Hip-Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (Popular Culture and Philosophy, 16) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812695895 ISBN 13: 9780812695892

Publisher: Open Court, 2005

Synopsis

Is there too much violence in hip-hop music? What’s the difference between Kimberly Jones and the artist Lil' Kim? Is hip-hop culture a "black" thing? Is it okay for N.W.A. to call themselves niggaz and for Dave Chappelle to call everybody bitches? These witty, provocative essays ponder these and other thorny questions, linking the searing cultural issues implicit and often explicit in hip-hop to the weighty matters examined by the great philosophers of the past. The book shows that rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast, and the Notorious B.I.G. can help uncover the meanings of love articulated in Plato's Symposium; that Rakim, 2Pac, and Nas can shed light on the conception of God's essence expressed in St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica; and explores the connection between Run-D.M.C., Snoop Dogg, and Hegel. Hip-Hop and Philosophy proves that rhyme and reason, far from being incompatible, can be mixed and mastered to contemplate life's most profound mysteries.

About this title

Review:

"When academics get their groove on, expressing their ideas in a freestyle symposium such as this, everyone should take notice." -- ZINK Magazine, November, 2005

A delightful, fun presentation invites college students to understand underlying meanings in ancient and modern texts. -- California BookWatch 03/06

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Court
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0812695895
• ISBN 13: 9780812695892
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Derrick Darby, Tommie Shelby