Overview
- Maps out a 50-year political narrative of three eras of local discourse starting in mid-1960s West Oakland
- Advances our understanding of underground rap music and politics in Oakland
- Creates a model for future studies of rap music and other underground grassroots subcultures
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
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About this book
Rap and Politics maps out fifty years of political and musical development by exploring three specific moments of local discourse, each a response to failures by local, state, and national governments to address police brutality, violence, poverty, and poor social conditions in Oakland, California and the surrounding Bay Area. First, in the mid-1960s, Black youth responded to repressive political and socioeconomic factors in West Oakland by founding the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, whose representation of violence and community aid, as well as its radical and militant approach to Black Nationalism, became a foundational discourse that shaped the development of rap music in the region. Second, from the collapse of the Party in the early 1980s through the 1990s, gangster rap emerged as a form of political expression among local youth, who drew heavily on radical and militant elements of Panther discourse in their lyrics and artwork. Third, hyphy music in themid-1990s to early 2000s continued these radical discourses and also incorporated coordinated, subversive public behavior to the mix. The result was a critique of endemic problems facing the local Black community, but also an infectious subgenre of party music that gained mainstream popularity. Overall, this study shows that the specific types of representation created to resist problems of racism and poverty in Oakland is actually key to understanding other rap undergrounds, grassroots subcultures, and social movements elsewhere. In the process, Rap and Politics offers readers a new model focused on the development of settings, representation, movements, discourse banks, and impact within underground rap scenes.
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Rap and Politics
Book Subtitle: A Case Study of Panther, Gangster, and Hyphy Discourses in Oakland, CA (1965-2010)
Authors: Lavar Pope
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60011-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-349-96036-1Published: 20 October 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-96074-3Published: 22 March 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-60011-0Published: 19 October 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIX, 338
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 16 illustrations in colour
Topics: Political Science, Music, African American Culture, Political Communication