Hip-Hop, Mental Health, and the Cat

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 1:45 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Voices of Resistance: Hip Hop Inclusivity and Educational Transformation (Table 12)

Abstract

This brief narrative study examines the portrayal of mental health issues in three tracks off Aesop Rock’s “Impossible Kid”: “Get Out of the Car,” “Shrunk,” and “Kirby.” Static discourse analysis unveiled the way each track employed different types of sentences (declarative, interrogative, and imperative) as well as emotional valences (expressions of joy, expressions of suffering, and acceptance), and finally the use of poetic devices (metaphor, simile, imagery, and paradox). Aesop’s heavy reliance on metaphor, largely in declarative sentences, constructs a clear triptych through these three consecutive tracks, presenting a rich narrative of the struggles to enter mental health treatment, to engage with it effectively, and to successfully incorporate interventions.

Author

• Jesse A Lasser, University of Colorado - Denver