Abstract
This chapter examines how a New Literacies approach to hip-hop pedagogy gives students increased opportunities to foster dialogue related to race and power. Using Critical Race Theory to examine the music, art, and media related to two of rapper Kendrick Lamar’s albums, good kid, m.A.A.D. city and To Pimp a Butterfly, the authors provide for educators and academics a critical, multimodal text set that serves as an alternative to traditional literary canons that privilege white authors whose work exists solely in the print medium. Themes in Lamar’s work task the listener to consider the ways white supremacy and consumerism impact black artistry and community, which suggests potential for fostering critical classroom conversations related to ways that capitalism impacts representation of cultures in art.
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- 1.
Note on use of terms: As literacy researchers concerned with learning how language and words impact people, our aim was to manipulate or alter as few terms as possible in our textual analysis. Although there are reasons to omit terms like racial slurs or misogynistic phrases in public dialogue, doing so here would misrepresent the ways that hip-hop music affects the narratives of young people. Our decision was to preserve lyrics and related texts as they were originally written, welcoming critiques of terminology from readers at stake.
- 2.
Since our primary discussion revolves around social constructs of race and how they relate to issues of power, we typically use the uncapitalized terms “black” and “white” when referring to racial groups in our analysis, unless quoting or referring to other terms being used by another author. It should be noted that between the revision and publication stages of this chapter, Kendrick Lamar released his critically acclaimed album DAMN. One of the most notable aspects of the album is a shift in language regarding Lamar’s racial identity. However, since analysis in this chapter refers to terminology used during the releases of Lamar’s second and third studio album, the authors have decided to utilize the terms most commonly used by the artist during the time period.
- 3.
“Rap” and “hip-hop” are not synonymous terms, as “rapping” refers to the art of emceeing on a mic, while “hip-hop” refers to the overarching culture that includes emceeing, deejaying, breakdancing, graffiti writing, and so on.
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Henze, A.D., Hall, T. (2018). Dying of Thirst: Kendrick Lamar and the Call for a “New School” Hip-Hop Pedagogy. In: Kraehe, A., Gaztambide-Fernández, R., Carpenter II, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Race and the Arts in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65256-6_15
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