Before beginning in my blogs about the actual subject matter, it is important to first explain my goals/ideas for this semester. This blog is the main requirement within my History 494 class at Saginaw Valley State University. Even as an independent study, I will still be working under the guidance of Dr. Kenneth Jolly, who has made this possible.
My hope is to gain a better understanding of the hip hop culture, in the context of the Black Freedom Struggle--past, present, and future. To view hip hop today as an isolated idea is to neglect the fact that it is tied directly to past events. To view any cultural trend without understanding of what proceeded it is problematic at best. I have studied some of the past that leads up to this course with "History 319: African-American History" and "History 327: Black Freedom Struggle." These courses by no means make an expert on the history/struggle leading up to and including hip-hop culture, but it has at least blazed a trail.
Ideally, I will be reading four to five books. First, I will be reading "Hip Hop America" by Nelson George, followed by "The Vibe History of Hip Hop."
Next, I hope to gain a better historic understanding by Lawrence W. Levine's "Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought From Slavery to Freedom," followed by Tricia Rose's "Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America."
I then hope (time permitting) to finish the semester with "Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation." Ideally (but probably unlikely), I will get through all five books and be able to further discuss recent hip-hop releases, like Nas' "Hip Hop is Dead" to even better study the music and the movement.
The culmination of all of this will be a formal paper (which will also be posted to this site) summarizing/comment upon this subject material. Meanwhile, this site will probably be updated after reading each book, and perhaps even more throughout my studies.
-Troy
