'The Message': the Rise and Globalization of Hiphop (3B)
Camille Forbes
Syllabus: CAT3_SP12_Forbes_Syllabus.pdf
In this course, we will use an interdisciplinary approach to trace the development and rise of hiphop music and culture from its origin in Bronx, NY (and before) to its current status as a global phenomenon. Rather than attempting an exhaustive introduction to hiphop, focused on covering its various forms and artists, we will focus attention on what may be called “activist” hiphop, with its interest in using the form as means of confronting and challenging power. From its start as an expression of African American culture, hiphop has become a vehicle for youth in myriad locations with specific histories, cultures, and challenges. We will concern ourselves both with the specificity of hiphop’s American origins, including attention to the social, cultural, and political concerns that gave rise to the form, and the specificity of its travels outside America, devoting the majority of the quarter to case studies that investigate hiphop’s reach into the consciousnesses—and lives—of youth all over the world. The quarter will culminate in group projects in which students will devise their own culturally-specific “nations” and youth cultures, out of which a hiphop group of their own making—complete with representative “rap” illustrating their worldview—will speak their reality.
Major questions for examination and reflection include: To what societal structures was/is hiphop a response? What is the discourse—or language—rappers in their specific contexts use to challenge power structures? What are the technologies that support hiphop’s musical innovation, and are there ways in which the very use of these technologies may be considered part of rappers’ efforts to confront power?
