The Cambridge Companion to Global Rap
The Cambridge Companion to Global Rap
$29.99
USDRap has remapped the way we think about music. For more than fifty years its poetics, performance and political power has resonated across the globe. This Companion offers an array of perspectives on the form, from the fields of sociology, linguistics, musicology, psychology, literary studies, education and law, unpacking how this versatile form of oral communication has permeated nearly every aspect of daily life. Taking a decidedly global perspective, these accounts draw from practice in Australia, China, France, Germany, Jamaica, India and Tanzania; exploring how the form has taken hold in particular contexts, and what this can tell us about the medium itself and the environments in which it was repurposed. An indispensable resource for students and researchers, the collection provides an introduction to global rap studies as well as insights into the some of the most important and exciting new developments in this field.
- Presents a global perspective on rap exploring its form in different contexts
- Introduces and explores the history of rap for readers without specialised knowledge
- Provides examples of the use of rap beyond entertainment by showing its presence in areas such as public health, education, social activism, and the criminal justice system
Product details
August 2025Paperback
9781009096553
310 pages
244 × 170 mm
Not yet published - available from July 2025
Table of Contents
- List of figures
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction Richard Bramwell and Alex de Lacey
- Part I. Historical and Cultural Perspectives:
- 1. Travelling sounds: tracing the global origins of rhythm and poetry Paroma Ghose
- 2. A history of sound system and emcee culture Marvin Sparks
- Part II. Approaches to Rap:
- 3. Beats, Rhymes, and Life: connecting the sonic and the social in hip hop music studies J. Griffith Rollefson
- 4. 'Listen when I flip the linguistics': linguistic approaches to hip-hop and the case of 2Pac Steven Gilbers
- 5. Pioneers, postmodernisms and aesthetic experience: a brief history of aesthetic approaches to rap music Max Ryynänen and Petteri Enroth
- 6. The literary singularity of Roots Manuva's Awfully Deep Richard Bramwell
- 7. The French (hip-hop) revolution is yet to come: a sociology of rap music in France Karim Hammou and Marie Sonnette-Manouguian
- Part III. Applications for Rap:
- 8. Lords of the mic: live collective performance in grime music Alex de Lacey
- 9. Hip-Hop and mental health: perspectives from psychiatry, psychology, public health, and neuroscience Akeem Sule and Becky Inkster
- 10. The beat of the gavel: rap, 'race' and criminal injustice Lambros Fatsis
- 11. Express yourself: education and wellbeing in Australian applied hip-hop workshops Dianne Rodger
- 12. Rap to skool: hip-hop in the classroom Patrick Turner
- Part IV. Contexts for Rap:
- 13. Honoring the honorable: Tanzanian hip-hop artists, awards shows, and the power of popular song Alex Perullo
- 14. 'It Will Never Go Away': re-imagining black German identity in 'Ich bin Schwarz' Sina A. Nitzsche and Laura I. K. Spilker
- 15. The art of capping: exploring digital cloutchasing strategy of black male youth in Chicago's drill rap scene Jabari Evans
- 16. Drill as cultural form: video-music, chromatism, war and the alternative Malcolm James
- 17. English rap in India and the fault lines of sociolinguistic politics Elloit Cardozo and Jaspal Naveel Singh
- 18. Television and the Janus face of Chinese hip-hop: style, ideology, and precarious syncretization in The Rap of China Sheng Zou.
