Everybody is winning because hip-hop has been in a slump, and there hasn't been anything interesting going on in hip-hop for a while now.
But Kilson couldn't acknowledge that since it would ruin his argument, much as the critics of hip hop don't want to spoil their biases through concrete engagements with the culture they despise.
The number one song in the land right now is by hip hop artist T.
Before Kanye West released his debut last year, many weren't sure if this hip-hop producer could pick up the mike and make it as a wrapper.
"Reggae doesn't sell as much as hip hop, " he says.
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She herself doesn't rule out collaborating with hip-hop artists.
Unlike McWhorter, intellectuals who study hip hop don't shy away from probing the complex varieties of black identity, even those that skirt close to stereotype, as they undress its mauling effects in stunted visions of black female identity.
Revered intellectuals and writers like Crouch, Marsalis, McWhorter, and Martin Kilson, the first African American professor to receive tenure at Harvard, cringe when they think intellectuals who engage hip hop don't embrace the values and styles of earlier arts communities or the civil rights movement.
Because -don't get me wrong - I'm all for supporting your local hip-hop artist, but I can't wait to see the next talented female rapper hit it big.
Jeff Chang is the author of Can't Stop Won't Stop, the History of the Hip-Hop Generation.
The hip-hop world hasn't seen the last of Snoop Dogg as a recording artist, and he will keep using that name for his non-reggae work.
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Here, his ominous delivery doesn't obscure some of the best wordplay in hip-hop.
Hip Hop was a term that didn't really exist in the earlier days of the genre.
Many critics, including McWhorter, don't account for the complex ways that some artists in hip hop play with stereotypes to either subvert or reverse them.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to leave hip hop entirely, I just feel like this is something that's necessary for right now for me to get my message across in the music that I'm making right now, " Mr. Broadus says.
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Even if you don't understand the lyrics, you can hear the influence of hip-hop and rap, which have become the lingua franca of Afro-Latinos, African-Americans and just about anyone under the age of 25 in the rest of the world.
People don't necessarily feel that same sense of responsibility to exploring all that hip-hop means and all the cultural means.
And so, I mean, I'll always write--I mean, even if it's, you know, behind the scenes or--I mean, because I most definitely don't want to be an older, you know, entertainer--hip hop entertainer because to me hip hop is all about youth, you know?
"I didn't want to do a film that could be lumped into the black hip- hop-shoot-em-up-gangster-drug movie, " Lee says.
But it wasn't all about sensational marketing, according to Soren Baker, executive editor of hip-hop magazine The Source.
And one of the points that she makes, this is "100 Life Lessons from Hip-Hop's Greatest Songs, " but you don't pretend this is the 100 greatest songs.
"We all know none of us in this in this room wouldn't be here for Michael Jackson, " said Lil Wayne, named best male hip-hop star.
It's like hip-hop was before there was a bunch of money being made, because we aren't making a bunch of money.
As hard as the struggle to create authentically Chinese hip-hop is, Johnston, like other committed producers and rappers in China, wouldn't have it any other way.
Like the Rat Pack before them, rap and hip-hop's musical message was so entwined with its sartorial image that its effects couldn't help but be far-reaching.
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Apparently white people haven't yet mastered the art of making a ringback tone that sells, because the Caller Tunes chart is dominated by hip hop acts, with Lil Jon (aka Mr. Crunktastic) grabbing the top two spots.
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