Industry: Bang on a Can and New Music in the Marketplace

Abstract

that lend them the articulative capabilities that Bradley elucidates throughout the book. For example, how might artists’ varying degrees of national fame affect how they give voice to a distinctively Southern identity? Accessible to a wide range of readers, and beloved by the undergraduates I recently assigned it to, Bradley’s book provides an excellent model for authors hoping to articulate the nuances of the cultural work that music does, and an elegant example of how gracefully written this sort of work can be. I am eagerly awaiting the next chapter in this narrative as subsequent generations of rappers like Future, Young Thug, Lil Baby, and 21 Savage (to name a few) have made the South—and Atlanta in particular—the most dominant region in hip-hop today. What might this margins-to-mainstream story—the shift from “the South got something to say” to the South dominating the conversation in hip-hop today—tell us about lived experience in the contemporary South, and how might the long-term interest in southern hip-hop alter how the region fits into U.S. culture more broadly? Chronicling Stankonia ends with an encouragement to continue writing the cultural history and legacy of this style, and I hope that other scholars take up Bradley on this invitation.