Home > Blackness in lyrical rap music- Themes that hip-hop artists Signify on in the African American literary tradition
Blackness in lyrical rap music- Themes that hip-hop artists Signify on in the African American literary tradition
During the last seven weeks, we have been reading poems, stories, essays, and excerpts from novels written by African-American authors from 1900 to the present. We now encounter a more contemporary form of African American expression in hip-hop music. As cultural and literary scholar Louis Henry Gates claims, "Repetition and revision are fundamental to black artistic forms, from painting and sculpture to music and language use." This "Signifyin(g)" is a dynamic noted throughout hip-hop music because its foundation is rooted in "sampling" music that came before. But the content of rap also expresses a Black experience.
Discuss three significant subjects or themes that hip-hop artists Signify on in the African American literary tradition as they express their own notions of Blackness in lyrical rap music.
Resources:
'The Anthology Of Rap': Lyrics As Poetry
Why hip-hop needs to be taken more seriously in academic circles
Other Resources
https://www.biography.com/musician/kendrick-lamar
https://www.biography.com/musician/tupac-shakur
https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/chuck-d-1960
https://www.biography.com/musician/queen-latifah
