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The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop

The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop

The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop

Editor:
Justin A. Williams, University of Bristol
Justin A. Williams, Alice Price-Styles, Imani K. Johnson, Ivor Miller, Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen, Travis Gosa, Christina Zanfagna, Nicole Hodges Persley, Oliver Kautny, Kyle Adams, Chris Tabron, Anthony Kwame Harrison, Geoff Harkness, Regina Bradley, Chris Deis, Amanda Sewell, Adam Haupt, Noriko Manabe, Richard Bramwell, Sujatha Fernandes, Ali Coleen Neff, Mike D'Errico, Brenna Byrd, Loren Kajikawa, Michael Jeffries
Published:
April 2015
Availability:
Available
Format:
Paperback
ISBN:
9781107643864

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    It has been more than thirty-five years since the first commercial recordings of hip-hop music were made. This Companion, written by renowned scholars and industry professionals reflects the passion and scholarly activity occurring in the new generation of hip-hop studies. It covers a diverse range of case studies from Nerdcore hip-hop to instrumental hip-hop to the role of rappers in the Obama campaign and from countries including Senegal, Japan, Germany, Cuba, and the UK. Chapters provide an overview of the 'four elements' of hip-hop - MCing, DJing, break dancing (or breakin'), and graffiti - in addition to key topics such as religion, theatre, film, gender, and politics. Intended for students, scholars, and the most serious of 'hip-hop heads', this collection incorporates methods in studying hip-hop flow, as well as the music analysis of hip-hop and methods from linguistics, political science, gender and film studies to provide exciting new perspectives on this rapidly developing field.

    • Provides a new resource for students and enthusiasts, which updates and adds to previous arguments, debates, and contexts in hip-hop studies
    • Takes a multidisciplinary approach to hip-hop studies, including perspectives from political science, linguistics, musicology, and ethnomusicology
    • Balances mainstream US case studies with those from countries around the world, revealing links between global and local trends in hip-hop

    Reviews & endorsements

    "… The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop provides a powerful account of what it presents, persuasively, as the most revolutionary music since rock'n'roll."
    Andrew Warnes, The Times Literary Supplement

    'For those new to the scene as well as hip-hop heads looking to broaden their understanding and appreciation of this complex and often misappropriated culture, Justin A. Williams’s The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop stands out as a valuable addition to one’s library. … Justin A. Williams has succeeded in his aim to bring a comprehensive, globally aware and culturally situated exploration of hip-hop to light.' Patrick K. Cooper, Journal of Popular Music Education

    See more reviews

    Product details

    April 2015
    Paperback
    9781107643864
    370 pages
    244 × 173 × 18 mm
    0.75kg
    20 b/w illus. 11 music examples
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction: the interdisciplinary world of hip-hop studies Justin A. Williams
    • Part I. Elements:
    • 1. MC origins: rap and spoken word poetry Alice Price-Styles
    • 2. Hip-hop dance Imani K. Johnson
    • 3. Hip-hop visual arts Ivor Miller
    • 4. DJs and turntabilism Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen
    • 5. The fifth element: knowledge Travis Gosa
    • 6. Hip-hop and religion: from the mosque to the church Christina Zanfagna
    • 7. Hip-hop theater and performance Nicole Hodges Persley
    • Part II. Methods and Concepts:
    • 8. Lyrics and flow in rap music Oliver Kautny
    • 9. The musical analysis of hip-hop Kyle Adams
    • 10. The glass: hip-hop production Chris Tabron
    • 11. Hip-hop and racial identification: an (auto)ethnographic perspective Anthony Kwame Harrison
    • 12. Thirty years of rapsploitation: hip-hop culture in American cinema Geoff Harkness
    • 13. Barbz and kings: explorations of gender and sexuality in hip-hop Regina Bradley
    • 14. Hip-hop and politics Chris Deis
    • 15. Intertextuality, sampling, and copyright Justin A. Williams
    • Part III. Case Studies:
    • 16. Nerdcore hip-hop Amanda Sewell
    • 17. Framing gender, race, and hip-hop in Boyz in the Hood, Do the Right Thing and Slam Adam Haupt
    • 18. Japanese hip-hop: alternative stories Noriko Manabe
    • 19. Council estate of mind: the British rap tradition and London's hip-hop scene Richard Bramwell
    • 20. Cuban hip-hop Sujatha Fernandes
    • 21. Senegalese hip-hop Ali Coleen Neff
    • 22. Off the grid: instrumental hip-hop and experimentalism after the golden age Mike D'Errico
    • 23. Stylized Turkish German as the resistance vernacular of German hip-hop Brenna Byrd
    • 24. 'Bringin' '88 back': historicizing rap music's greatest year Loren Kajikawa
    • 25. 'Where ya at?': Hip-hop's political locations in the Obama era Michael Jeffries.
    Resources for
    Type
    Example_8.3_in_colour.pdf
    Size: 5.14 MB
    Type: application/pdf
    Example_8.5_in_colour.pdf
    Size: 4.98 MB
    Type: application/pdf
      Contributors
    • Justin A. Williams, Alice Price-Styles, Imani K. Johnson, Ivor Miller, Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen, Travis Gosa, Christina Zanfagna, Nicole Hodges Persley, Oliver Kautny, Kyle Adams, Chris Tabron, Anthony Kwame Harrison, Geoff Harkness, Regina Bradley, Chris Deis, Amanda Sewell, Adam Haupt, Noriko Manabe, Richard Bramwell, Sujatha Fernandes, Ali Coleen Neff, Mike D'Errico, Brenna Byrd, Loren Kajikawa, Michael Jeffries

    • Editor
    • Justin A. Williams , University of Bristol

      Justin A. Williams is Lecturer in Music at the University of Bristol, and the author of Rhymin and Stealin: Musical Borrowing in Hip-hop (2013). He has taught at Leeds College of Music, Lancaster University and Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and has been published in Popular Music, Popular Music History, and The Journal of Musicology. As a professional trumpet and piano player in California, he ran a successful jazz piano trio and played with the band Bucho! which won a number of Sacramento Area Music Awards and were signed to two record labels. He has co-written (with Ross Wilson) an article on digital crowd funding for The Oxford Handbook to Music and Virtuality and is co-editor, with Katherine Williams, of The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter (2016).