African American Studies Commons^™

Darney "K-Born" Rivers, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewer: Mark Naison, Lisa Betty

Interviewee: Darney “K-Born” Rivers, Rodney Morris

Summarized by: Sarah Cavanagh

Darney “K-Born” Rivers is a legendary Bronx rapper and community organizer. He was born in the Bronx in 1970 and lived on Grant avenue and then Morris avenue near 169th street. Living on Grant avenue in the early 1970s, Rivers describes the fires that became a common sight in the area. The Grant avenue neighborhood became so dangerous that he had to live with relatives in Queens for some time. Rivers and his family moved to the Fordham road area of the Bronx in 1978. …

Descent: American Individualism, American Blackness And The Trouble With Invention, Simone White

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Descent is metacritical, ranging across disciplines to take up – as flash points or instances – failed attempts to revolutionize knowledge, considering these as descents, or movements into the deep, that remain stiff or un-poetic in their attitudes toward the American truisms “individualism,” “blackness” and “invention.” Beginning with William Carlos Williams’ formulation of descent (as a practice necessary for establishing national literary identity) in In the American Grain, the project resolves around the question, How can the critic make peace with her desire to dominate the object of critique by proposing its perpetual sameness in relation to the critic? …

Cover, Editors And Editorial Board, Sponsors, Table Of Contents

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Sojourner, Karl Carter

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Poem.

Bigger By The Dozens: The Prevalence Of Afro-Based Tradition In Battle Rap, Shingi Mavima

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

This paper interrogates the linguistic grounding of battle rap in Afro-based cultural practices, and the transformative power the understated art form possesses within the African American community. An integral part of hip-hop from the beginning, 'battling' has grown into a distinct subculture in recent years. Because of its oft-unmitigated rawness, it is often viewed as a lesser artistic form that embodies the worst of the violence, misogyny and other societal ills that hip-hop is accused of promoting. This paper argues that battle rap is not a corruption of Black culture: it is the modern incarnation of long-held oral, competitive, and …

Philosophy And Hip-Hop: Ruminations On Postmodern Cultural Form, Michael D. Royster

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Book review of Philosophy and Hip-Hop: Ruminations on Postmodern Cultural Form. By Julius Bailey (2014).

Foot Notes On Equality, Karl Carter

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Poem.

Brown Girl, Karl Carter

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Poem.

About Gods, I Don't Believe In None Of That Shit, The Facts Are Backwards: Slaughterhouse's Lyrical Atheism, Marquis Bey

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Hip Hop group Slaughterhouse's multi-membered, perversely holy quadrinity provides a fertile site for a pseudo-non-theological theological reading-a theology with and without god, that is, with god's titular presence but bereft of any ethos of a mover and shaker god. God, in my reading of Slaughterhouse's lyrics, is impotent. Rather than the Word, Slaughterhouse publishes sacred texts (albums and mixtapes) that speak to Black embodied life; their albums are the scriptural holy ghetto-Word, the Gospels that of Royce, Crooked, Joell, and Joey, rather than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Through the lyrics of Slaughterhouse's songs, they craft a god that is …

Chocolate Star, Brandon White

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Short story.

Journal Of Hip Hop Studies

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Boardwalk Empire, Truth Thomas

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Poem.

Representations And Discourses Of Black Motherhood In Hip Hop And R&B Over Time, Cassandra Chaney, Arielle Brown

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

This study will examine how representations and discourses regarding Black motherhood have changed in the Hip Hop and R&B genres over time. Specifically, this scholarly work will contextualize the lyrics of 79 songs (57 Hip Hop songs; 18 R&B songs; 2 songs represented the Hip Hop and R&B genre; 2 songs represented artists who produce music in 5 or 6 genres) from 1961-2015 to identify the ways that Black male and Black female artists described motherhood. Through the use of Black Feminist Theory, and by placing the production of these songs within a sociohistorical context, we provide an in-depth qualitative …

Hip Hop Videos And Black Identity In Virtual Space, Joel Rubin

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

In this paper, I present an understanding of music videos as useful representations of the dynamism of blackness and black identity and in fact indicative of a post-regional turn in Hip Hop. In order to illustrate, I first examine how blackness is expressed in physical space with the advent of New York City's block parties and the Bay Area's "hyphy" movement. I then situate the importance of the music video in a contemporary understanding of visualized culture in virtual space. Applying this understanding to the performance and perception of blackness, I use the example of Canadian Hip Hop artist Drake's …

Religion And Hip Hop, Travis Harris

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Book review of Religion and Hip Hop, by Monica Miller (2013).