To the Break of Dawn: A freestyle on the hip hop aesthetic

To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic

Volumn , Issue , 2008, Pages 1-199

  Cobb, William ^a  

^a SPELMAN COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 84900198244     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Book

References (103)

1. vii In spite of and because of marginal status . . . John Edgar Wideman, "Introduction," Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Fiction, New York: Penguin, 1990.
2. vii You criticize our methods/Of how we make records . . . Stetsasonic, In Full Gear, Tommy Boy Records, 2001.
3. Before we arrive at the mandatory . . . Franz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press, 1965.
4. Each generation is imbued . . . See also Brian Cross, It's Not About a Salary: Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles, New York: Verso, 1993.
5. But at the same time, hip hop is not fundamentally... Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," in David Levering Lewis (ed), Harlem Renaissance Reader, New York: Henry Holt, 1993.
6. But this new multiculturalism is global and international... W. E. B. Du Bois "Criteria of Negro Art," in David Levering Lewis (ed), Harlem Renaissance Reader, New York: Henry Holt, 1993.
7. The genealogy of the MC... Jim Fricke, Yes, Yes, Y'all: The Oral History of Hip Hop's First Decade, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002.
8. So this book aims for a different... Though most of the literature on hip hop has concentrated on its social politics, the aesthetic principles over the music have been ably discussed in Tricia Rose's Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994;
9. Imani Perry's Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop, Durham: Duke University Press, 2004;
10. and scholarly articles-particularly Geneva Smitherman's "The Chain Remain the Same" (Journal of Black Studies, September 1997)
11. and Mtume ya Salaam's "The Aesthetics of Rap" (African American Review, Summer 1995).
12. Our preachers are talented men... Carla Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
13. The Black preacher, since the church... James Baldwin, Evidence of Things Not Seen, New York: Owl Books, 1995.
14. Listen for a minute and it becomes clear... Michael Eric Dyson, Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
15. Also, Anthony Pinn, Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music, New York: NYU Press, 2003. The significance of hooping to black rhetorical style was emphasized to me in discussion on the subject with Kamasi Hill and Christina Dickerson.
16. Of those multiple millions of Africans... Regarding the relationship between dancehall and hip hop, see Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005.
17. Joseph Holloway, Africanisms in American Culture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.
18. Regarding the percentages of enslaved Africans brought to North America, see Philip Curtin's TransAtlantic Slave Trade: A Census, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.
19. See also David Eltis, Routes to Slavery; Direction, Ethnicity and Mortality in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, London: Frank Cass, 1997.
20. To the enslaved, though, to the African... On this subject
21. see LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America, New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.
22. Forbidden to seek communion and connection... For discussion of the subject of slave conversion to Christianity, see Albert Raboteau, Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
23. See also LeRoi Jones's Blues People.
24. The blank-faced, cinema verité... Jon Michael Spencer, Blues and Evil, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993.
25. Literary bluesman and musician... Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act, New York: Vintage, 1995, 78.
26. The trickster's ironic sensibility... Robert D. Pelton, The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
27. The Dogon imagination... Pelton, 219.
28. Westerners have conflated Elegba the trickster... On this subject see Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy, New York: Vintage, 1984;
29. Spencer, Blues and Evil;
30. and Julio Finn, The Bluesman: The Musical Heritage of Black Men and Women in the Americas, London: Quartet Press, 1987.
31. Fruit may not fall far from the tree... Regarding the number of blues songs discussing travel, see Michael Taft, Blues Lyric Poetry: A Concordance, New York: Garland Publishing, 1984.
32. Regarding space and locality in hip hop, see also Imani Perry, Prophets of the Hood, Durham: Duke University Press, 2004;
33. and Murray Forman, The Hood Comes First: Race, Space and Place in Rap and Hip Hop, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002.
34. I was like totally wack on the mic... Fricke, Yes, Yes, Y'all.
35. The most apparent survivals... Jones, Blues People, 25.
36. Georgia, 1899... Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, New York: Random House, 2002, 18.
37. Jack Trice fought fifteen white men... Herbert Aptheker, Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, Volume II, New York: Citadel, 1973, 795.
38. The two most identifiable American folk heroes... Afuller discussion of this theme is found in Robert Warshow's noted essays "The Gangster as Tragic Hero" and "The Westerner" in The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
39. I pointed out earlier that the Baaad Nigger... Regarding blues significance to black women, see Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, New York: Pantheon, 1998.
40. See also Farah Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, New York: OneWorld, 2002.
41. See Darlene Clark Hine regarding the Great Migration and BlackWomen, "Black Migration to the Urban Midwest: The Gender Dimension," in JoeWilliam Trotter (ed), The Great Migration in Historical Perspective, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1991.
42. One of the most prevalent images of black women... The "Jezebel" figure is the focus of an entire chapter of Deborah White's Ar'n't I AWoman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South, New York: Norton, 1999.
43. As an MC You will Study... KRS-ONE, "The MC" I Got Next, Jive Records, 1997.
44. In those earliest days... For more on the relationship of hip hop to the Black Arts Movement, see Marvin Gladney, "The Black Arts Movement and Hip Hop," in African American Review (Summer 1995).
45. There was nothing in rap like that except the Last Poets... The Sugar Hill Story, Sugar Hill Records, 1991, liner notes, 32.
46. Hip Hop was that joy... For further discussion of the importance of this early politicization of the music, see Yvonne Bynoe, Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop, Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2003;
47. and Bakari Kitwana, The Hip Hop Generation, New York: Basic Books, 2002.
48. For a discussion of Melle Mel's artistic importance, check Kool Moe Dee's There's a God on the Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs, New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2003.
49. The thematic boundaries of what constituted... The gender politics of hip hop have been analyzed thoroughly-particularly in Joan Morgan's groundbreaking When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000;
50. as well as later works, including Gwendolyn Pough's Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip Hop Culture and the Public Sphere, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004;
51. and Charise Cheney, Brothers Gonna Work It Out: Sexual Politics in the Golden Age of Rap Nationalism, New York: NYU Press, 2005.
52. As early as 1980, the Sequence... For an additional discussion on the early presence of female MCs, see Fricke, Yes, Yes, Y'all.
53. At the same time, the outlets responsible... An excellent discussion of the role of indie labels in the birth and early development of recorded hip hop is seen in Salaam, "The Aesthetics of Rap."
54. It was during this point that hip hop also came to sound different... More on this in Rose's Black Noise and Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton's Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: A History of the Disc Jockey, New York: Grove Press, 2000. 53... was still current enough to prompt Talib Kweli to point out... Author's interview with Talib Kweli, April 2004.
55. The Ultra Magnetics debut release... In what is easily one of the best pieces of hip hop journalism yet produced, Dave Tomkins's "Traveling At The Speed of Thought" charts the life, work, and musical significance of Paul C.-a producer whose artistic brilliance has been overshadowed by his premature and mysterious death. See http://crunkster.abstractdynamics.org/archives/003807.html.
56. To be accurate, though, by the 1980s R&B was a wasteland... See Nelson George, Death of Rhythm and Blues, New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
57. In Cali context, Dr. Dre's 1992 solo debut... see William Shaw, Westside: Young Men and Hip Hop in L.A., New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
58. But this self-titled debut... See Oliver Wang (ed), Classic Material: The Hip- Hop Album Guide, Toronto: ECW Press, 2003, 52.
59. The unstated element... was their background as Latino artists... Regarding Latino influence in hip hop, see "It's a Street Thing: Charlie Chase Interview," Callaloo, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1992);
60. Raquel Rivera, New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone, New York: Palgrave, 2003
61. Juan Flores, From Bomba to Hip Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
62. The dominant element of that era... see Chuck D., Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality, New York: Delacorte, 1997.
63. The Chronic marked the ascent... For a detailed examination of the rise of West Coast hip hop, particularly Death Row Records, see Ronin Ro's excellent Have Gun Will Travel, Pella, IA: Main Street Books, 1999.
64. Similarly, Too Short... See Vladimir Bogdanov (ed), All Music Guide to Hip-Hop: The Definite Guide to Rap and Hip-Hop, San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003.
65. Gangsta-as the media termed the dawning movement... The significance of this, particularly its socio-historical context, is seen in Robin D. G. Kelley's "Kickin Reality, Kickin Ballistics," in his collection Race Rebels, New York: Free Press, 1996.
66. Deciphering Wu-Tang was as simple as reading Braille hieroglyphics... The Wu-Tang cosmology is broken down by RZA himself in The Wu-Tang Manual, New York: Riverhead Trade, 2004.
67. Whatever the case was to become, the Nas of Illmatic...Wang, Classic Material.
68. Clitoral shtick became central to the female artists... For more, check Cheney, Brothers Gonna Work It Out.
69. That Tupac had elusively managed to become the most revered... See Michael Eric Dyson, Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, New York: Basic Books, 2001.
70. Rapper grips mic tight... Joel Dias-Porter, untitled poem, unpublished, 1995.
71. The practice of mother-rhyming has been observed in various Afro-American communities... Abrahams, African American Folktales: Stories from Black Traditions in the New World, New York: Pantheon, 1999, 64.
72. When confined to friends and familiar circumstances... Mel Watkins, On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994, 455.
73. Once I saw a prizefighter boxing a yokel... Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, New York: Vintage, 1972, 8.
74. People compare rap to other genres of music... Jay-Z interview, Vibe Magazine, January 2004.
75. If Liston had not been born... Check Nick Tosches, The Devil and Sonny Liston, New York: Back Bay Books: 2001.
76. The Kool Herc style at the time... Fricke, Yes, Yes, Y'all, 71.
77. R&Bis black music...Big Daddy Kane,www.halftimeonline.com/kane.html.
78. In this case, the punchline is technically the third... Regarding the blues poetic structure, see Taft, Blues Lyric Poetry: An Anthology.
79. Those of us who have learned to write from the blues... Murray Kempton, "Bessie Smith: Poet," in Rebellions, Perversities and Main Events, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995.
80. Aperson inherits compulsive instincts... M. H. Abrams, Glossary of Literary Terms, Boston: Heinle Press, 1998;
81. see also Kelley, "Kickin Reality, Kickin Ballistics."
82. A master performance artist... Quote from Touré, "Tupac Shakur Gives the Performance of His Life," Village Voice, December 13, 1994.
83. The world now consumes films, novels, theater... Robert McKee, Story, New York: Regan Books, 1997.
84. The changes that freedom wrought... Lawrence Levine, Black Culture, Black Consciousness, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, 369-70.
85. Heroism, which is, among other things, another word for self-reliance... Albert Murray, Hero and the Blues, New York: Vintage, 1996, 44.
86. This is a culture that, on the level of its stylistic temperature... Kelley, "Kickin Reality, Kickin Ballistics";
87. Wesley Brown, Stagolee Shot Billy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003, 220.
88. As an oral performance, Stagolee has influenced a new art form... Brown, Stagolee Shot Billy, 225.
89. The "cult of the gunfighter" is constituted... Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in 20th Century America, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 402.
90. It was Saturday night and the jungle was bright... Wepman, Newman & Binderman (eds) The Life: The Lore and Folk Poetry of the Black Hustler, Los Angeles: Holloway House Publishing, 1976. 89-100.
91. I gave her a way-out funeral and didn't spare no cash...Wepman, et al., The Life, 48.
92. And while Miles confessed to pimping during his heroin daze... Robin D. G. Kelley, "Miles Davis: The Chameleon of Cool; A Jazz Genius in the Guise of a Hustler," New York Times, May 13, 2001.
93. We Real Cool... Gwendolyn Brooks, in Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. Mckay (eds), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, New York: Norton, 1997, 1591.
94. In late 1934, I would guess, something began to happen... Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, New York: Ballantine Books, 1987, 18.
95. The pimps would sidle up close... Malcolm X, Autobiography, 87.
96. I preferred the solitary that this behavior brought me... Malcolm X, Autobiography, 177.
97. I have rarely talked to anyone about my mother... Malcolm X, Autobiography, 27.
98. I take seven MCs, put 'em in a line... Like Muhammad Ali, Rakim has consistently brought out the best in the scribes that have taken him up as a subject. He is the subject of an excellent analysis by Mark Anthony Neal, "... And Bless the Mic for the Gods: Rakim Allah," Pop Matters, November 19, 2003, http://www.popmatters.com/music/features/031119-rakim.shtml;
99. see also Bogdanov (ed), All Music Guide; as well as Rob Marriott's brilliant "Allah's on Me," in Raquel Cepeda's And It Don't Stop: The Best American Hip Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years, New York: Faber & Faber, 2004.
100. For black men, beseeching America to recognize... On the subject of the meaning and implications of Jay-Z's music and career, see Elizabeth Mendez Berry, "Hard Knock Life, Vol. 1" in Wang, Classic Material, 93-96.
101. In the pantheon of disposable American heroes... See Hilton Als and Daryl Turner (eds), White Nose: The Eminem Collection, New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2003.
102. Brooklyn death-angels came draped... For more, see Cheo Hodari Coker's Unbelievable: The Life, Death and Afterlife of Notorious B.I.G., New York: Plexus, 2004.
103. It is at these times... Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History, New York: Norton, 1997, 609.