Book Review: James Braxton Peterson, Hip-Hop Headphones: A Scholar’s Critical Playlist

Abstract

Book Review: James Braxton Peterson, Hip-Hop Headphones: A Scholar's Critical Playlist. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. ISBN: 978-1501308246 (Paperback). 296 Pages. $29.95.[Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2017 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]Since its pioneering stages during the 1990s the field of Hip Hop Studies made steady progression. Breakthrough works such as Houston Baker's Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy (1993) and Tricia Rose's Black Noise (1994) examined hop culture with nuance and verve and, importantly, a knowledged perspective. Along with the emergence of prolific hip hop intellectuals such as Michael Eric Dyson, Mark Anthony Neal and Joan Morgan, to name a few, such efforts not only expounded upon the particulars of hop culture but crucially created paths of investigation in which issues of race, gender and class stratification endemic to all of American society could be better understood.Embodying both the fierce intellect of his predecessors and promoting the of hop culture and education is James Braxton Peterson, professor of English and director of Africana Studies at Lehigh University. For Peterson, this marriage is already embedded into the very fabric of hop culture, its history, structure and modus operandi; it is we academics who have often posed indifferent to youth culture and must endeavor ourselves to be brave, bold and studied enough to come to the party. With the hopes of becoming a staple resource for all educators who are in interested in and committed to teaching the history, artistry and culture of Hip Hop at all levels of education, Braxton's newest book, Hip-Hop Headphones: A Scholar's Critical Playlist is an invitation to interested scholars- an almost how-to manual to jump start inquiry in the field. In addition, the text serves as depository of essential tools of the trade: hip-hop syllabi, purposefully themed playlists and an extensive bibliography and annotations all provide meaningful direction to exploration of hop culture in the classroom.As Peterson notes, beyond publications, Hip Hop Studies (or #HipHopEd to the cognoscenti) has developed via the dual pressures of Hip-Hop Generational scholars entering the academy as as graduate students and more recently as professors and the steady pressure, interest, and inclinations of younger Hip Hop generational students who continue to find Hip-Hop-related courses of vital interest in their graduate studies. (26) Indeed, in the past ten years, hop made its presence felt in the hallowed halls of Harvard with its Hiphop Archive and Research Institute and most certainly the classroom where hop culture cross pollinates with the disciplines of English, history, political science, religion and philosophy, sociology and anthropology, not to mention music, performance theater and the arts. Duke University even tapped the talents of renowned hop beat maker, 9th Wonder as an adjunct instructor. Apparently, knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone.And not unlike other disciplines, there are recommended- if not required- methodologies Peterson suggests to organize pedagogy and learning. Foremost, the author advocates critical listening a tact he aligns with critical thinking; a deliberate effort to use our ears and intellect to tune in to hop music's multilayered texts that are most easily evidenced in rap lyrics but can also be found in video imaging, marketing and popular discourses interacting with the culture in news and social media and the academy. Peterson's reasoning for taking hop music seriously cites the culture and its practitioners prescient ability to identify and chronicle America's complex social problems: the challenges of a post industrialized economy for the working poor, the travails of urban ecology, limited access to educational and employment opportunities and failed and devastating Wars on Poverty, Drugs and Terrorism. …