ABSTRACT
This chapter explores three controversial issues in rap music, sex, violence, and racism, in relation to the social, cultural, and historical reality of urban black American youth. The distinction between these two rap domains is important in recognition of their place in the American popular culture movement. Popular culture is made from within and below, not imposed from without and above as mass cultural theorists would have it. Another prominent issue which seems to follow the rap music phenomenon is violence. Public Enemy has also called for the reorganization of the Black Panther party, a group considered radical in the 1960s that advocated violence and racism. The history of black music is a history of adaptation, rebellion, acculturation, and assimilation. The cultural rap music experience exists within the realm of specific environmental contexts. Rap music offers itself up as a unique and cohesive component of urban black culture and is a positive struggle for black signification within popular culture.
