The last two decades have witnessed a dramatic rise in dissertations, theses, and other academic publications exploring hip-hop music, while college courses on hip-hop history have become commonplace. The growing prominence of hip-hop music in our curricular and research agendas, however, does not necessarily make the study of music at colleges and universities more inclusive. In fact, the increasing attention musicologists and music theorists are paying to rap paradoxically threatens to shore up the value of whiteness in the discipline. This contribution addresses the problem by seeking answers to three interrelated questions: (1) What can the incorporation of hip-hop teach us about the challenges of ‘diversity' in music departments primarily devoted to the study and performance of Western classical music? (2) Does the work of non-Black scholars who write about music made by Black bodies contribute to the freeing of those bodies, or merely represent yet another way that they are consumed by white supremacy? (3) How can popular music studies help to overcome ongoing racial inequality within schools and departments of music? The arrival of hip-hop in music departments represents an opportunity to move in bold new directions. If we want to create a more just future for musicology and music theory, then the study of hip-hop in these fields will need to be accompanied by efforts to introduce forms of ‘significant difference’ that transform our respective disciplines as well as the institutions within which we work.

Over the past year, while preparing to step into my role as editor of JSAM, I have witnessed how the journal draws its strength not only from the leadership and staff members at the Society for American Music and Cambridge University Press, but also from both the general membership of SAM and the broader interdisciplinary world of American music studies. I am grateful to former editor Karen Ahlquist, whose mentorship has been invaluable and whose shoes will be a challenge to fill; editorial associate Mark Davidson, whose wisdom and guidance has been essential; and Jason Michalek, who helped to assure a smooth transition by working closely with Holly Roberts, JSAM’s new assistant editor. Thank you.

Eminem's emergence as one of the most popular rap stars of 2000 raised numerous questions about the evolving meaning of whiteness in U.S. society. Comparing The Slim Shady LP (1999) with his relatively unknown and commercially unsuccessful first album, Infinite (1996), reveals that instead of transcending racial boundaries as some critics have suggested, Eminem negotiated them in ways that made sense to his target audiences. In particular, Eminem's influential single “My Name Is,” which helped launch his mainstream career, parodied various representations of whiteness to help counter charges that the white rapper lacked authenticity or was simply stealing black culture. This “rearticulation” of whiteness in hip hop paralleled a number of other ideological realignments in the 1990s, many of which pit questions of class against those of race in the service of constructing new political and cultural authenticities. Eminem's performances provide us with a mirror in which numerous questions surrounding whiteness's significance come into focus.