Friday, October 15 2010
Their Mics Still Sound Nice: BET Puts Ladies First
Do women rappers have to shake it in our faces in order to get us to listen? As this doc. notes some, like Salt 'N' Pepa do it with sassiness and sex appeal "...you know, if I was a book, I would sell / 'cause every curve on my body got a story to tell".
Monday, September 27 2010
Keeping It Real: Dreams, Mind-Alteration, & Misperception in Hip-Hop
Hip-hop has been engaged in an ongoing tension between fantasy and reality, art and artifice but rappers, like all good artists, sometimes have to lie in order to tell the truth.
Thursday, July 22 2010
Hip-Hop Storytellers: The Vignette
"That story is over, but my rhyme ain't done." Vignettes are important tools in hip-hop's rich and plentiful storytelling tradition.
Thursday, April 15 2010
The Revival: A Declaration for Female Emcees
Hip-hop needs a women's movement ala Seneca Falls. The Declaration of Sentiments used the Declaration of Independence as its structural model (in hip-hop we call that "sampling").
Tuesday, December 15 2009
I Still Love H.E.R. (And So Should Everyone Else)
One surprisingly successful technique for converting hip-hop haters and deepening the existing fan's love for the culture is to expose them to "old school hip-hop".
Thursday, May 7 2009
india.arie: Testimony Vol. 2: Love & Politics
Testimony Vol. 2 is strictly in the “I love you, you love me, let’s all love each other” vein…and what’s wrong with that?
