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Derrick Darby,Tommie Shelby

Hip-Hop and Philosophy

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Is there too much violence in hip-hop music? What’s the difference between Kimberly Jones and the artist Lil' Kim? Is hip-hop culture a “black” thing? Is it okay for N.W.A. to call themselves niggaz and for Dave Chappelle to call everybody bitches? These witty, provocative essays ponder these and other thorny questions, linking the searing cultural issues implicit — and often explicit — in hip-hop to the weighty matters examined by the great philosophers of the past. The book shows that rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast, and the Notorious B.I.G. can help uncover the meanings of love articulated in Plato's Symposium; that Rakim, 2Pac, and Nas can shed light on the conception of God's essence expressed in St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica; and explores the connection between Run-D.M.C., Snoop Dogg, and Hegel. Hip-Hop and Philosophy proves that rhyme and reason, far from being incompatible, can be mixed and mastered to contemplate life's most profound mysteries.
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308 printed pages
Original publication
2011
Publication year
2011
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Quotes

  • Amit Paulhas quoted8 years ago
    Table of Contents

    Epigraph
    Popular Culture and Philosophy™
    Title Page
    Dedication
    Foreword
    Shout Outs
    From Rhyme to Reason: This Shit Ain’t Easy

    Disk 1 - Da Mysteries: God, Love, and Knowledge
    Chapter 1 - Yo! It Ain’t No Mystery: Who Is God?
    Godz N the Hood
    Who Is God?
    Divine Omnipotence
    Aquinas’s Solution to the Paradoxes of the Blunt and the Glock
    Divine Omnipotence and Tupac’s Jailbreak Paradox
    Ain’t No Mystery
    Chapter 2 - Ain’t (Just) ’bout da Booty: Funky Reflections on Love
    Love Haters: Skepticism about Romantic Love
    You’re All I Need: Love as Completeness and Eternal Unity
    A Beautiful Reflection: Love as Spiritual Transcendence
    That’s Where the Drama Begins: Love as Possession
    The Mysteries of Love Revealed?
    Chapter 3 - “You Perceive with Your Mind”: Knowledge and Perception
    Descartes and the Gorillaz on Mental Perception
    The New Unconscious
    Strangers to Ourselves
    Proper Use of the Mind

    Disk 2 - What’s Beef? Ruminations on Violence
    Chapter 4 - “Y’all Niggaz Better Recognize”: Hip Hop’s Dialectical Struggle ...
    “I Ain’t No Joke”: Rapping and Battling
    “You’re a Sucker MC”: The Struggle for Recognition
    Gangsta and Rap’s Struggle for Recognition
    Hip Hop and “This Makin’ Dollars Shit”
    Chapter 5 - Rap Aesthetics: Violence and the Art of Keeping It Real
    Pragmatism, Rap, and Art
    Violence and the Art of Keeping It Real
    Street Violence and Dead Bodies
    Aesthetic Violence and Consciousness Raising
    Stop the (Bad) Violence!
    (Positive) Violence of Self-Discipline
    Chapter 6 - “F**k tha Police [State]”: Rap, Warfare, and the Leviathan
    The Police State
    Capital, Commodities, and Hardcore Communities
    Resistance Raps

    Disk 3 - That’s How I’m Livin’: Authenticity, Blackness, and Sexuality
    Chapter 7 - Does Hip Hop Belong To Me? The Philosophy of Race and Culture
    Sidney’s Question—and a Follow-up
    The Eminem Enigma
    Hip Hop and Culture
    First Answer, Intro: Dre’s Dilemma
    First Answer, Continued: It’s a Black Thing . . .
    Second Answer: The Decline and Fall of Hip Hop
    No Love (for Hip Hop), No problem
    Chapter 8 - Queen Bees and Big Pimps: Sex and Sexuality in Hip Hop
    Bamboozled: Images from the Idiot Box
    “Bitches,” “Hos,” and “Housewives”: What’s in a Name?
    Peepin’, Pimpin’, and Drillin’ the T and A
    “Suck My D**k”: The Gaze Reversed from Tha Beehive
    “Big Pimpin’” and Gender Performativity
    The Possibility of Authenticity: The Life We Choose
    Chapter 9 - Grown Folks’ Business: The Problem of Maturity in Hip Hop
    So Many Tears: A Fanonian Riff on Hip Hop
    A Nietzschean Perspective on the Black Aesthetic
    We Need a (Postmodern) Hip-Hop Revolution
    Maturity and the Philly Sound
    The Hunger for More Than Serious Play

    Disk 4 - Word Up! Language, Meaning, and Ethics
    Chapter 10 - Knowwhatumsayin’? How Hip-Hop Lyrics Mean
    Thesis: The Lyricist Message
    Anti-Thesis: The Lyricist Narrative
    Synthesis: Mixin’ Messages and Narratives
    Messages from Kelis’s Yard and Lil’ Kim’s Beehive
    Messages in Context: Slim Shady and Stan the Fan
    Ja Rule v. 50 Cent: Beefs, Personae, and Meaning
    Hip-Hop Lyrics: No Black CNN and No Art of Storytelling
    Chapter 11 - Girl Got 99 Problems: Is Hip Hop One?
    Hatin’ on Hip Hop?
    Dangerous Mouths: Causing Harm
    Wud U Say? Doing Things with Words
    Not Your Ho, Not Your Freak, and Tired of You Disrespecting Me
    Check Out Time
    Chapter 12 - “For All My Niggaz and Bitches”: Ethics and Epithets
    The Ethics of Using “Bitch” and “Nigger”
    Chappelle’s “Bitches” and “Niggers”
    Words that Wound and Mill’s Harm Principle
    Epithets and the Fear of a Black Planet
    Final Skit: Paris’s Field Nigga Boogie

    Disk 5 - Fight the Power: Political Philosophy’n the Hood
    Chapter 13 - Microphone Commandos: Rap Music and Political Philosophy
    The Social Contract
    Hip-Hop Culture and Human Freedom
    The Idea of Citizenship
    “Who Protects Us from You?” The Police and Protection
    Romanticizing Rap?
    Post-Civil Rights Music
    Chapter 14 - Halfway Revolution: From That Gangsta Hobbes to Radical Liberals
    The Hood and America as a State of Nature
    An Afrocentric Community
    Radical Liberals
    Reality versus Revolution
    Chapter 15 - Criminal-Justice Minded: Retribution, Punishment, and Authority
    Punishment as Retribution
    Doubts about the Justice of Retribution
    Punishment as Social Control
    Prison/Ghetto
    Chapter 16 - Gettin’ Dis’d and Gettin’ Paid: Rectifying Injustice
    Just Us in Western Philosophy
    Blowin’ Up the Spot
    Gettin’ Dis’d
    Payback
    Gettin’ Paid
    Forty Acres and a Mule
    Even if Ya’ll Got Paid, Ya’ll Wouldn’t Know What to Do With It
    Not Just a Black Thing

    After . . . Word!
    Beats & Rhymes!
    The Crew
    The Hip-Hop Head Index
    ALSO FROM OPEN COURT
    Copyright Page

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