Introduction

The Lesson Presents: Emerging Black Masculinities in Hip Hop


During the late 1990s and early 2000s gangsta rap had grown to engulf large portions of the Hip Hop mainstream, and became a defining factor in black masculine subjectivity. However, as Hip Hop entered the second half of the first decade in the new millennium, gangsta rap became increasingly narrowly defined, and with it the masculinities that appeared within mainstream Hip Hop. I contend that a new generation of male rappers are opening fissures that offer space for broader black masculine subjectivities within Hip Hop culture in at least three different ways: challenging gangsta subject position as natural, challenging consumer culture within black masculinity as a point of masculine power, and opening up spaces of dialogue and vulnerability within black heterosexual relationships.      

Please read the following section in order:

Track One: Constructing Black Masculinity

Track Two: Stackolee and the Rise of Commercial Gangsta Rap

Track Three: Emerging Black Masculinities

No comments:

Post a Comment