Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Rap, Race, and Reality: Run-D.M.C.

Rap, Race, and Reality: Run-D.M.C. Rap, Race, and lleolily: llun•D.M.C. Michael Eric Dyson Black popular music grows out of the everyday lives of black people. For generations, it has reflected the dominant themes in our experi­ ence, and it has shaped the cultural and social sensibilities of our youth. That is why so many of us value it as an ongoing repository of culture and think of black pop singers and musicians as cura­ black tors, after a fashion, of the Afro-American cultural archives. That is also why we are paying close attention to rap music, and to the criticism it has evoked.I Rap, of course, is especially popular among urban black teenagers. With its staccato beats, its driving, lancing rhythms, and its hip lyrics, it reflects its origins in their world: a world that is increasingly an odyssey-through the terror of ghetto gangs, drugs, and racism­ in search of an authentic personal identity and legitimate social standing. The seemingly endless obstacles that frustrate this search, together with the humor, nonsense, and latent absurdity of urban life, provide the content of rap songs. In essence rap is an expanding musical form that is experimenting widely in order to reflect the varied visions of its http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Black Sacred Music Duke University Press

Rap, Race, and Reality: Run-D.M.C.

Loading next page...
 
/lp/duke-university-press/rap-race-and-reality-run-d-m-c-ASpnLEMCgC

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1043-9455
eISSN
2640-9879
DOI
10.1215/10439455-3.2.142
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Rap, Race, and lleolily: llun•D.M.C. Michael Eric Dyson Black popular music grows out of the everyday lives of black people. For generations, it has reflected the dominant themes in our experi­ ence, and it has shaped the cultural and social sensibilities of our youth. That is why so many of us value it as an ongoing repository of culture and think of black pop singers and musicians as cura­ black tors, after a fashion, of the Afro-American cultural archives. That is also why we are paying close attention to rap music, and to the criticism it has evoked.I Rap, of course, is especially popular among urban black teenagers. With its staccato beats, its driving, lancing rhythms, and its hip lyrics, it reflects its origins in their world: a world that is increasingly an odyssey-through the terror of ghetto gangs, drugs, and racism­ in search of an authentic personal identity and legitimate social standing. The seemingly endless obstacles that frustrate this search, together with the humor, nonsense, and latent absurdity of urban life, provide the content of rap songs. In essence rap is an expanding musical form that is experimenting widely in order to reflect the varied visions of its

Journal

Black Sacred MusicDuke University Press

Published: Sep 1, 1989

There are no references for this article.