ear especially toward hip hop that is often read as apolitical in order to hear its posthuman possibilities, its construction of a humanity that is blacker, queerer, more feminine than the norm.

Full Product Details

9780190235451

Table of Contents

Reviews

Posthuman Rap is an alive account of the vibrations, secret exits, echoes, and ad-libs permeating rap and its trap, crunk, and ratchet iterations, attuning readers to sonic worlds that elude politics as we know it. Burton's prose bumps, knocks, and claps in time with his musical subjects, producing an exhilarating account of why we need to work harder to hear and feel the sounds emanating from the club, the car, and the radio that suggest to us other ways of being. --Adrienne Brown, University of Chicago Exploring recent music by artists that are wildly popular but often misunderstood, Posthuman Rap makes a signal contribution to hip hop studies, which has tended to favor the 'golden era' of the 1980s and 1990s. Interdisciplinary in the best sense of the word, Burton's writing demands that we acknowledge how a new generation of rap artists and fans imagine alternative futures and resist the current racialized economic order. Burton's passionate and politicized reading of trap aesthetics in the context of contemporary black politics is the most ambitious and thought provoking meditation on rap music since Tricia Rose's Black Noise. -- Lorean Kajikawa, University of Oregon

"""Posthuman Rap ties together choice references and pertinent case studies to offer a compelling account of the political potential of never stopping the party."" -- Steven Gamble, Popular Music ""Posthuman Rap is an alive account of the vibrations, secret exits, echoes, and ad-libs permeating rap and its trap, crunk, and ratchet iterations, attuning readers to sonic worlds that elude politics as we know it. Burton's prose bumps, knocks, and claps in time with his musical subjects, producing an exhilarating account of why we need to work harder to hear and feel the sounds emanating from the club, the car, and the radio that suggest to us other ways of being.""--Adrienne Brown, University of Chicago ""Exploring recent music by artists that are wildly popular but often misunderstood, Posthuman Rap makes a signal contribution to hip hop studies, which has tended to favor the 'golden era' of the 1980s and 1990s. Interdisciplinary in the best sense of the word, Burton's writing demands that we acknowledge how a new generation of rap artists and fans imagine alternative futures and resist the current racialized economic order. Burton's passionate and politicized reading of trap aesthetics in the context of contemporary black politics is the most ambitious and thought provoking meditation on rap music since Tricia Rose's Black Noise.""-- Lorean Kajikawa, University of Oregon"

Posthuman Rap is an alive account of the vibrations, secret exits, echoes, and ad-libs permeating rap and its trap, crunk, and ratchet iterations, attuning readers to sonic worlds that elude politics as we know it. Burton's prose bumps, knocks, and claps in time with his musical subjects, producing an exhilarating account of why we need to work harder to hear and feel the sounds emanating from the club, the car, and the radio that suggest to us other ways of being. --Adrienne Brown, University of Chicago Exploring recent music by artists that are wildly popular but often misunderstood, Posthuman Rap makes a signal contribution to hip hop studies, which has tended to favor the 'golden era' of the 1980s and 1990s. Interdisciplinary in the best sense of the word, Burton's writing demands that we acknowledge how a new generation of rap artists and fans imagine alternative futures and resist the current racialized economic order. Burton's passionate and politicized reading of trap aesthetics in the context of contemporary black politics is the most ambitious and thought provoking meditation on rap music since Tricia Rose's Black Noise. -- Lorean Kajikawa, University of Oregon

Author Information

Justin Adams Burton is Assistant Professor of Music at Rider University, where he works in conjunction with the Popular Music Studies program. Justin's scholarship revolves around matters of race, class, and gender as they intersect with hip hop, pop, and dance genres. Justin is also co-editor (with Jason Lee Oakes) of the Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Music Studies.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available