Hip-Hop within and without the Academy

by Karen Snell, Johan Söderman

Overview

Hip-Hop Within and Without the Academy explores why hip-hop has become such a meaningful musical genre for so many musicians, artists, and fans around the world. Through multiple interviews with hip-hop emcees, DJs, and turntablists, the authors explore how these artists learn and what this music means for them in their lives. This research reveals how hip-hop is used by many marginalized peoples around the world to help express their ideas and opinions, and even to teach the younger generation about their culture and tradition. In addition, this book dives into how hip-hop is currently being studied in higher education and academia. In the process, the authors reveal the difficulties inherent in bringing this kind of music into institutional contexts and acknowledge the conflicts that are present between hip-hop artists and academics who study the culture. Building on the notion of bringing hip-hop into educational settings, the book discusses how hip-hop is currently being used in public school settings, and how educators can include and embrace hip-hop’s educational potential more fully while maintaining hip-hop’s authenticity and appealing to young people at the same time. In sum, this book reveals how hip-hop’s universal appeal can be harnessed to help make general and music education more meaningful for contemporary youth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739197523
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/15/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.54(d)

About the Author

Karen Snell has taught both graduate and undergraduate level music education courses at Boston University and the Eastman School of Music.

John Söderman is associate professor of music education at Malmö University.

Table of Contents

Contents
AcknowledgmentsPart 1 Ethnographic Hip-Hop Studies1 Introduction2 Young Hip-Hop Musicians Talk About Their Learning and Creative Strategies 3 Towards a Swedish Professional Hip-Hop Identity4 The Musical Personhood of Three Canadian Turntablists: Implications for Transformative Collaborative Practice in Music Education5 First Nations Hip-Hop Artists’ Identity and Voice
Part 2 Academization of Hip-Hop6 Introduction to Part 27 The Formation of a Scientific Field: Hip-Hop Academicus8 What is at Stake? How Hip-Hop is Legitimized and Discussed Within University 9 Turntablism: A Vehicle for Connecting Community and School Music Making and Learning
Part 3 Educational and Artistic Implications of Hip-Hop10 Introduction to Part 311 Jean Grae and Toni Blackman: An Educational and Aesthetical Conversation with two Female Emcees12 Folkbildning through Hip-Hop: A Presentation of two Rappers and one Swedish Hip-Hop Organization 13 How Critical Pedagogy and Democratic Theory can inform Teaching Music, and especially, Teaching Hip-Hop14 The Informal Learning Practices of Hip-Hop Musicians15 Outroduction: Implications for Music and Music EducationGlossary of TermsBibliographyIndexAbout the Authors

Editorial Reviews

The section on the ‘academization of hip-hop’ – what the book’s title describes as ‘hip-hop within the academy’ – was promising as it is an area that is rarely well covered compared to the more common emphasis on the convergences of youth, politics and hip-hop.. . .Snell and Söderman are appropriately attuned to the ways in which public education is increasingly inflected by the demands and agendas of the neoliberal state.

Popular Music

Music educators will not be the only ones who benefit from this rounded, wide-ranging and yet focused study on the background, uses, meanings, and educational potential of hip-hop. This very readable account has the rare gift of being both entertaining and scholarly. It gives much food for thought as well as practical advice for teachers, and it represents a much-needed addition to the literature on both hip-hop and music education.

Lucy Green

A block party of a book—Snell and Söderman mix and remix educational orthodoxies into a whole new sound.

Randall Everett Allsup

Snell and Söderman’s book is a welcome and timely text that draws attention to hip-hop beyond its most visible, commodified forms in popular culture and that challenges the bases of assumptions made surrounding hip-hop scholarship. The authors approach their subject matter with humility, and in doing so, provide a thought-provoking and valuable collection of essays that will surely appeal to scholars in a range of fields, including popular music studies, ethnomusicology, applied ethnomusicology, music education, and music teacher education.

Gareth Dylan Smith

Snell and Söderman, both of whom teach music education, explore how hip-hop music has come to be used 'by many artists throughout the world to articulate their unique sense of marginality.' The music has become the chosen mode of expression for young people—whether First Nations youth in the US and Canada or communities in Britain, Norway, and Sweden—who have experienced a sense of exclusion or disenfranchisement. Populations around the world borrow from hip-hop and blend it with their own traditions. In addition to discussing this, the authors explore efforts to add courses on hip-hop to college curricula and to music education coursework in secondary schools. And they examine the tension between scholars who write about and critique hip-hop and practitioners who create the music: Who is qualified to 'speak' for or about hip-hop? Whose voice is 'authentic'? Though it is dense, technical, and abstract—and marked by specialized jargon—the book offers significant theoretical insights. Intrepid readers will find this study valuable and worth the effort. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

Choice Reviews

Snell and Söderman, both of whom teach music education, explore how hip-hop music has come to be used 'by many artists throughout the world to articulate their unique sense of marginality.' The music has become the chosen mode of expression for young people—whether First Nations youth in the US and Canada or communities in Britain, Norway, and Sweden—who have experienced a sense of exclusion or disenfranchisement. Populations around the world borrow from hip-hop and blend it with their own traditions. In addition to discussing this, the authors explore efforts to add courses on hip-hop to college curricula and to music education coursework in secondary schools. And they examine the tension between scholars who write about and critique hip-hop and practitioners who create the music: Who is qualified to 'speak' for or about hip-hop? Whose voice is 'authentic'? Though it is dense, technical, and abstract—and marked by specialized jargon—the book offers significant theoretical insights. Intrepid readers will find this study valuable and worth the effort. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

Choice

Snell and Söderman, both of whom teach music education, explore how hip-hop music has come to be used 'by many artists throughout the world to articulate their unique sense of marginality.' The music has become the chosen mode of expression for young people—whether First Nations youth in the US and Canada or communities in Britain, Norway, and Sweden—who have experienced a sense of exclusion or disenfranchisement. Populations around the world borrow from hip-hop and blend it with their own traditions. In addition to discussing this, the authors explore efforts to add courses on hip-hop to college curricula and to music education coursework in secondary schools. And they examine the tension between scholars who write about and critique hip-hop and practitioners who create the music: Who is qualified to 'speak' for or about hip-hop? Whose voice is 'authentic'? Though it is dense, technical, and abstract—and marked by specialized jargon—the book offers significant theoretical insights. Intrepid readers will find this study valuable and worth the effort. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

CHOICE