Hip Hop, Media and Society

Hip-Hop, Media and Society examines hip-hop as much more than a musical genre. Emerging from Black and Brown youth communities in the 1970s, hip-hop has developed into a global cultural movement that influences many forms of mass communication: music, television, film, fashion, advertising and social media.

 

Using a case-study approach, students examine hip-hop’s development from a grassroots cultural practice into a major creative industry. The course considers the historical, political, racial, economic, and social forces that have shaped hip-hop, with particular attention to questions of representation, authenticity, commercialization, identity, technology, and cultural power. Topics include hip-hop’s origins and founding architects, race and geography, Black nationalism and resistance, sampling and music production, the business of rap, gender and sexuality, digital platforms and the clout economy, hip-hop civics, Black Lives Matter, and the future of hip-hop in an age of artificial intelligence.

 

Students engage with scholarly readings, recorded lectures, music, documentaries, film, and contemporary media cases while developing their own critical arguments about hip-hop’s relationship to American society.

Learning Outcomes

• Connect hip-hop to the longer history of Black youth creative expression, activism, and resistance in the United States and identify its relationships with musical traditions such as jazz, blues, and soul.
• Define hip-hop as more than rap music, recognizing it as a cultural formation created by youth of color in response to racism, poverty, inequity, and systemic oppression.
• Analyze and critique social, cultural, political, and economic issues expressed through hip-hop using classic and contemporary communication theories.
• Examine how media industries, technology, commercialization, and cultural institutions have shaped the production and circulation of hip-hop.
•  Apply theories of communication and social change to produce original research and critical analysis of hip-hop culture.