To Live and Die in Hip-Hop

Abstract

Hip-hop began in the Bronx, New York City as a ­­relatively obscure cultural movement during the 1970s. New York’s African American and Caribbean communities pioneered and incubated break ­­dancing (B-boying), graffiti art, disc jockeying (affectionately known as turntablism), and MCing (rapping). In time, the culture spread like wildfire—first to other Black communities and then out of American cities altogether. The suburbanization and globalization of hip-hop during the 1990s eventually transformed the culture into a worldwide billion-dollar industry. Hip-hop struggled to come to terms with its own growth—popularity and authenticity are not always compatible. The late bell hooks argued in We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (2003), “While the patriarchal boys in hip-hop crew may talk about keeping it real, there has been no musical culture with black men at the forefront of its creation that has been steeped in the politics of fantasy and denial as the more popular...