ABSTRACT
In previous chapters, I evaluated black cultural products that purposely included demeaning black stereotypes as part of an anti-racist agenda. Controversy surrounded each of these representations as proponents and critics argued over the ramifi cations of the representations’ message, despite the artists’ intentions. I now move to an exploration of hip-hop music and culture, which contains some of the most infamous black representations. Although many social critics condemn commercial hip-hop music and culture for its strident materialism, homophobia, misogyny, vulgarity, and violence, hip-hop emerged out of the destructive forces of deindustrialization of the late 20th century as a light for disenfranchised inner-city youth. Noted scholar Tricia Rose defi nes hip-hop in relationship to this foundational fact when she claims that hip-hop is “a cultural form that attempts to negotiate the experiences of marginalization, brutally truncated opportunity, and oppression within the cultural imperatives of African American and Caribbean history, identity and community.”1 Hip-hop began as and continues to be an important, yet often, controversial source of alternative identity formation and social status.
