CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Hip Hop Matters 1
INTRODUCTIONBack in the Day 9
PART ONE
Pop Culture and the Struggle for Hip Hop
CHAPTER ONE
Remixing American Pop 33
CHAPTER TWO
A Great Year in Hip Hop 55
CHAPTER THREE
Fear of a White Planet 85
CHAPTER FOUR
The Digital Underground 111
PART TWO
Politics and the Struggle for Hip Hop
CHAPTER FIVE
Move the Crowd 143
CHAPTER SIX
Young Voices in the Hood 163
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Our Future... Right Here, Right Now!” 187
Avoiding the easy definitions and caricatures that tend to celebrate or condemn the _hip hop generation,_ Hip Hop Matters focuses on the fierce and far-reaching battles being waged in politics, pop culture, and academe to assert greater control over the movement. At stake, Watkins argues, is the impact hip hop will have in the lives of the young people who live and breathe the culture. The story unfolds through revealing profiles, looking at such players as Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, widely recognized as America_s first hip-hop mayor; Chuck D, the self-described -rebel without a pause- who championed the Internet as a way to keep socially relevant rap music alive; and young activists who represent hip hop_s insurgent voice. Watkins also presents incisive analysis of the corporate takeover of hip hop; the culture_s march into America_s colleges and universities; and the rampant misogyny that undermines the movement_s progressive claims. Ultimately, we see how the struggle for hip hop reverberates with a larger world: global media consolidation and conglomeration; racial and demographic flux; generational cleavages; the reinvention of the pop music industry; and the ongoing struggle to enrich the lives of ordinary youth.
