Hip-Hop/Rap Artists’ Approach to Community Engagement: Physical Activism and/or Verbal Stimulation

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Previous scholarship on rap and hip-hop music emphasizes the negative influence that such artists have on their communities. Contrarily, this study explores artists’ interpretation of the connectedness of their work to both geographic and symbolic communities, and the impact they have as individual civic actors outside the narrow limits of their art. Using in-depth interviews with rap and hip-hop artists located in the Southern United States, we explore these personal narratives of the social issues that plague their communities and how they address them as artists.

Authors

• Castel Sweet, Louisiana State University

• Sarah Becker, Louisiana State University