Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-r7bls Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-08T10:13:16.479Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 13 - The Political Resonances of Hip Hop and Spoken Word

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2023

Daniel Morris
Affiliation:
Purdue University, Indiana
Get access

Summary

Spoken word refers to poetic performance that relies on or emphasizes the aspects of its construction that must be heard, rather than read, to be fully experienced and appreciated. Factors like intonation, volume, and audience participation are aesthetic elements that might be of some consequence on the page, but they are central to the construction and performance of spoken word. Any discussion about hip hop’s aesthetic qualities and sociopolitical weight requires substantive engagement with Black spoken word and performance poetry. What follows is an exploration of the political resonances that emerge from interactions – both historical and into the present day – between hip-hop music and Black spoken word performance.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Avilez, GerShun. Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banales, M. “Slam Poetry.” Encyclopedia Britannica, April 6, 2018. www.britannica.com/art/slam-poetry.Google Scholar
Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Chadwick, Alex. “Comic ‘Dolemite’ Leaves Mark on Hip-Hop.” NPR, October 21, 2008, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95935377.Google Scholar
Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul On Ice. New York: Dell, 1968.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Hobson, Janell. Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
hooks, bell. We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. New York: Routledge, 2004.Google Scholar
Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” In Within the Circle: An Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present, edited by Mitchell, Angelyn. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994, pp. 5559.Google Scholar
Jones, Leroi. Home: Social Essays. New York: William Morrow, 1966.Google Scholar
Kelley, Robin D. G. Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Medina, Tony, and Rivera, Louis Reyes. Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Muñoz, José Esteban. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Springer, Kimberly. Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968–1980. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016.Google Scholar
Malcolm, X. Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet. North Hollywood, CA: Pacifica Foundation, 1965.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×