Refusing Epistemological Eurocentrism: Experimenting with Notes on Hustling in U.S. Hip Hop Music

• In Event: Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 2. The Institutionalization of "Marginal" Music

Abstract

The Eurocentric foundations and structuring logics of sociology are a direct result of the field’s emergence during and alongside the global expansion of European colonialism. Although this shortcoming has been extensively theorized relating to a range topics included in the study of sociology, like empire and the global colorline, there have been noticeably fewer methodological efforts to remedy this issue. In this paper, I contribute to methodological moves away from the epistemic Eurocentrism of sociology through the application of Christina Sharpe’s (2023) notes framework to U.S. Hip Hop music from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This application demonstrates the extensive theorizing and knowledge production taking place in Hip Hop culture generally, and Hip Hop music especially, through a focus on how Hip Hop artists frame hustling practices and the hustler identity influenced by the structures of racial capitalism. The detailed and novel knowledge gleaned from this experiment on how Hip Hop artists understand hustling in urban U.S. contexts offer an example of the epistemological work other scholars in the academy might find in Hip Hop and other similarly excluded peoples, cultures, and cultural products.

Author

• Alexander Kaiser, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign