The ways that events are presented by the media profoundly shapes their meanings.
From the beginning, hip hop challenged the dominant frames used to define people and communities.
In this first reading from our textbook Decoded, Jay-Z remembers Brooklyn in the 1970s.
A BBC documentary does a good job of grounding rap music within hip hop’s earliest forms of expression.
Hollywood films made by, for, and about African Americans thrived for a brief time in the early 1970s.
Hong Kong cinema made a central contribution to hip hop’s early ethics and aesthetics.
Acknowledged as one of the greatest martial arts films of all time, 36th Chamber had a huge impact on hip hop.
The importance of kung fu films is signaled by the group’s first album title, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).
The crack epidemic and the “War on Drugs” heavily influenced hip hop’s early content and aesthetics.
The most accomplished of 1990s “hood films,” Menace II Society is also one of the most bleak.
A documentary film offers a nice frame for our discussion of music, movies, and gender.
In the late 1980s NWA faced boycotts, censorship, and FBI threats. In 2015 their biopic became the nation’s number one film.
Though invisible in Straight Outta Compton, Dee Barnes remains an important part of hip-hop’s history.
One of the things this film is about: the proper role(s) for women within commercial hip hop’s gangster cinema and gangster rap.
In ways different and similar, two artists have made their mark in 21st-century commercial rap music.
While Beyond the Lights sets up an opposition between rap and R&B, a recent collaboration suggests kinship and solidarity.
From 2012, a reminder that hip hop means far more than just commercial rap music.