Part 3: Ice Cube—previous member of the rap group, NWA—in The Art of Rap says, “What [street knowledge] means to me is letting the streets know what the politicians is trying to do to them and then letting the politicians know what the streets think of them, if they’re listening.” In the same interview, Ice [...]
Tag: prison
Put Your Hands Up: Hip-hop, Incarceration, and The Fate of the Black Male pt 2
Part 2: Interestingly, there has been another movement, the Hip-hop movement, transpiring in urban environments, especially amongst African American males. Hip-hop’s music has always been used to represent a counter-cultural movement. However, the ways in which Hip-hop has accomplished this has shifted since it has become more commodified. In the 1980’s and 90’s Hip-hop was [...]
Put Your Hands Up: Hip-hop, Incarceration, and the Fate of the Black Male pt1

This post is part 1 of a paper I wrote about the correlation between the rise of mass incarceration in America and the rise of thug culture glorified within commercial rap music.