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Ramadan-Santiago discusses the ways some Puerto Rican Muslims claim membership in the global Hip Hop and Islamic communities where they have not historically been centrally positioned. They understand and validate their place in these communities by marshalling historico-cultural evidence that authenticates and legitimates their membership claims. The author pays particular attention to the synthesis by which Puerto Rican Muslims re-imagine and re-create their identities simultaneously as Puerto Ricans, Muslims, and Hip Hop artists.

This chapter introduces the stakes of the book by narrating two stories that illustrate how the dynamics of gender difference affect belonging for women who write graffiti on both an individual and a structural level. Briefly surveying the current state of Graffiti Studies, the introduction argues that without accounting for the dynamics of gender difference within graffiti subculture, graffiti grrlz (and the ways they develop strategies of resistance in order to thrive) remain invisible. The introduction then breaks into four sections: Writing Grrlz describes the interdisciplinary ethnographic method and major interventions to the fields of Graffiti Studies and Hip Hop Studies; Digital Ups introduces the importance of digital media as a mode for grrlz to connect across geographical borders, language barriers, and time zones; Hip Hop Graffiti Diaspora frames the book’s utilization of diaspora and performance to account for the multiracial, multiethnic reality of transnational graffiti subculture; and Performing Feminism “Like a Grrl” explains how and why these strategies are framed as feminist performance.

Imani Perry of Princeton University has raised the following question: “Why does the hip hop audience believe that it is okay to embrace the past, to converse with it, without adhering to its ideological divides or rules?” This points to an intergenerational tension in which the earlier stages have a utility that enables hip hop to borrow and sample without being obligated to community nor accountable to it. Throughout this essay it is argued to the contrary that the “ideological divides and rules” were indeed adhered to, at least with regard to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and interpreted and recruited them to its purposes. Errol Henderson insists it is the “sampling aspect of hip hop” that facilitates “cross-generational cultural transmissions” among “the relatively apolitical generation of the 1970s and 1980s with a staunch Black nationalist African subculture of the 1960s.” If sampling places hip hop in conversation with the past, so has “dissing.” Like any first-rate rap icon, Martin Luther King and the broad Civil Rights movement, have been subjected to well-known street poses of disrespecting (dissin’) and challenging (battling) from upstarts, whether in lyrics, film, or among the self-recognized “hip hop intelligentsia,” seeking to make their mark. Imani Perry suggests likewise, “dis- functions as a negative prefix (e.g., disrespect, dismiss, etc.), [and] gathered its meaning in the social context of inter-personal rejection, or what another generation might have referred to as ‘putting someone down’ not in the white American dialect sense of insulting, but in the black American sense of getting rid of someone as though setting someone on a table and walking away.” King was thus “dissed” ideologically in emergent “message” or “conscious” rap in the late 1980s through 1990s period.

This chapter demonstrates how multilingual youth in South Africa´s multilingual Hip Hop ciphas forge a local variety of Hip Hop Nation Language that relies on the strategic and creative use of linguistic resources associated with English, Cape Afrikaans (a local variety of Afrikaans), the local street variety Sabela (an admixture of isiXhosa, Kaaps, Zulu, nonverbal gang signs), and African American Language. With these linguistic resources, young multilingual speakers of Cape Afrikaans jointly produce ethnicity and extreme locality by forming linguistic registers that further create an agentive multilingual citizenship. Such creation of extreme locality is necessary in a linguistic context where Cape Afrikaans is stigmatized across nearly all social domains related to power and upward mobility, and where youth registers challenge the supposed inferiority of this variety because its very use resists long-held stereotypes about Cape Afrikaans speakers as unintelligent, lazy, and criminal.

The word hip-hop encompasses both a type of social dance and a broader sub-culture. This sub-culture is based in four expressive elements: graffiti art, deejaying, emceeing, and dancing. Today there are a myriad of dance forms and styles residing under the umbrella term “hip-hop dance,” including locking, popping, b-boying, and hip-hop party dances. This chapter gives an overview of these forms, with a particular focus on party dances. Party rockin’ has been present since the beginning of the hip-hop scene in the 1970s, with dances like the Gigolo and the Patty Duke. However, in the 1980s these new social dances took on a flamboyant b-boy-esque battle style, replacing circles of b-boys/b-girls with party rockers. These new hip-hop party dances came into existence as a result of hip-hop music, with rappers making call and response records such as Do the Wop by B-Fats. The author also examines the commercialization of hip-hop dance.

This chapter deals with the circulation of hip-hop politics in relation to concepts about institutionalization, while tackling the question of how ideas about hip-hop and the post-civil rights generation’s politics were interpreted as the attempts of politically mobilizing citizens. It presents an analysis of political development using Jim Crow-era black politics in order to show the major types of black political organization. The Hip-hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) and National Hip-hop Political Convention (NHHPC) are two of the most visible attempts of hip-hop political organizing that reveal two distinct yet similar paths to institutionalizing hip-hop politics. The chapter then explains the implications for the institutionalization of black politics.

This chapter considers the role of hip-hop in the constitution of young men's Muslim identities through the analytical prism of ambivalence. It describes how young men's attempts to navigate between contradictory moral requirements plays out in the context of their engagement with hip-hop. Though young often men say rap music is not part of Islam, they nevertheless see it as a moral project destined to uncover the truth about social injustice. By focusing on truth, this chapter highlights how young men negotiate the contradictory ethical requirements of being Muslim and doing (or listening to) hip-hop.

Chapter 6 puts hip hop and its pedagogy into the context of this French theory of practice, considering how a climate created by French intellectuals focusing on practice and understanding bodies as sites of cultural production and knowledge allowed hip hop to be taken seriously by ministers of culture and a left-wing elite. Reading the work of Leroi-Gourhan, Bourdieu and De Certeau anticipating and accompanying a shift to an idea of culture as practice, using dance as a subject, an example or a metaphor, provides here a context for the appreciation of the counter-cultural form and an explanation of its “recuperation” by state agencies for social purposes, and in particular the institutionalization of its transmission or pedagogy. Chapter 6 also documents how hip hop dance technique is learned, complementing these theories of practice, and the concept of mimesis is discussed in the transmission of hip hop moves. The use of the mirror in the dance studio allows a double reflection on the aestheticization of the form in class training and the constitution of a community in performance.

This chapter argues that hip-hop satire offers a critique of commercial hip-hop’s fetishization of racial authenticity. Mighty Casey, Childish Gambino, and Little Brother all challenge the definitions of blackness provided by mainstream and commercially-successful hip-hop. These artists rely on independent labels and internet outlets, and as such operate on the “lower frequencies” of African American cultural production.

ʻBloodline is All I Need’ and Defiant Indigeneity on the ʻWest Side’,” looks closely at the “refusal” of aloha in the cultural production of a Kānaka Maoli rapper, Krystilez. This “refusal” represents a desire to contest hegemonic imagery of Hawaiʻi as a feminized paradise. Foregrounding a Native feminist critique of colonialism, Krystilez’s performances generate cultural nationalism through the embrace of hegemonic forms of masculinity. This chapter also discusses the creation of Hawaiian performance spaces and digital networks.

The conclusion considers the value of the partnership between hip hop and diplomacy. Hip hop diplomacy has value in convening groups unlikely to collaborate otherwise; it can be a source of validation for hip hop artists and their communities; and it can generate a favorable view of the United States and good will towards its citizens. Such positive outcomes, however, are not automatic and require that programs be conducted with respect, humility, self-awareness and a willingness to collaborate with local partners. Although the State Department faced severe funding cuts in the first years of the Trump administration, hip hop diplomacy has remained well-funded, although its future is uncertain. Specific anecdotes and case studies come from Next Level programs in Bangladesh, El Salvador, and Morocco.

The manifold varieties of jazz dance have always dominated dance in mainstream American cinema. Given jazz dance’s African roots and its many manifestations in the African-American vernacular, it is not surprising that its use in film almost always implicates issues of race and racism. This article looks at vernacular jazz dance in mainstream American cinema as a focal point of American race relations, focusing on two particularly influential areas of popular vernacular jazz dance: first, the authentic jazz dance developed alongside the jazz music of the 1920s to 40s and featured prominently in films of the same period; and second, the hip-hop dance which first appeared in film in the 1980s and which continues to be hugely popular in contemporary commercial cinema (as well as music television). Early jazz tap figures discussed include Bill Robinson, Jeni LeGon, and the Nicholas Brothers.

This chapter explores nationalists’ understandings of musical essentialism, of whether musical sounds can possess inherent and immutable political, cultural, or ethnic characters. It investigates this topic by tracing reactions to the recent emergence of nationalist rap and reggae—genres long reviled by insiders as inherently anti-white or -black. The chapter introduces the nationalist rap artists Zyklon Boom and Juice, as well as the reggae song “Imagine” produced by street action group Nordic Youth. It presents and analyzes the insider debate as to whether these music projects are appropriate for the nationalist cause. Activists disagree as to whether rap, reggae, or any music genre holds inherent associations, and these discussions allowed insiders to engage in a broader conversation about reformist agendas in Nordic nationalism more generally. The chapter also shows that New Nationalist thought has expanded insiders’ ability to assimilate expressive forms previously excluded from their activism.

This chapter offers a brief overview of jazz dance styles. Styles that are defined include authentic jazz dance, tap dance, club jazz dance, jazz-influenced dance, rhythm-generated jazz dance, theatrical jazz dance, Afro-Carribean jazz dance, Broadway jazz dance, classical jazz dance, commercial jazz dance, concert jazz dance, contemporary jazz dance, Latin jazz dance, lyrical jazz dance, pop jazz dance, West-coast jazz dance, vernacular jazz dance, hip-hop dance, funk, and street jazz dance. Styles are grouped in a way that suggests shared roots and aesthetic principals. Readers are encouraged to refer to this section as a glossary but to keep in mind that many of the styles fall into more than one category and can even overlap with other styles in its group.

This ethnographic case study discusses the experiences of nine competitive male hip hop dancers as they participated in an all-male jazz technique class, which was taught by the researcher, in a private Canadian dance studio. Questionnaires were distributed to the male students and their three dance teachers to identify both the students’ and teachers’ perceptions of gender in competitive dance education. This chapter critically examines pedagogical practices that masculinize dance movement and teaching strategies in a private dance school with the intention of encouraging male enrollment. It challenges dance educators to assess how their own gendered assumptions influence their pedagogies, and to consider the potential effects they may have on their students’ experiences.

The chapter focuses on the televisual and lived experiences of the dancers and choreographers to connect the production of spectacle on the screen to their everyday lives. It captures these individual life stories of aspirations and failures within the larger context of the emergence of dance reality shows such as Just Dance and Naach Dhum Machale on national and local television networks.