How to Do Research
Here are a list of papers Fernando Orejuela, the author of Rap and Hip Hop Culture, has put together to help get you started on writing a research paper for your course. These papers are organized by chapter to help you formulate your thoughts about the variety of topics discussed throughout the text. For more information on where to find research papers, check out the “Helpful Resources” tab on the companion website:
Chapter 1
Pavlic, Ed. 2006. “Rap, Soul, and the Vortex at 33.3 RPM: Hip-Hop's Implements and African American Modernisms.”Callaloo 29(3): 956-968.
Saucier, P. Khalil and Tryon P. Woods. 2014. “Hip Hop Studies in Black.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 26(2-3): 268–294.
Chapter 2
Bradshaw, T. 1977. “Savage Skulls.”EsquireMagazine 87 (6): 74-82,131-132,134-135, 137-138, 141-144.
LaBennett, Oneka. 2009. “Histories and "Her Stories" from the Bronx: Excavating Hidden Hip Hop Narratives.” Afro-Americans in New York Life & History 33(2): 109-131.
Naison, Mark. 2004. “From doo wop to hip hop: The bittersweet odyssey of African‐Americans in the South Bronx.” SocialismandDemocracy 18 (2): 37-49.
Chapter 3
Banes, Sally and Martha Cooper. 1986. “Breakdancing: A Reporter’s Story.” FolklifeAnnual.8-21.
Barnett, Claudia. 1994. “The Death of Graffiti: Postmodernism and the New York City Subway.” Studies in Popular Culture 16(2): 25-38.
Dickinson, Maggie. 2008. “The Making of Space, Race and Place New York City’s War on Graffiti, 1970-the Present.” Critiqueof Anthropology: A Journal for the Critical Reconstruction of Anthropology 28 (1): 27-45.
Lachmann, Richard. 1988. “Graffiti as Career and Ideology.” American Journal of Sociology 94 (2): 229-250.
Schloss, Joseph G. 2006. “‘Like Old Folk Songs Handed Down from Generation to Generation’: History, Canon, and Community in B-Boy Culture.” Ethnomusicology 50 (3): 411–32.
Chapter 4
Keyes, Cheryl L. 1996. “At the Crossroads: Rap Music and Its African Nexus.” Ethnomusicology 40 (2) 223-248.
Maultsby, Portia K.1979. “West African Influences and Retentions in U.S. Black Music: A Sociocultural Study.” Western Journal of Black Studies 3 (3): 197–215.
(better)---. 2005. “Africanisms in African American Music.” In Africanisms in AmericanCulture, edited by Joseph Holloway. 2nd ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Nyawalo, Mich. 2013. “From ‘Badman’ to ‘Gangsta’: Double Consciousness and Authenticity, from African-AmericanFolklore to Hip Hop.” Popular Music & Society 36 (4): 460-475.
Chapter 5
Harrison, Anthony Kwame & Craig E. Arthur. 2011. “Reading Billboard 1979–89: Exploring Rap Music's Emergence through the Music Industry's Most Influential Trade Publication.” Popular Music and Society 34 (3): 309-327.
Slovenz, Madeline. 1988. “‘Rock the House:’ The Aesthetic Dimensions of Rap Music in New York City.” New York Folklore 14 (3): 151.
Chapter 6
Blair, M. Elizabeth. 1993. “Commercialization of the Rap Music Subculture.” Journal of Popular Culture 27 (3): 21-33.
Hayman, Casey. 2013. “Melle Mel in the Megaplex: Postmodern Performance and the Hip-Hop 'Real' in Krush Groove & Beat Street.” African American Review 46 (1):117-132.
Lena, Jennifer C. 2006. “Social Context and Musical Content of Rap Music, 1979-1995.” Social Forces 85 (1): 479-495
Chapter 7
Crossley, Scott. 2005. “Metaphorical Conceptions in Hip-Hop Music.” African American Review 39(4): 501-512.
Danielson, Anne. 2008. “The Musicalization of ‘Reality’: Reality Rap and Rap Reality on Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet.” European Journal of Cultural Studies (4): 405-421.
Dimitriadis, Greg. 1996. “Hip Hop: From Live Performance to Mediated Narrative.” PopularMusic 15(2): 179-194.
Nelson, Angela. 2005. “Rap Music and the StagoleeMythoform.” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900-present) 4(1): No pagination (Electronic publication).
Walser, Robert. 1995. “Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric in the Music of Public Enemy.” Ethnomusicology 39 (2): 193-217.
Chapter 8
Armstrong, Edward G. 2004. “Eminem’s Construction of Authenticity.” PopularMusicandSociety 27 (3): 335-55.
Chia-Hui Preston, Graham. 2008. “‘My Pen Rides the Paper’: Hip-Hop, the Technology of Writing and Nas’sIllmatic.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 20 (3): 261-275.
Cutler, Cecilia A. 1999. “Yorkville Crossing: White Teens, Hip Hop and African American English.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 3 (4): 428-442.
Keeling, Kara. 2003. “‘A Homegrown Revolutionary’? Tupac Shakur and the Legacy of the Black Panther Party.”Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research 33 (1): 59-63.
Loza, Steven. 1994. “Los Angeles Gangsta Rap and the Aesthetics of Violence.” Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology 10: 149-61.
McCann, Bryan J. 2012. “Contesting the Mark of Criminality: Race, Place, and the Prerogative of Violence in N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton.”Critical Studies in Media Communication 29: 367-86.
Perchard, Tom. 2011. “Hip Hop Samples Jazz: Dynamics of Cultural Memory and Musical Tradition in the African American 1990s.” AmericanMusic, 2011 Fall; 29 (3): 277-307.
Rose, Tricia. 1990. “Never Trust a Big Butt and a Smile.” Camera Obscura 23: 109-131.
Williams, Justin A. 2009. “‘You Never Been on a Ride Like This Befo’: Los Angeles, Automotive Listening, and Dr. Dre’s ‘G-Funk.’” Popular Music History 4(2): 60-176
Williams, Justin A. 2010. “The Construction of Jazz Rap as High Art in Hip-Hop Music.”The Journal of Musicology 27 (4): 435-459.
Chapter 9
Belle, Crystal.2014. “From Jay-Z to Dead Prez: Examining Representations of Black Masculinity in Mainstream Versus Underground Hip-Hop Music.” Journal of Black Studies 45(4): 287-300.
Hall, Rashaun Rhonda Baraka, and Skip Dillard. 2003. “South Makes Its Mark On Hip-Hop.” Billboard 8/9/2003 115(32): 1-86.
Harrison, Anthony Kwame. 2006. “‘Cheaper than a CD, Plus We Really Mean It’: Bay Area Underground Hip Hop Tapes as Subcultural Artefacts.” Popular Music 25(2): 283-301.
Miller, Matt. 2008. “Dirty Decade: Rap Music and the U.S. South, 1997-2007.” Southern Spaces:An Internet Journal and Scholarly Forum. No pagination (Electronic publication).
Nichols, Jason. 2014. “Crank That Thang: Contextualizing Black
Masculinities and Hip-Hop Dance in the South from 2000-2010.” The Western Journal of Black Studies 38 (2): 84-97.
Chapter 10
Abrahams, Roger D. 2012. “Questions of Competency and Performance in the Black Musical Diaspora: Toward a Stylistic Analysis of the Idea of a Black Atlantic.”Black Music Research Journal 32 (2):83-93.
Morgan, Marcyliena and Dionne Bennett. 2011. “Hip-Hop & the Global Imprint of a Black Cultural Form.” Daedalus 140 (2) Race, Inequality & Culture: 176-196.
Shelemay, Kay Kaifman. 2011. “Musical Communities: Rethinking the Collective in Music.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 64(2): 349-390.
Spady, James G. 2013.“Mapping and Re-Membering Hip Hop History, Hiphopography and African Diasporic History.”Western Journal of Black Studies 37 (2): 126-157.