Overview

Rap and Politics maps out fifty years of political and musical development by exploring three specific moments of local discourse, each a response to failures by local, state, and national governments to address police brutality, violence, poverty, and poor social conditions in Oakland, California and the surrounding Bay Area. First, in the mid-1960s, Black youth responded to repressive political and socioeconomic factors in West Oakland by founding the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, whose representation of violence and community aid, as well as its radical and militant approach to Black Nationalism, became a foundational discourse that shaped the development of rap music in the region. Second, from the collapse of the Party in the early 1980s through the 1990s, gangster rap emerged as a form of political expression among local youth, who drew heavily on radical and militant elements of Panther discourse in their lyrics and artwork. Third, hyphy music in themid-1990s to early 2000s continued these radical discourses and also incorporated coordinated, subversive public behavior to the mix. The result was a critique of endemic problems facing the local Black community, but also an infectious subgenre of party music that gained mainstream popularity. Overall, this study shows that the specific types of representation created to resist problems of racism and poverty in Oakland is actually key to understanding other rap undergrounds, grassroots subcultures, and social movements elsewhere. In the process, Rap and Politics offers readers a new model focused on the development of settings, representation, movements, discourse banks, and impact within underground rap scenes.

Full Product Details

9781349960361

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Pope’s book is an excellent addition to political science and to Hip-Hop studies because his comprehensive text focuses on a specific area where Hip-Hop developed and the sound that was created in that area. Therefore, Rap and Politics is an innovative text that not only presents alternative ways to examine culture within politics but also a unique way to present analyses.” (Lakeyta M Bonnette-Bailey, NRBP, National Review of Black Politics, Vol. 3 (3-4), July-October, 2022)

Pope's book is an excellent addition to political science and to Hip-Hop studies because his comprehensive text focuses on a specific area where Hip-Hop developed and the sound that was created in that area. Therefore, Rap and Politics is an innovative text that not only presents alternative ways to examine culture within politics but also a unique way to present analyses. (Lakeyta M Bonnette-Bailey, NRBP, National Review of Black Politics, Vol. 3 (3-4), July-October, 2022)

Author Information

Lavar Pope is Clinical Assistant Professor of Political Science at Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago, USA. He earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Lehigh University and a PhD in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA. He has worked as a DJ, Producer, and Sound Engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area and enjoys teaching courses related to the subject of this book, including a course called “Power, Rap, Music and Urban Politics.”

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