Music Born of the Streets

Abstract

Chapter 4 examines the history of hip hop as a genre that was literally created in the streets (at block parties). Additionally, this chapter explores the role of hip hop as a Black art form that provides a complex picture of Black space. As a part of this discussion, this chapter analyzes The Fugees’s The Score, Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool, and Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City as examples of how hip hop operates as an art form that humanizes Black youth in counter cultural ways.