Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement - Hardcover

Watkins, S. Craig

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807009822 ISBN 13: 9780807009826

Publisher: Beacon Press, 2005

Synopsis

From its humble beginnings in the Bronx to its transformation into a multibillion-dollar global industry, hip hop has stirred constant and contentious debate. Avoiding the simple caricatures that either celebrate or condemn this powerful movement, S. Craig Watkins produces one of the most thorough accounts of hip hop yet. Hip Hop Matters delves deeply into the phenomenal world that hip hop has created and comes up with a portrait that is as big, brave, and vibrant as the movement itself. Readers see the brilliance and blemishes of hip hop's entrepreneurial elite and also discover a thriving digital underground, hip-hop inspired literature, young political activists, and the movement's own intelligentsia.

Watkins punctuates this meticulously researched book with revealing anecdotes and astute analysis of the corporate takeover of hip hop, the culture's march into America's colleges and universities, and the rampant misogyny threatening hip hop's progressive potential. He also offers revealing portraits of some of hip hop's most intriguing personalities-Sylvia Robinson, Grandmaster Flash, Chuck D, Jay-Z, Hype Williams, and Eminem-and influential brands-FUBU and Def Jam.

Ultimately, we see how the struggle for hip hop reverberates in a world bigger than hip hop: global media, racial and demographic change, the reinvention of the pop music industry, urban politics, the moral and public health of young people, and their relentless desire to be heard and respected.

It is the spectacular convergence of these and other issues that makes hip hop one of the more compelling stories of our time. Which people and what forces are vying to control a movement that has become a lucrative pop culture industry as well as an insurgent voice for the young and the disenfranchised? Watkins's incisive and timely book decisively answers the question and shows why now, more than ever, hip hop matters.

About this title

About the Author

S. Craig Watkins is associate professor of radio-TV-film, sociology, and African American studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Review

Watkins wisely chooses to focus on what has not been said . . . [and] tells his version of hip-hop's history in lyrical prose, often mirroring the rhythms and wordplay of the music he's discussing. This is undoubtedly a book for fans, but it is also an intriguing look at how hip-hop has become part of a universal cultural conversation. -Publishers Weekly

"Offering a fast-moving and well-researched book, Watkins successfully unearths some of the disturbing and encouraging implications of hip-hop culture." -Library Journal

"Quite an exposition of all things hip-hop." -Mike Tribby, Booklist

"Watkins well understands the challenges facing the nascent hip-hop political movement."--Adam Bradley, Washington Post

"Watkins sets his tome apart with a meticulous attention to the facts . . . He leaves few stones unturned examining the endless influence of hip-hop on the world around us, always with a critical eye."--URB

"Watkins's study is the best yet on the hip-hop industry. Watkins has provided nothing less than a political economy of hip-hop, one that doesn't shy away from the dirty business hip-hop has become . . . He's also attentive to the way hip-hop was affected by the appalling rates of incarceration and AIDS in black communities." --Greg Tate, The Nation

"With Hip Hop Matters, S. Craig Watkins establishes himself as one of the most insightful observers and critics of hip hop culture."--Michael Eric Dyson
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0807009822
• ISBN 13: 9780807009826
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304