The Organic Globalizer is a collection of critical essays which takes the position that hip-hop holds political significance through an understanding of its ability to at once raise cultural awareness, expand civil society’s focus on social and economic justice through institution building, and engage in political activism and participation. Collectively, the essays assert hip hop’s importance as an “organic globalizer:” no matter its pervasiveness or reach around the world, hip-hop ultimately remains a grassroots phenomenon that is born of the community from which it permeates. Hip hop, then, holds promise through three separate but related avenues: (1) through cultural awareness and identification/recognition of voices of marginalized communities through music and art; (2) through social creation and the institutionalization of independent alternative institutions and non-profit organizations in civil society geared toward social and economic justice; and (3) through political activism and participation in which demands are articulated and made on the state.
About the Authors (Editors)
Christopher Malone is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Pace University, USA. He is the author of Between Freedom and Bondage (2007) and co-editor of Occupying Political Science (2013).
George Martinez is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Pace University, USA, and is founder/CEO of the Global Block Foundation. He serves as Cultural Envoy and Hip-Hop Ambassador for the U.S. Department of State. He is the creator of the term, Organic Globalizer.
Special thanks to all of the additional authors for their very significant contributions to this critically important project.
Table of ContentsPart I: Foundations
The Organic Globalizer, Christopher Malone, Pace University; George Martinez, Pace University
No Church in the Wild: Politics, Morality, and Hip-Hop in the Political Science Classroom, Craig Douglas Albert, Georgia Regents University, Augusta
Part II: Culture
Hip Hop, Spirituality & Empowerment From The South Bronx to the South of Florida to South America, Walter Hidalgo, Columbia University
The (Un)Conscious Underground White Rapper: Racial Silence, Hegemonic Masculinity, and Alternative White Rappers, Matthew Oware, DePauw University
Part III: Social Change
Beautiful Like Diamonds In the Sky: Hip Hop’s Impact in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Kendra King, Oglethorpe University
Hip-hop and the Reconfiguration of Blackness in Sao Paulo: The Influence of African American Political and Musical Movements in the 20th Century,Jaqueline Lima Santos, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)
Representations of Chinese-ness in Afro-Cuban Hip-hop During Post-Soviet Era Cuba, Angela Ju, University of California, Los Angles
Hip-hop and the Dialects of Political Awareness: Young Immigrant Rappers and the Recognition of Difference in Vienna, Austria, Barbara Franz, Rider University
Asserting Identity Through Music: Indigenous Hip-hop and Self-Empowerment, Anne Flaherty, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
A New Story: Critical Education, Counter narratives, and Hip-Hop Organizing, Paul Kuttner, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Mariama White-Hammond, Project HIP-HOP
Part IV: Politics And Law
For All The Girls That Never Thought They Could Win: Hip Hop, Feminism, And Political Action, Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Tulane University; Sara Kugler Anna Julia Cooper Research Project, LLC
The Rise of the Politics of Visibility, Last Resort, and Disregard in the Oakland Underground Rap Music Scene, H. Lavar Pope, Lehigh University
Liberation Hip Hop: Palestinian Hip-Hop and the Politics of Resistance, Denise DeGarmo, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Men or Monsters? The Votings Rights Act of 1965 and Applied Uses of the Commercial Rap Artist, Joy Boggs
Copyright Outlaws & Hip-hop Moguls: Intellectual Property Law and the Development of Hip-Hop, Richard Schur, Drury University
Whirl Trade: The Precarious Image of HipHop in Global Economies, Fahamu Pecou
The Belly of the Beast, Keesha M. Middlemass, Trinity University
Occupy Freedom, Occupy Equality: Race and Class in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Christopher Malone, Pace University; Davina Anderson, Pace University; George Martinez, Pace University
Bibliography
Index