Hip-Hop and Philosophy

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