Gangster Rap and Its Social Cost: Exploiting Hip Hop and Using Ra ...

Intended Audiences

I wrote this book for both academic and nonacademic readers. It is for those who love hip hop and the music as well as for those who think they dislike hip hop. There is good reason here for the latter group to change their mind; it is possible to find good music in hip hop that affirms the human spirit. It is also possible to have such pleasure without accepting or even tolerating the abuses of gangster rap. Young people who are struggling with identity issues and the confusing influences of hip hop and gangster rap will find this work liberating, as will parents who are confronting such influences in their children’s lives. My colleagues and their students in university and college communities will find this book useful in courses on popular studies, black studies, sociology, communications and community, and experimental psychology. Community activists who are battling the deteriorating quality of life in the ’hood ( a “street” term for an urban African American neighborhood) and in the larger community will find this work useful, for it offers field-tested suggestions for how those responsible for the negative influences of gangster rap—as well as in other areas of popular culture—can finally be dealt with in ways that do not attack their civil liberties.

Motives for Writing

The first motivation for my undertaking this project is that I was asked to do so by several independent parties some years ago. Well over 100 of my undergraduate students who were intense listeners of the music have called it to my attention, pointed out issues in it, and suggested that I address those issues. Several of my graduate students have written major papers and theses on hip hop and rap; I have gained a great deal from them. All of these students have encouraged me to write this book. I have taken the unique path represented here partly because I found that what my students from the ’hood reported was at variance with both the written commentary and gangster rappers’ claims.

Second, I was heavily engaged with an interracial coalition—the San Jose Coalition of Concerned Citizens and Organizations—working to